High Performing Buildings – October’s Roundup

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24 October 2024

This month’s high performing buildings roundup includes state-of-the-art offices in Shanghai and a new wooden landmark building in Helsinki.

 

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MONACO 

 

This new flexible office space in Munich allows for various configurations, from open-plan co-working areas to private offices. Designed by MVRDV, the building intends to mix work and play through its layout. The intention is even visible from the outside of the building, through contrasting façades. 

Work sections of the office are straightforward with flexible partition walls with a neutral décor. Play areas are clad in green and lilac shingles, and have plant-covered outdoor terraces and “jauntily angled walls.”

 

Alibaba’s Shanghai Offices

 

Foster + Partners’ new offices for Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce company, reimagines the traditional model of the office. It features a central public space at its heart, inviting people to gather and observe the highly transparent building. 

Luke Fox, Head of Studio at Foster + Partners, said: “Making full use of this incredible location, our design creates a highly collaborative workplace with a climatically responsive public space at its heart, encouraging people to observe life within the building. Developing this sense of transparency between outside and inside – public and private – has underlined our approach from the very beginning.”

 

Picture: a CGI showing the "central heart" of the site. Foster + Partners

 

Katajanokan Laituri 

 

Katajanokan Laituri is a new solid wood building on Helsinki's shoreline that houses the head office of the Finnish forest industry company Stora Enso and the new design hotel Solo Sokos Hotel Pier 4.

 

Picture: a photograph of an open reception area featuring a huge wooden desk, and visible wooden structures within the walls and ceiling. Image Credit: Kalle Kouhia/ Anttinen Oiva arkkitehdit Oy

 

Designed by Anttinen Oiva Architects, the building is made from Finnish and Swedish timber, with wooden structures left visible in the interior. There is also a multi-species green roof and a small birch tree forest growing in the hotel’s atrium. 

The hotel segment of the building is set to become the most sustainable hotel in Finland. It plans to pursue a LEED Platinum environmental certification for the entire structure, to achieve carbon neutrality and utilise energy exclusively from renewable sources. 

 

Picture: a CGI showing the exterior of the "play" area MONACO with its lavender and green tiles. Image Credit: (c) MVRDV

Article written by Ella Tansley | Published 24 October 2024

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