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Completed
in October 2006 the headquarters of the Netherlands chapter of the
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is nothing if not a striking building.
It also happens to be one of the single most sustainable buildings
created in recent years. Construct Ireland continues its series of
examining internationally significant sustainable buildings, with Jason Walsh putting questions to the building's architects, Amsterdam-based RAU.
In 2002 WWF Netherlands held a competition to redevelop its existing building. RAU's winning entry is the end result of that process.
The building's form is quite clearly inspired by organic forms and the desire to reflect the WWF's work in the natural realm. More than that, though, it seems to draw inspiration from the ideas of anthroposophy – something also seen in the past work of the project's architects, RAU, notably with the ING Bank offices in Amsterdam which also happens, like the WWF headquarters, to be an autonomous building. The central 'blob' – yes that is what it's called – houses the building's entrance concourse and meeting room area while, externally, softening the modernist-inspired lines that run outward from it.
Nevertheless, the building's claim to sustainability does not come from aping nature in its form, but rather from a deep and thoughtful commitment to thinking about how a building is used, who its users are and what its impact will be.
Claimed to be the world's first zero carbon building, the WWF headquarters is not only naturally ventilated but also obtains its heat requirements from staff and equipment in the office while solar arrays provide electricity and hot water. A backup biomass system is also in place.
That the building is actually a renovation is most surprising, given the strong commitment not only to sustainability but to the creation of an aesthetic form which marries the purpose of the organisation that inhabits the building.
In fact, renovating existing buildings rather than demolishing them is very much in line with the thinking of RAU.
The central "blob" was clad using variously tinted slates made from baked river clay
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