The Zuidas is a financial district famous for its urban architecture, and also home for the most sustainable office building in Europe – “The Edge”. The glass building is located near the Vrije Universiteit, so students might have noticed it on their way to class.
The building, which was designed for a global consulting company, creates a new working environment. In 2016, the Edge was awarded the highest sustainability score of 98.4% by a British rating agency BREEAM. The building is orientated towards the sun and each facade is detailed according to its purpose. Walls to the south, east and west provide thermal mass and shading through small openings and have solid openable panels for ventilation. Louvers on the south facades provide additional shading for the office spaces and reduce solar heat gain. The north facades use thicker glass to dampen noise from the highway and finally, south facade and the rooftop provide renewable energy from solar panels that are located between windows. The Edge uses 70% less energy than a typical office building. What’s more, after installing solar panels on the rooftops of neighboring university buildings, the Edge started to produce more energy than it consumes. The office integrates different environmental technologies, for instance, a new LED lighting system that was co-developed with Philips for the Edge. It is integrated with 30,000 sensors, continuously measures occupancy, movement, lighting levels, humidity, and temperature, allowing it to automatically adjust energy use. The Edge also has a reservoir for water reuse, the rainwater that gathers there is later used to flush toilets and irrigate green terraces in atrium and garden areas surrounding the building. Another environmental feature of the Edge is the ecological corridor, due to the green space that separates the building from the highway birds, bees and bugs can cross the site safely.
Every employee is connected to the building via the mobile app. Your smartphone is your passport in the Edge, and with the app you can find parking spaces, free desks, other colleagues, report issues to the facilities team, navigate within the building, track energy use, customize the temperature and light levels, and the app even remembers how you like your coffee.
For more information, click here to watch the TED talk of the architect of the Edge – Ron Bakker, where he tells about his project and sustainability.