The World's Most Sustainable Building is also the Smartest

Wednesday 1 November 2017

Ron Bakker has designed the world’s most sustainable building – and it just so happens to be the world’s smartest, too. His London-based architecture company, PLP, finished the construction of Deloitte’s new Amsterdam HQ in 2015, with the aim of focusing on the needs of those inside it. "It was about making people happier," he says.

Bakker has been thinking about sustainability for 25 years. “From a long time ago, it became a part of how we look at buildings.” But, it wasn’t until 2007, when PLP was approached by Dutch development firm OVD that Deloitte’s Amsterdam HQ, known as The Edge, was able to take shape. OVD wanted Bakker’s firm, which had already built Deloitte’s offices in Rotterdam and The Hague, to join the three projects together. PLP entered into a competition to win the bid, consulting with Deloitte closely. “Actually we talked about people,” says Bakker, who was amongst the speakers at WIRED Energy. Deloitte wanted to make employees from different departments to get to know each other. The winning design was a huge atrium that would give people somewhere to gather and socialise.

Then, in 2008, the global recession hit. The market for development disappeared and The Edge was put on hold until things were more stable. “We kind of looked at ways of getting this ready for when the recession had finished,” says Bakker. The team at PLP realised that the more sustainable a project is, the more valuable it would be to investors. And to achieve that goal, Bakker realised they had to build the smartest office block in the world.

The huge atrium acts as the lung of the building, providing airflow into office spaces. The building is north-facing, with two distinct sides: one with sun and one without. The atrium is designed to allow for an energy-efficient floor plan, which conceals noise pollution from the motorway to the north, but allows light in from the south. “We use the Earth as a battery which is 30 metres deep underground,” Bakker says. This allows the building to store heat in the summer to be used in the winter. “We don’t use any energy for heating or cooling the building, ever.” But that alone wasn't groundbreaking. “We have been doing that for 20 years,” Bakker says. “What is interesting is that have considered people.”