Space Encounters Office for Architecture

Office buildings contain among the most generic spaces: standard structural grid sizes, a carpet, low suspended ceilings, horizontal windows and floor plans with office spaces along the facades and traffic zones in the dark middle. The open plan office provides some variation on the theme, with typically more people and less walls per square meter. However, the removal of walls also has unfortunate by products: less concentration, diminished productivity and no place to hang your calendar.

The design for the Nationaal Coordinator Groningen aims to provide the best of both worlds. The walls have been positioned exclusively in one direction, dividing the floor area along the existing grid lines into orderly sections that respect the existing building elements like stairs and elevators. The resulting spaces receive daylight from both facades and are big enough to be used by teams of various sizes, while noise pollution between the teams is avoided. On the ground floor, the walls are rotated 90 degrees, making an inviting public space over the whole width of the building.