European Patent Office’s New Facility

The new European Patent Office (EPO) building, designed by Ateliers Jean Nouvel and Dam & Partners Architecten, has opened in Rijswijk, Netherlands, near The Hague. Rising from the flat Dutch landscape, the slender and monumental glass block provides offices for EPO staff, collaborative work areas and meeting rooms for patent proceedings. These new facilities, financed entirely from the Office's own resources, represent the largest investment in EPO's 40-year history in the Netherlands. This new architectural landmark, with a budget of EUR 205 million, was designed by the renowned Paris-based architectural studio Ateliers Jean Nouvel and Dam & Partners Architecten in Amsterdam. The decision to construct a new building stems from EPO's firm commitment to providing staff with a state-of-the-art workplace – this sustainable structure will symbolize the EPO's commitment to supporting innovation in Europe and underscore its close relationships. The new building enables the EPO to consolidate its operational units in Rijswijk on a single site, allowing for greater synergy.

Design

The new EPO facilities consist of two buildings, named the New Main and New Hinge. The New Main building is the largest steel structure built in the Netherlands, with a semi-reflective glass surface that mirrors the Dutch natural landscape, sky, terrain and water. The New Main block appears to merge with the sky in calm and fair weather. The slender shape of the 27-storey building allows light to pass through, creating a sense of transparency. The 960 exterior facade elements on the double-wall exterior facade are a defining feature. After decades of use in the Netherlands' windy, mostly rainy climate, the previously used main building showed signs of wear and aging. The New Main building replaces this aging structure, providing a modern and comfortable working environment for 2,000 EPO staff. Behind this prominent high-rise sits the four-storey New Hinge building. This building offers an extension of the restaurant's seating area, eight oral hearing rooms, a new fitness area, meeting rooms and a forest-like atrium. Glass, steel, plants and various colours were used to create a striking design.

The EPO Building in the Poetic Language of Renowned Architect Nouvel

"The cities of The Hague and Rotterdam; these are large harbours where great ships align themselves with the coastal horizons and large international vessels are always full of mysteries. The EPO district in The Hague represents a characteristic collection, with the largest structures lining up like ships in water. The place calls to reveal its true nature, the eternal purpose of the magic designated for it. The width of this horizontal plane, which pushes horizons away and presents an infinite sky before the eyes, brings out the poetry of the space. In the air, in the void, in density, in the spray of the sea, in misty rain, beneath white clouds or in the blue of a sky without a ceiling, you wish to glide through... Our proposal is to introduce a flagship in this port on land, where priority is given to tremor and geometry is abstraction. This building, which is part of the sky, is calm and serene; nothing can touch it. It takes on the colour of the sky, transmitted through light semi-transparent glass and given rhythm by stainless steel composed of horizontal lines. When you decide to take a closer look at the EPO, you will be surprised by a bit of the simplicity and tension of volumes and lines, and partly by the fact that you emerge from within a mass of water in which the structure is reflected." The entrance is realized as a large stainless steel canopy descending to the water. On both sides of this access, the flags of the 38 EPO member states flutter high above the water and are reflected at different heights across the glass.

Building Features New Main

The New Main building covers an area of 85,000 square metres and provides workspace for 1,950 staff. One of the requirements the EPO set for the designers was to create an open and transparent building with a mix of both standard offices and shared areas to enable new collaborative and space management methods. The New Main building has several unique features representing nature-visible elements, including a roof garden accessible to all staff, partially covered with solar panels and protected by wind screens. The entrance is adorned with a canopy, and 300 species of lush plants extend along the length and height of the building. In total, 198 planter boxes have been placed in the wide cavity between the two land-facing facades. Rough, dark and compact facilities at ground level give way to higher, lighter and finer ones. Therefore, plants at ground level and below consist of varieties with large, dark-leafed plants and ferns growing against rough stone walls. At the far ends and in the central sections of each office floor are collaborative work areas; these are equipped with individual desks for five to seven staff and movable partitions. Each office floor has two central kitchens.

Photo: Ronald Tilleman

New Hinge

This smaller New Hinge building houses an extension of the existing restaurant's seating area, eight meeting rooms for oral proceedings, a new fitness area and meeting rooms, and features an attractive, forest-like atrium. In the corridor connecting the Hinge to the New Main building is a commercial area hosting several shops. After the old main building is removed, the new complex will have a new promenade area and entrance on the side garden.

Material Elements Steel

The EPO's New Main building was constructed using 10,000 tonnes of steel, making it the largest and highest quality steel structure building of its kind in the Netherlands. The consortium chose steel due to the relatively fast and low-noise construction process. While concrete remains the preferred material in the Netherlands for large office buildings, steel is lighter and offers advantages over concrete in terms of subsidence risk, as well as providing greater flexibility in space planning. Each of the six specially fabricated frames (approximately 107 metres high, 150 metres long and 24.7 metres wide) required for the long, slender building weighs approximately 52 tonnes and fully absorbs and transfers horizontal wind forces to the ground.

Glass

Architect Jean Nouvel's vision was for the building to reflect the sky and surrounding water, making glass the New Main's most important feature. Nouvel and co-designers Dam & Partners selected a striking curtain wall system that provides a modern appearance with clean lines and a unique look. In fact, the construction has two facades. An inner and outer cladding creates a cavity that is not only attractive but also serves as a climate buffer between the building's interior and exterior. The glass curtain shields wind and rain from the building's exterior while meeting the EPO's sustainable energy management requirements. The long facades on both sides of the building change their appearance from transparent to opaque along with air and light. Passersby on the street can see a panorama opening up. The total area of glass, spread over 100,000 square metres, is approximately equivalent to 12 football pitches.

Photo © Ossip van Duivenbode

Water

The New Main is below sea level, requiring careful water management and sustainable systems to manage and recycle rainwater, wastewater and groundwater. Since more than one quarter of the Dutch surface is below sea level, the relationship with water is dynamic and water is always on the mind of the Netherlands.

Sustainability

As part of the original design brief for the New Main, the EPO specified that the energy performance requirements for the new building should be 20% more efficient than those set by the Netherlands as part of its commitment to comply with EU legislation. Therefore, the new EPO office buildings combine modern architecture with responsible urban planning to minimize environmental impact. Each building characteristic was considered as much from an ecological standpoint as from a design perspective. The goal is for the building to be regenerative in terms of air, light and temperature to minimize the building's energy costs.

Internationally recognized eco-standards

The project was developed with internationally recognised high ecological responsibility, energy efficiency and sustainability standards set by BREEAM-NL (Netherlands) and BNB (Germany).

Photo © Ossip van Duivenbode

 

Renewable Energy

Extensive arrays of photovoltaic solar panels in the rooftop sky garden provide a renewable source of electrical energy to a main power source distributed throughout the building. In addition, rainwater is collected and used together with conventional water sources for toilet flushing, watering flowers and supplementing irrigation systems.

Lush Plant Gardens

The double glass front facade houses gardens containing 300 plant species vertically inside. The architects view these living plants as part of the building's architectural components.

Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) System

The building features an aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) system that will reduce primary energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions.

Energy-Efficient Use of Natural Light

The building is designed to maximize the use of natural light. Additionally, approximately 16,000 LED lighting fixtures will provide savings of approximately 430,000 kilowatt hours per year.

Recycled Materials Reduce Waste

In total, 90% of materials from the old tower building and its annexes will be conditioned and recycled for projects such as road embankments in the Netherlands.

Natural Climate Control

Every office is supplied with 100% fresh air. Each panel in the climate ceiling is equipped with a pipe circuit through which hot or cold water can flow. The energy required to heat or cool this water is obtained from underground water wells via the ATES heat exchange system.  

Source: https://www.epo.org/news-issues/press/epo-the-hague.html European Patent Office. Munich, Germany, © EPO 2018

Photos Ronald Tilleman Ossip van Duivenbode

Drawings Ateliers Jean Nouvel – Dam & Partners Architecten – TBI Consortium New Main