A new HQ project from UNStudio for the Dutch travel site Booking.com has opened in Amsterdam, offering a dynamic central location it says will serve as a “recruitment machine” while creating a more inclusive, healthy, and socially engaging experience for the company’s 6,500 employees.

Video courtesy UNStudio on Vimeo.

Designed to maximize connectivity for its users and visitors to the campus’ Oosterdokseiland location, the nearly 700,000-square-foot plan creates a highly-visible, activities-laden consolidation of disparate office locations that, for over a decade, had been spread throughout the city.

Anchored by a striking main building made of glass and steel and sited on a double-height plinth that creates an urban element underneath and around a cantilevered overhang, the development was influenced by years of research into comparable corporate headquarters and engenders a “platform for human activity,” the architects say. 

A network of sociability-encouraging spaces defines the interior, set above a central atrium that includes a ground-level café and other dining areas. Walkways, a broad central staircase, skybridges, and even the glazed egress stairs help the design to achieve its connectivity aims illuminated by a visually comforting combination of natural and artificial light sources. 

Finally, a total of 28 “micro holiday destination” breakout spaces complete the program, complementing a further selection of meeting spaces that offer workers the freedom to choose their “design their day” in deference to their individual work styles.

UNStudio’s founding principal Ben van Berkel explains: “While the individual interior spaces enjoy a truly international flavor that reflects Booking.com’s core business, we wanted the overall concept for the building to serve as a reflection of Amsterdam — its location and the Dutch travel company’s homebase since its inception.”

“The architecture therefore combines the robust qualities and the industrial history of the harbor, with glazed detailing that reduces the overall immenseness of the building and gently reflects the glistening of the water and sky. The organisation of the interior meanwhile, is designed to charcterize the vibrancy of Amsterdam’s lively central neighborhoods,” van Berkel added finally.

The firm says a BREEAM Excellent design certificate was achieved through the planning and construction process. Amsterdam's HofmanDujardin led the interior design for the project, aided by a host of local and international firms that included i29 interior architects, Studio Modijefsky, and others. 

UNStudio was also responsible for the recent refurbishment of a banking headquarters in Eindhoven and will begin work soon on NION, another corporate project they say will become Germany's leading new green office design upon its eventual completion in the coming years.