The 'Green Building' is for many architects the prototype of eco-tech. In 1989 Ove Arup Associates invited the architectural firm Future Systems to jointly make a design in which new insights for a better workplace would be integrated with the latest climate techniques. In the meantime the techniques introduced in this design have been adopted many times and added to projects of for example Foster, Rogers and other high-tech architects. Meijer and van Schooten (ING office 1998) succeeded in translating the ideas to the Dutch building practice, characterised by relatively low building budgets.
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 Performance diagram (winter situation)
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The shape and the town planning fitting in of the building
comes forth out of energetic considerations. The ground level has been
kept free to allow the city-like activities under the building to carry
on. The building is raised 17m above the ground level to allow air to
be retrieved from under the building. The air is clean at this height
above the street. The air is divided by the central atrium through the
offices where it is led via the double faÁade to the top of the
building.
Warming by sun heat creates a thermal airflow in the double skin of the
building. The natural ventilation is started by this airflow. In the ridge
of the building a heat exchanger is placed, the heat from the air is retrieved
and used to heat the incoming air under in the building.
De-central water pumps, fed by a warm water circuit ta
ke care of the heating and cooling of the rooms.
The working spaces are also lit by daylight by using reflectors.
The shape of the building is the result of thinking about
the enclosure of the building as a '2nd skin'. The skin of the building
brings the roof and the façades seamlessly together. Dependent on
the conditions inside and outside, the 'second skin' allows more or less
air, light and warmth to pass through.
The design shows that the theme of energy efficiency can lead to a completely
new architecture. Prototype of the Eco-tech because it tries to achieve
energy usage reductions by using technical solutions.
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