XXL hospitality office in O.M.A.'s landmark building ‘de Rotterdam'

Set in the former harbour area and surrounded by both renovated warehouses and new skyscrapers, the Vertical City by O.M.A. has become a new landmark in Rotterdam. The trading company Nidera occupies the entire 5th floor in the massive building plinth.

Project data

Client

Nidera

Location

Rotterdam

Square

4.500

Timeline

January 2015 – November 2015

With the aim to stimulate informal meetings and collaboration, the designers at Fokkema & Partners were challenged to interconnect the offices despite the massive concrete cores with their elevators and shafts passing through to the upper building. Clever programming, lighting solutions and material use have made the interior areas into exciting spaces that are intensively used. The interior celebrates the scale and character of the building, but, above all, it identifies with the characteristics of the company, where ‘bold’ and ‘corporate’ meet.

A perfect merging of building and corporate identity

The design was awarded ‘Winner’ of the German Design Award. The design represents an identity rich yet pragmatic approach for the interior in an iconic building. Key to its success was found in tackling the challenges posed by the exceptionally large floorplate, filling in the spaces lacking natural light in between the vast building cores. Above the bar, a cloud of ‘bag lamps’ light up the space, a powerful reference to the company.

German Design Award Winner 2018