Flow | Amsterdam

A new office district on the waterfront of Amsterdam is being developed. For this modern district MVSA Architects has designed a black diamond for the office building The Flow. Sorba has the contract for the entire façade, including canopies, columns and exterior and interior ceilings. All these components are cladded with the aluminium composite material Alpolic in the colour Sparkling Black. The canopy brims are made of stainless-steel composite material.

The façade design is extra complex because of the Diamond Shape of the building. This shape gives the building all kinds of varying corners, heights and depths, even the canopies and columns vary in size. Due to this added complexity the entire project, from the cladding of the canopies, columns and ceilings to the substructures, has to be engineered using 3D models. One of the major challenges are the canopies that surround the entire building. These vary in height, depth and extend far out of the façade. Therefore, the canopies are exposed to high wind pressure. This pressure had to be taken into account with the development of the façade.

The other challenge we faced with this façade are the seams between the different panels. The cladding surrounds the entire façade and therefore the seams do too. To make sure all the seams line up, the cladding has to be installed accurately. In this project this was extra difficult, because we have to install our substructure onto the parts built by other parties. This means that the base isn’t always the same. Therefore, we have to closely monitor the dimensions, to guarantee the optimal final result.

In the design there are several large columns that will be cladded with Alpolic as well. These columns rise from the ground up and blend into the façade. They have a diameter of 4,5 metres by 2 metres, but the supporting structure is a lot smaller. To fit this cladding to the columns we will build an additional substructure out of stainless steel and aluminium.

The canopies have been largely installed to the building and soon the installation of the other elements of the façade will begin. Expectations are that the façade will be finished in 2020.

Architect:
MVSA Architects

Client:
G&S Bouw

Materials:
Aluminium composite material Alpolic Sparkling Black, Stainless-steel