DELVA Landscape Architects in partnership with Bjarke Ingels Group have released the design of the new Terrace Tower Amsterdam. It’s a green roof, terrace-covered building that is just dripping in garden space from the top down.
Designed by DELVA, it was featured in Het Financieele Dagblad, Holland’s leading business newspaper. In the Zuidas, a business district in Amsterdam that is under rapid construction, DELVA is taking the lead in making the roofs greener.
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Terrace Tower Amsterdam aims to make green roofs an integral part of office building design, bringing green outdoor spaces to the office employees. This supports research that shows having access to green outdoor spaces significantly increases employee wellbeing and productivity.
“[Green] planting is rapidly changing from a cost item to an economic revenue model,” DELVA said.
The building of the Terrace Tower Amsterdam is actually quite simple. It looks as though you took a tower of blocks and slid the top ones over to make room for roof terraces. Glass-enclosed balconies contain dirt and tile substrate planted 3D potted trees, garden plantings and shrubs.
Grasses and perennial plants create a green landscape along and between the tiles. Smaller currant trees in the center are framed by larger birch, cherry and pine trees. DEVLA is using development of the Zuidas as a means to densify and greenify the business district instead of pave it over.
“Through integral collaboration, [each project] will be linked inseparably with buildings, technology, policy and financial viability,” Delva said. “We do this because we are convinced that only generous gestures from the landscape bring us closer to a living environment that we all dream of.”
The team that designed Terrace Tower Amsterdam includes: Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), DELVA Landscape Architecture, Inbo, SmitsRinsma and BrinkMostert De Winter.
Images via Delva Landscape Architects
