Detail english 2015-11-12

588 2015 ¥ 6 ∂
EU Council Headquarters in Brussels
Architects and engineers:
Philippe Samyn + Partners,
Brussels,
lead and design partners,
in collaboration with
Studio Valle Progettazioni
BuroHappold
Others involved in the project: see page 645
The building reveals itself to full effect at
dawn and dusk, when the ellipsoid form becomes
evident that is otherwise concealed
behind the open facade. As the centrepiece
of the development, this free-standing volume
with a total of 13 storeys was the design
response to the spatial programme,
which required core elements of various
sizes. On the first level, for instance, there is
a small press room, on the fifth, a conference
hall for 250 persons and on the eleventh
floor, a restaurant for 50 guests.
The elliptical floor plans, with axial lengths of
up to 25 metres, are supported by radial
steel beams flexibly fixed to vertical girders.
Connected to this construction are the
large-scale printed panes of glass that form
the closing skin around the conference halls
where they overlook the atrium. This glazed
“lantern” is enclosed within an outer facade
consisting of 3,000 reused oak windows
from energy renewal schemes all over the
European Union. Assembled in a kind of
patchwork arrangement, they cover an area
of 4,000 m 2 . At a distance of 2.70 m from
this, a second facade layer was created
with a rhomboid structure of steel beams.
Incorporated at the south-west corner of the
development is an L-shaped former housing
block dating from the 1920s. Refurbished
and increased in height by two storeys, this
now contains offices of the EU Council.