- Area: 15500 m²
- Year: 2015
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Photographs:Andreas Horsky
Text description provided by the architects. The construction of a new headquarters always allows a company to express its corporate values through design. The young and innovative company DocMorris has carried out this transformation together with the architects in charge of the project, resulting in a new headquarters that highlights transparency, modernity, and sustainability in a flexible environment that is warm and comfortable for employees.
The new headquarters of DocMorris, the largest online pharmacy in Europe, is located in the German-Dutch Business Park Avantis in Heerlen (NL) and consists of two buildings: an air conditioned warehouse of 9,800 m² and an office building of 5,700 m2.
The logistics center is a rectangular, clear, and simple volume. The facade consists of a base of precast concrete and horizontal aluminum sandwich panels. The panels are different shades of gray that create a lively and animated texture.
The office building has 4 levels and an asymmetrical floor plan with a central atrium. On the ground floor, the following amenities are located: access control, a spacious lobby, mailroom, 3 pharmaceutical offices, a large multipurpose room with catering for 260 people, and a large meeting room.
The following floors are distributed into open space office areas of varying sizes for different departments in the company. The meeting and break rooms are located in the central area of services alongside the atrium.
The facades of the building have been designed based on their orientation and use. They consist of a curtain wall equipped with automated aluminum sun blinds on the south and north facades.
Kadawittfeldarchitektur, describes the concept of interior design as follows: "The ground floor of the new headquarters is a space of “intercomunication” for the company. Right next to the main entrance there is sofa area at the foot of the atrium that invites those waiting or talking to do so comfortably.
The bar is frequented not only at lunchtime; with its large tables and benches, it can be used outside the scheduled cafeteria hours. Cubby-like booths in different colors offer quiet spaces for meetings for up to 4 to 6 people.
The concept of colors and materials is based on the corporate image of DocMorris and revolves around a color palette of green, white, and grey. These colors, though rather cold, are complemented by warm, natural materials such as wooden parquet, rugs, and upholstered furniture."
As a company committed to the environment and the efficient use of natural resources, DocMorris has built a new and sustainable headquarters.
The orientation of the office building, its facades, and the central atrium maximizes the natural light that comes in. Automated aluminum louvers allows for working with natural light over the course of the day, while avoiding overheating of interior spaces, which means high-energy savings in heating, cooling and artificial lighting. The artificial lighting of the offices is mostly composed of LED lights.
For heat recovery, a rotary heat exchanger was installed, with efficiencies of up to 85%. All of these measures have helped the building to obtain the certificate of sustainability Good BREEAM.
