Triodos Bank: Sustainable, circular and PEFC certified

Triodos Bank's new office in the Netherlands recently won the international BREEAM Award in the Commercial – Post Construction category. The building is made entirely of sustainable building materials, including 2,000 m³ofPEFC-certified timber.

Triodos Bank: Sustainable, circular and PEFC certified

12 July 2022 Sustainable construction

Triodos Bank's new office in Driebergen-Rijsenburg, Netherlands, recently won an international BREEAM Award in the Commercial – Post construction category. The building is made entirely of sustainable building materials, including 2,000 m³ofPEFC-certified timber.

All the building elements were registered in a Madaster materials passport, which means that they are suitable for reuse, should the building be dismantled at a future date. This earned the building a BREEAM 'outstanding' rating.

Inspired by nature

The office building was designed by architect Thomas Rau, and completed in 2019. It consists of two-, three- and five-storey towers primarily using PEFC-certified timber, in addition to the steel and glass elements.

The composition and shape of the building was inspired by nature. The building structure, both the low rise and the towers structures, formed a unique wooden construction with wooden floors, wooden lift shafts and wooden supporting columns.

Construction company J.P. van Eesteren requested timber manufacturer Derix Group to develop the wooden core of the building using 3,200 m²of cross-laminated timber (CLT) walls, and 1,700 m² of CLT floors.

Laminated wooden spans were arranged around this core using a triple finger joint, which enabled the supporting structure to be built with timber.

338 laminated roof trusses and 9,500 m²of floor plates were used in the floor construction, bringing the total volume of PEFC-certified spruce wood used in the project to over 2,000 m³.

The building has been built with the circular economy in mind. It is held together with more than 165,000 screws so that it can be dismantled and reassembled without losing any value in terms of materials, components, or products.

The roof is completely green and the covered parking spaces are equipped with 3,300 m² of solar panels. The design was produced with specialists from Ex Interiors and landscape architects, Arcadis. The international project developer EDGE Technologies developed the building together with Triodos Bank.

All companies supplying timber to this prize-winning building are PEFC certified.

A growing trend

Sustainable and circular building is a growing trend in the construction world, and PEFC-certified wood plays an important role.

After certified wood has been harvested, it can be used to make mass timber. After its use in a building, it can be re-used several times – this is called design for deconstruction. After its useful life, it can be used for bioenergy. During this cycle, the wood continues to store carbon. In the meantime, the forest from which it came has re-grown – often several times.

Photos (c) Bert Rietberg voor J.P. van Eesteren