POST Luxembourg’s new Office Headquarters in the Gare district of Luxembourg is designed to accommodate 850 employees and serve as a new landmark. It offers a versatile, user-friendly facility with an open horizontal hierarchy, a large open atrium, and various common areas for employees to collaborate, work, and relax. The building also incorporates an existing heritage-listed block and has a goal of achieving Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen (DGNB) platinum certification. This is achieved through various features such as air conditioning via active tiles, rainwater recovery, automated lighting management, and the use of natural materials.

HELIX

Luxembourg’s POST Headquarters is located in the heart of the country’s bustling Gare district, overlooking the frenetic crossroads of Place de la Gare, and the city’s central transport hub. Adjoining an existing heritage-listed block, the 27 700 m2 net floor area office HQ will house 850 employees and act as a new landmark for the country’s largest employer. It has been designed as a versatile user-friendly facility that brings together the company’s activities and functions under one roof to motivate employees and enable more creative connections.

The building straddles Place de la Gare – one of the city’s busiest roads – at the intersection of the country’s international commuter traffic. Framed within a dense urban block, it is predominantly perceived laterally by vehicles and pedestrians traversing past.

To animate the exterior and interact with the street, vertical slatted-stone elements were used to activate the façade. Their varied depth creates an undulating rhythm that brings the building to life. While the building maintains a striking monumental mass, its playful permeability belies an openness that transforms its volume. It merges into a single unified form that becomes an integrated part of the surrounding city fabric.

Democratic Design

POST Luxembourg has an organizational structure that is built on clear communication between its different sectors. As a result, its HQ was designed to facilitate an open horizontal hierarchy that connects each department around a vast open atrium that spans the height of its interior.

Adaptive Reuse – Respecting the Architectural Heritage

Nestled into the site’s northern corner is the Accinauto building – an eight-story heritage-listed vestige of 1950s classic architecture. As a protected emblem of Luxembourg’s industrial past, its façade has been preserved and integrated into the new building along with the projection of its roof pitches. This colossal feat was achieved by reinforcing nearly 700 tonnes of foundations. To create a seamless integration between the existing listed building and the new HQ, the original pitched roof was extruded and morphed into a vertical façade along its parallel length. This rotational folding of the roof form softens the monumental stone edge of the new construction but also merges with the alignment of the adjacent neighboring facades.

Urban Oasis

While the building is surrounded by a dense urban fabric of traffic, noise, and transport, its interior harbors a tranquil sanctuary of gardens and paved spaces for its 850 employees to unwind.
A key design initiative was to create zones, other than offices and corridors, for the wellness of its users. A combination of courtyards with small areas of urban nature offers respite from the immediate busy infrastructural landscapes and a chance to recharge and relax.

POST HQ has a goal to achieve Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen (DGNB) platinum certification, which is one of the highest levels of environmental accreditation available. To meet these requirements, its design had to respect strict ecological construction criteria including the integration of air conditioning via active tiles, rainwater recovery, automated lighting management, and the use of natural materials.
To manage both cold and heat, the building has neither air conditioning nor a boiler. Instead, it features a giant ice container (2,133 m3) and a heat recovery system from the POST Luxembourg telecommunication center, located behind the construction. The building is also equipped with solar panels, rainwater collectors, and energy-efficient high-performance glazing.