ABC Square, Schiphol Airport

The building and the surroundings

As the first project on the expansive new Schiphol Trade Park, ABC has Square set a new standard for sustainable logistics. When it comes to logistics buildings, there's a tendency to think that it's dark and a bit monotonous. We were keen to take a different approach together with our development partner VolkerWessels Logistics Development. The living, green central façade of ABC Square will ultimately be perfectly integrated into the nature along the canal, where plenty of trees will be planted. As well as being aesthetically pleasing, the green facades contribute to local biodiversity, cleaner air and cooling. They are equipped with a web-based Plant Care System that provides plants with the right amount of water and nutrients, fully automated. Subtle, graphic patterns in the Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C)-certified external façade lighten up the huge building, so that hundreds of metres of façade form a single organic whole.

Focus on job satisfaction

A substantial amount of natural light streams in. The warehouse and logistics areas flow naturally into the office, meeting and showroom areas. This encourages contact between everyone and as such, personal encounters. So, it enhances job satisfaction and therefore improves productivity. Here, too, the focus is on job satisfaction, as this creates added value for all parties. It serves as a perfect home base for the companies that are located here.

Self-sufficient

All installations are electrical and with solar panels on the roof, this building has the ability to produce more than enough energy to power itself. Nowadays at peak times, the panels supply energy to other buildings on the 350-hectare site.

Aan de oostkant zal Airborne Avenue over een tijd in een levendige, ruime toegangsweg veranderen met parallelle straten, centrale waterpartijen en een groen landschap. De bomen op de singel zullen bijdragen aan de luchtkwaliteit en biodiversiteit.

Flexibility and circularity

The building is designed to be scalable and adaptable to the needs of tenants. It can function as a single unit or be subdivided into (up to) seven units, making the building future-proof for the changing needs of existing or new tenants.

he steel construction designed for disassembly, a design method that already takes the disassembly and reuse capabilities of the building into account during the design stage. This obviously has a major impact on the Whole Life Carbon footprint since the materials are destined for a second life. The truck court is covered with a mineral layer of olivine that breaks down CO₂.

Awards and certificates

In collaboration with VolkerWessels Logistics Development, we have set the standard for sustainable development here. That is why the design was awarded the VBI Greenscore Certificate for the reuse of raw materials at a process level. It was the very first time that such a certificate was granted to a logistics project in the Netherlands. We were also honoured to receive a four-star BREEAM-NL. The ABC Square construction site at Schiphol Trade Park was also awarded a score of 8.2 by Bewuste Bouwers. Bewuste Bouwers assesses building sites in terms of their environmental management, corporate social responsibility, safety and sustainability.