Vattenfall’s New Stockholm Headquarters
Tengbom has recently designed the interior for Vattenfall’s new office. Located in one of Sweden’s most energy-efficient office buildings in the Arenastaden district of Solna, the premises provide a unified home for the company’s 2000 or so employees in the Stockholm area who were previously based in three different offices.
“Vattenfall’s requirements for their new head office in Stockholm were:
- To be number one, environmentally
- To be “the world’s best office”
- To be an attractive employer
The building has been awarded the Green Building Award in both Sweden and the EU. Vattenfall’s vision was for the building to act as a campus that promotes natural interactions and enables cross-generational skill transfers.
The office comprises four discrete blocks, linked by an atrium. The colour scheme and layout is based on the four elements, earth, fire, wind and water, which are expressed in the four individual blocks’ office areas. These four elements are a play on Vattenfall’s business operations, referencing natural resources and different types of energy. The fifth element, ether, represents communication and interaction.
The hub of the office is the atrium, a space in constant motion, facilitating spontaneous and planned interactions. The office’s shared café and lounge can be found on the ground floor, located at the base of the atrium on either side of the “knowledge staircase”, and are designed in the form of a gallery with beanbags and tables.
The external conference area, with space for 400 people in rooms of different sizes for between 4 and 100 people, is located adjacent to the building’s foyer. All of the meeting and conference rooms are equipped with tables from the A-range, designed by Tengbom for SA-möbler. The tables’ stands are made from solid ash wood from Skövde. Coffee bars with furniture groups that encourage people to pause, chat and interact on an informal basis, are located on every floor.
White and natural wood colours are the base palate in the atrium, with colour highlights provided by furniture and custom-designed rugs whose different colours are rotated across the different storeys of the building, creating both variation and orientation.
The office spaces are separated from the atrium, ensuring that the places where people work are tranquil zones, free from unnecessary disturbances. In the office spaces, the elements are primarily represented by means of textile rugs and the textiles used in the furniture reflect the respective element’s palette. All employees have their own, individual workstation. The building also offers over 2,000 alternative seating areas for meetings, work and relaxation.
Vattenfall did not want the office spaces to be the rows of “four-pack” desks traditionally used in open-plan office solutions, preferring something more vibrant, more organic. The workstations, which were specially developed for Vattenfall, have been designed by Tengbom and manufactured by Ragnars.
The design staggers the desks at an angle to the storage unit, which is double-sided, enabling an alternating positioning for the desks on either side of the unit. The design principle is based on free positioning within the space and the units can, if desired, be combined in rows.”
Designer: Tengbom
Photography: Björn Lofterud
