The new Umicore office premises at Hoboken (Antwerp) are an upgrade and extension to a previously-existing industrial building standing on a large industrial estate on the southern skirts of the town. The masterplan for the whole estate was given to Conix Architects to draw up. The strategy behind their project was to restore character and identity to an amorphous corner of the town that had been allowed to run down. Besides logistics and practicality, the architects were at pains to improve sign-posting, the distribution of greenery, and the conversion of individual buildings. The new office block is to house company administration. It is designed as a catalyst welcoming the visitor and office staff and stamping first entry to the industrial estate with a clearly recognizable image. Across the glazed volume runs a strip of VMZINC® titanium zinc like a ribbon connecting the various floors and encircling the see-through structure. As well as bringing definition to the various levels at their uneven heights, it serves as roofing, infill for the short elevation of the building and a string course. Its sinuous line contrasts with the plain geometrical regularity of the existing buildings and advertises the functional and expressive scope of VMZINC® titanium zinc sheeting which, being both resistant and highly ductile, can adapt to a huge range of architectural requirements. The surface in question is of titanium zinc in a QUARTZ-ZINC® finish and applied with the double seaming method. The profiled panels of titanium zinc seam longitudinally by double folded side flanges behind which the anchors to the supporting structure disappear. Where new and existing building portions meet, the metal ribbon affords a neat junction of old and modern architecture in which the use of materials evolves - windows become glass walls, brick gives way to titanium zinc - while technology lends the project new potential.
VMZINC
Umicore Building Products Italia
Via Riccardo Lombardi, 19/16
I - 20153 Milano
Tel. +39 02 4799821
Fax +39 02 47998229
www.vmzinc.it
