out to embrace the street. The folded leaves
hide part of the project’s 949 solar panels,
LED lighting and many rainwater collectors
scattered around the structure, making the
building a BREEAM-NL Outstanding score
recipient and the most sustainable renovated
building in the Netherlands. By lowering the
ground floor, Benthem Crouwel produced a
welcoming square that leads to La Lotteria,
an Italian restaurant open to all. Students
from the nearby Sint-Nicolaaslyceum can
sit on colourful pillows dotting the second-
floor auditorium; the interiors and the mainthe much-awaited Italian piazza, featuring
a massive tree-shaped column and organic
insulation. The employees themselves drew
by heart the façades of the prewar villas
that had been part of their identity for so
long. The sketches were transposed onto
the metal surfaces that line the new court-
yard – panels that sometimes become the
background of a live TV show. The café tables
where employees have regular meetings lie
under a canopy of 6,800 aluminium leaves
that reflect natural light and indoor plants as
they turn into an external roof that reacheswho was also the end user. ‘Normally we
present a vision straightaway,’ she says, ‘but
in this case we thought the commission was
so personal that we really had to get to know
them better, so we held several workshops
to get input on what their ideal space would
look like. We promised them that even
though we’re architects – and know what to
do with a building – we needed them and
would involve them in the design process.’
Take, for instance, the Vondelpark request.
To tick that box, the architect and her team
turned the building’s former atrium into
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