Tribute to the city of The Hague

Skillfully, the Wijnhavenkwartier designed by the architectural firm Geurst & Schulze makes a visual statement at a height of 50 m in The Hague. From an infrastructural perspective, the building complex completed in 2016 also brings advantages to the city. On a total usable area of 15,000 m², 170 apartments and penthouses, restaurants, shops, offices, as well as an external branch of Leiden University are accommodated. The single-storey building and the lowest level of the high-rise are used commercially.

From the previous office complex of two ministries from the 1970s, only the supporting concrete structure of the former high-rise remained and was integrated into the new Wijnhavenkwartier. The eye-catcher is the approximately 12,500 m² large ventilated facade, clad with individually pigmented and coloured ceramic tiles of the type “Royal Mosa ceramic tiles” – a special custom-made product developed and produced specifically for this project – and executed with open joints. The ceramic cladding materials, designed according to customer specifications and thus unique worldwide, are a distinctive feature of Mosa’s market offering. Visually, the building envelope refers to the sandy ground on which the Wijnhavenkwartier is located, as well as to the nearby beach and The Hague as the “beautiful city behind the dunes”.

“Our undercut anchors convinced the client because they combine secure hold with a representative appearance of the facade,” reports Detlef Postler, Technical Project Support at the subsidiary SystemTec within the fischer group, who co-supervised the project. “Thus, the fastening with the undercut anchors is executed invisibly in favour of a harmoniously appearing facade side – a clear advantage compared to the common clamp solutions used for ceramic panels.” Due to this aesthetic advantage combined with the durability, sustainability, and ease of maintenance of the ceramic panels, Mosa prevailed over other suppliers. “The form-fitting and therefore completely expansion-pressure-free anchoring in the conically undercut drilled hole results in lower panel bending moments compared to alternative solutions on the market,” Postler continues. “On the back of the panel, the anchor can be positioned at the fifth point, thus optimising the fastening statically.” This allows facades to be planned and executed more flexibly and fully utilises the technical properties of the cladding material.