Havenhuis - Port of Antwerp Headquarters
BelgiumCompany Name: Lindner-Welsy
Project description
The Havenhuis is a former fire station that was taken into use in the beginning of the 20th century that currently functions as the headquarters of the Antwerp Harbor Company. Today, this impressive building is the workplace for more than 500 technical and administrative employees. It has become a prominent meeting point for the many international guests visiting or doing trade with the harbor of Antwerp. For the Antwerp Harbor Company it was very important that the old building was saved and integrated into the new concept. Therefore, they chose the most brilliant design of Zaha Hadid. She created a new asymmetrical volume on top of the old building that can be interpreted as a ship’s bow as well as an irregular shaped diamond; two very important symbols for the city of Antwerp. In the design of the interior, you can clearly see the hand of Zaha Hadid with lots of lines, planes, directions and views that are brought together and give you an exceptional experience.
Contractor
Lindner-Welsy
The Lindner Group is one of the leading companies worldwide for the building envelope, interior fit-out, insulation and construction-related services. With “skill, hard work and luck” and through fostering practical creativity and individual entrepreneurship among our employees, the former Akustikbau Lindner has developed into a unique group of specialist divisions – with numerous subsidiaries in all four corners of the world and a total staff of more than 6,700. The Group is working on over 2,500 projects on a daily basis around the world, bringing together expert knowledge, experience and the huge commitment of our people. Lindner is a family-owned business, with experienced management mostly emerging from our own ranks and many loyal employees building their entire careers with the company. Responsibility and sustainability towards people and environment are key factors for all our activities.
Key Achievements
- Good relationship / cooperation with the installer, engineering office and general contractor before and during the works.
- Invention of a new solution for the bearing fire resistant ceiling.
- Complexity because of all the different kind of shapes and angles of the walls and the ceilings with integrated technics.
- Shaft wall that had to be fire and pressure resistant and that we tested in our own test centre at Gyproc.
Key Challenges
- There was a strict timetable because all the works had to be completed in 33 months.
- Lindner-Welsy did not only install the walls and ceilings in plasterboards but also the metal climate ceilings, raised floors and the tribune in the auditorium. Because of this planning and follow up was very important.
- Difficult conditions to work in because the lack of space and an open metal construction during most of the works (for delivery of materials)
- Development of a new ceiling with fire resistance EI60 with an additional climate ceiling underneath it.
- Lots of different types of walls and ceilings with acoustical and fire resistance requirements that were going in all different kind of directions.