Inside-out garden Achmea | Bureau B+B Stedebouw en Landschapsarchitectuur

The new headquarters of Centraal Beheer Achmea insurance company is situated within the forests around Apeldoorn. The lay-out of the headquarters, designed by ADP architects and Bureau B+B is based on the concept of a working campus.

The various office buildings are situated on different places in the forrest. The centrally placed Meeting Center with its indoor Atrium serves as the focal point on the campus. A diverse pathsystem finds its way over the terrain like they were made by its users walking over the fields repeatedly. They connect the different buildings and the Meeting Center. A walk over the terrain always leads the visitor along heather fields, dark pine forest, hills and valleys.

The center of the new campus of Centraal Beheer Achmea Insurance in Apeldoorn is where the surrounding landscape breaks through into the Atrium of the conference building. The 750 square meters indoor garden fills the Atrium with a sloping landscape which reaches from the ground floor on to the first floor.

The reception, meeting rooms and restaurant are oriented around the garden and offer a view on grassy hills, dunes and valleys of ferns. This is where visitors wait for their appointment, employees meet each other at the coffee machine, informal meetings occur and the Dutch annual feast of “Sinterklaas” is shared with the whole family.

The campus is a continuation of the characteristic landscape of the Veluwe; rolling dunes with juniperus, heather and birch and pinetrees. This landscape will be seamlessly applied to the terrain, resulting in a natural and relaxed work landscape, with the conference building and Atrium as the midpoint and highlight.

Bureau B+B and ADP architects have developed together with constructors Ambius and Konijnenberg a seemingly natural biotope that makes the climate-controlled indoor garden into a pleasant entrance for Achmea. Not a literal but a seamless continuation of the surrounding landscape.