The design for the Nordea Headquarters in Denmark made by Henning Larsen just received an Honor Award for excellence from the American Institute of Architects. In addition to receiving this award, the project has been shortlisted for the Institute’s new Sustainable Future Award.
Nordea’s Danish Headquarters has won an Honor Award for excellence in the Open International category of the 2018 American Institute of Architects International Region Awards. In addition to this recognition by the AIA IR Design Awards jury, the headquarters have been shortlisted for the new Dow Partner Sustainable Future Award.
The design for Nordea’s new Danish headquarters is based on transparency and sustainability – setting a new standard for the financial sector. Despite the security levels indispensable to a financial institution, we developed a building where the public has visual access to life and work inside the bank, conference rooms, and offices. The transparent building meets the city in a welcoming, open gesture.
Sustainability was a focus in every aspect of the design. Daylight enters the workspaces through a controlled overhead lighting to ensure light never hits computer screens directly, and to reduce the need for artificial lighting to save energy. A ventilated false floor with micro-perforated floor plates diverts heat away from workstations, just as water cooling embedded in the desks diverts heat from technical equipment. The surplus heat heats up the employee bicycle parking with room for 715 bikes. With the building’s LEED Platinum certification, we have reduced the energy consumption in the data center by 62.5% compared to a LEED basic calculation.