When it comes to creating an office to call home, all of the usual challenges are magnified by several degrees for a company like Siemens. It can’t afford to skimp on the building’s services, green credentials, integrated technology and all-round smartness then hold meaningful conversations on the same subjects with its clients. So, the new Siemens Campus in the Swiss town of Zug has to showcase the best the firm has to offer as well as delivering for the people who work there.
The investment of CHF 250 million at the site has delivered a new headquarters for the Siemens Building Technologies (BT) Division, which has 29,000 employees worldwide which incorporates both offices and a new production facility.
Construction of the office and production buildings began in May 2016 and pioneered the use Building Information Modelling (BIM) for design and construction. This involved the creation of a digital twin, essentially a 3D model of the building, which ensures that the ongoing management of the building is accounted for completely in its design.
The campus’s attention to its green credentials is evident in the way it pipes water from nearby Lake Zug to heat and cool the offices. Toilets flush with water gathered on the grass covered roof which also incorporates a photovoltaic system to ensure the use of fossil fuels is not necessary for the energy consumption of the building. Material used in the construction are locally sourced, which in this case means from no more than 800 km away.
The office building has earned a LEED Platinum accreditation while the production building has been accredited to LEED Gold. An integrated building automation system with energy optimisation based on the Desigo CC integrated building management platform controls the energy consumption of the buildings.
The main building at the campus is a seven storey, 184,000 sq. m. office space which sits alongside the three-storey production facility. The offices are designed around an activity based working model allowing people to choose the best place for whatever it is they are doing or the people with whom they’d like to work.
Personal control
This same element of agility and personalisation is also apparent in the use of a workplace app called Comfy which was acquired by Siemens from its original developers Building Robotics in 2018. The app allows employees to adjust temperature and lighting as well as book rooms for meetings and identify empty spaces which they can use. It also allows them to report issues directly to the facilities management team.