Banking on nature's power and poetry

Journal Article · Sat Sep 01 04:00:00 EDT 1990 · Sunworld; (USA)

OSTI ID:5960150

MacLean, H ^[1]

---

1. Chapman Construction/Design, Boston, MA (USA)

The new NMB Bank headquarters located southeast of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, is a most unusual corporate facility. Its walls slope, there is no air conditioning in the conventional sense, and the profusion of plants within its sunlit atria receive purified rainwater via multi-million dollar sculptures called flowforms. Yet there is method to its seeming madness. For this building - the result of a brilliant collaboration of architects, engineers, artists, and clients led by the Amsterdam architecture firm of Alberts and Van Huut - is one of the lowest consumers of energy of any corporate facility in the world. It has also been chosen by the Amsterdam public as one of the most popular buildings to appear in recent years. Little known in the United States, it is being hailed by many in Europe as an inspired harbinger of a more ecologically-sound, more humanistically-balanced future.

• OSTI ID: 5960150
• Journal Information: Sunworld; (USA), Journal Name: Sunworld; (USA) Vol. 14:3; ISSN SUNWD; ISSN 0149-1938
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
140901* -- Solar Thermal Utilization-- Space Heating & Cooling
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
299000 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Unconventional Sources & Power Generation
32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
320100 -- Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization-- Buildings
ARCHITECTURE
BUILDINGS
COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
DESIGN
ECOLOGY
EFFICIENCY
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
EUROPE
NETHERLANDS
SOLAR ARCHITECTURE
WESTERN EUROPE