Holcim headquarters showcases sustainable building materials

In Zug, Switzerland, Holcim has transformed its headquarters into a model of futuristic workspace design, incorporating innovative materials and eco-friendly solutions. Approximately 400 employees occupy the office spaces, which are dispersed across multiple levels and wings. To address the lack of physical connections between these areas, Holcim collaborated with architects Beyond Space and Fritschi Beis Architektur to create a unified environment.

Connecting the campus

To bind the disconnected wings together, the design features an 180-meter-long vegetated artery known as the “green lane.” This route functions as a circulation path, a meeting area, and a social compass linking all parts of the building. Individual functions, such as meeting rooms, Zoom rooms, and print areas, appear as standalone “building blocks” with a recognisable formal language inspired by Holcim’s DNA: cement. The different office wings lack direct physical connections, so the design treats the structure as a three-dimensional campus.

Freestanding meeting rooms are constructed using Holcim’s own products, including 3D-printed concrete, carbon-prestressed concrete (CPC), woodcrete, or low-carbon concrete blocks. “The office is effectively Holcim’s portfolio that you can walk through, but it had to work as a workplace first,” explains Remi Versteeg, co-founder of Beyond Space. “The logic was simple: let each material do what it is good at and keep it visible: 3D printing where a free, curved form adds something, CPC where thin and precise is the point, woodcrete where you want warmth and a softer acoustic.”

A vertical campus

The meeting centre walls use shotcrete, left raw in open areas and rendered inside the rooms. Existing columns were sandblasted back to the original concrete. Floors continue this material approach, featuring a terrazzo with recycled concrete aggregate on the ground floor and recycled stone tiles in the green lane. The layout is open and non-hierarchical, promoting flexibility and equality while accommodating diverse work styles. This structure supports future needs and ensures acoustic comfort.

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“The brief asked for an office that would make people want to come in: a place that stimulates collaboration and movement, feels healthy and energetic, is sustainable and circular, and can adapt over time,” adds Rolf van der Leeuw, partner at Beyond Space. The previous environment, with departments spread over different wings and floors lacking physical connection, offered little exchange and failed to reflect the company’s identity. “Our answer was to treat the building as a vertical campus,” van der Leeuw said.

Destinations like the café and meeting centre are distributed through the building and tied together by the green lane, the planted route that connects all office wings and floors. Along it, the wings shift from lively open zones to quieter areas for focused work. The climate concept relies on passive cooling sails fed with water from Lake Zug and demand-controlled ventilation based on CO2 levels, avoiding forced-air blowers.

Ventilation responds to CO2 levels rather than using forced-air blowers.