Starting in 2024, Swiss competence in timber construction will be creating striking architectural features in the heart of Amsterdam: Häring, a company specialised in wood technology, has just confirmed its partnership with the Royal BAM Group on the expansion project for ABN AMRO Bank. ABN AMRO, with 20,000 members of staff and more than four million individual clients, is Holland’s largest bank. This corporation has been committed to an ecological and sustainable strategy for many years now, and over the next two years, this will be vividly reflected in the architecture of its headquarters.

The key data for the spectacular edifice are impressive: in the first stage the current structure, consisting of five building complexes, will be completely gutted, but all the material removed will be repurposed. Then 8,000 cubic metres of wood composites (5,000 cubic metres of glued la-minated timber, 3,000 of cross laminated timber, totalling 4,000 metric tons) will be deployed. These wooden structures will be the most visually striking components of what is currently Hol-land’s largest construction project on a building.

Four huge entrance halls, glass structures flooded with light, are planned as areas which will serve as spaces to meet and work in. The extension and addition of extra storeys to the head-quarters of ABN AMRO will require an additional 30,000 square metres of sophisticated wooden structures, enough to cover to four football pitches. The buildings will be constructed in collabo-ration with the general contractor, Royal BAM Group and the property developer EDGE (motto: “Building a Better World”). The effective floor space of the buildings will amount to 100,000 squ-are metres. Construction will begin in June 2024 and will be completed by the end of 2025.

This project in Amsterdam demonstrates once again, that Swiss Timber Technology by Häring has caught on in major international cities as well – innovative timber construction techniques allow for a maximum of constructive building material with high-performance primary structures and minimum energy requirements. And what is also very clear: Häring’s know-how as a Swiss enterprise made a convincing impression in the European competition and was awarded the contract for engineering, delivery and installation for its joint bid with the Royal BAM Group.

Häring’s international network of projects in Asia (Tianjin CN, Singapore, Bhutan), the USA (At-lanta) and Europe has thus been further strengthened. The contract also confirms the com-pany’s leading role in strategic innovation as well as the continuity of this family business, now in its fifth generation. Successful for 145 years under the motto “Light–Fast–Green”.