all images © Herzog & de Meuron

Roche opened Building 1, its new office building designed by Herzog & de Meuron. It will be the workplace for around 2'000 employees. Construction works for the 178-meter high-rise started in October 2010. The total costs were 550 million Swiss francs. Building 1, which is in keeping with the architectural idiom set forth by Roche, is the starting point for the further development of the Roche headquarters in Basel. This includes, among others, Building 2, a 205-meter high-rise.

areal view

Pierre de Meuron says: “The completion of Building 1 marks a milestone in a working partnership between Roche and Herzog & de Meuron which has endured some twenty years and more.” Jacques Herzog says: “Building 1 exemplifies our position in the current discourse surrounding the problems of uncontrolled development, both in Basel and throughout Switzerland. In areas where there is already dense urban settlement, the aim should be continued, targeted densification.”

view from balcony

The architecture of Building 1 expresses and actively encourage this new potential for communication. It will be flexible and will provide attractive workplaces and infrastructural facilities for the staff. The challenge lies in creating an urban environment rather than a mono-functional office building in which each separate floor is accessed only via one central core.

interior view

Project Facts

Herzog & de Meuron Team: 

Partners: Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Stefan Marbach (Partner in Charge)

Project Architects: Michael Fischer (Associate, Project Director), Stefan Segessenmann (Associate), Barbara Zeleny (Project Manager), Martin Knüsel, Falk Schneemann, Caesar Zumthor-Prado 

Project Team: Farhad Ahmad, Abdulfatah Adan, Troels Andersen, Juliane Bank, Alexander Bartscher, Axel Beck, Florian Becker, Pascal Bögli, Martin Brandsdal, Ariana Conca, Caetano De Braganca, Dorothee Dietz, Carmen Eichenberger, Felix Fassbinder, Francis Fawcett, Bruce Feng, Jenny Fetveit, Oliver Franke, Timothee Gauvin, Salome Gutscher, Lena Göpfert, Adriana Hernandez, Elisabeth Hinz, Marc Hölscher, Roger Huwyler, Christoph Jantos, Tamara Jechnerer, Victor Julebaek, Leonard Kadid, Evert Klinkenberg, Denis Kolesnikov, Beatus Kopp, Kenzo Krüger-Heyden, Christina Liao, Aron Lorincz, Jana von Mackensen, Alexandre Masse, Nadine Mauritz, Hania Michalska, Melk Nigg, Colm O’Brien, Argel Padilla, Pedro Pena, Holger Rasch, Nathalie Rinne, Hendrik Schikarski, Tilmann Schmidt, Kathrin Schwarz, Jakob Seyboth, Sophie Shiraishi, Merethe T. Skjellvik, Alexander Stern, Michaela Stolcova, Fumiko Takahama, Moritz Thierfelder, Tanja Thomae, Luca Ugolini, Paul Vantieghem, Julie Wagner, Thomas Wagner, Viktor Westerdahl, Gerd Wetzel, Achim Winter, Fen Xiao, Mika Zacharias, Camillo Zanardini, Daniel Zarhy

Client: F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Basel, Switzerland

> via herzogdemeuron.com