Telenor Headquarters – Törökbálint

„We attended an international, invited design competition, among as well-known entrants as Közti, László Szász, Erick van Egeraat and NBBJ Architects from London. The interesting aspect was that it was NBBJ who designed the Telenor Headquarters in Fornebui (the Pannon’s parent company), and so they knew well the working methods of the company.” - Gábor Zoboki.

leading architect: Gábor ZOBOKI - Zoboki-Demeter & Associates Architects coordinating architect: Zoltán TURI architects: Richárd BORZÁK, Péter BÖHLER, János ERŐSS, Endre FINTA, Márton MAZZAG, Béla REPPERT, Gábor SZATMÁRI; collaborating architects: Gergő FEJES, Andrea KOVÁCS, Miklós LEITS, Rita MADARASI-PAPP, Annamária PAPP, Linda TOLNAI, Sporaarchitects Kft.: Tibor DÉKÁNY, Sándor FINTA, Ádám HATVANI, Orsolya VADÁSZ, consulting architect: Itfornebu Eiendom (Norway) - Bjørn C. Sørum
year of design/constriction: 2005-2007/2008-2009
photography: © Tamás BUJNOVSZKY
→ see the building on the map “hungarian architecture"!

The aim of every gesture of the headquarter is to stimulate the human creativity. Following the Norway example in space and labor force organization there are nine organizational units strung to the central atrium from three different directions. The building of the Telenor Headquarter in Fornebui is bigger in scale than the Hungarian one in Törökbálint (140 000 m2). Their central atrium is a longish roofless public space, to which units are connected from both sides. And these units are also built around their own thwart atrium.

The passage bridges that connect the staircase with the units play the main role in the hall of the Telenor Headquarters, but also the main entrance in here besides the restaurant, distant workers’ service funkctions like supermarket, gym and travelagency. In the public space there is table-football and table tennis to inspire and help the human relationships and spontaneous encounters.

Not only the hall, but also the organizational units work the same way. There is shared-desk system in the office wings for 35-40 people in each unit. As a consequence no one owns his/her desk, but it is a great platform for teamwork. At the lobby of the office wings can be found the closet for personal belongings, coffee corner, sanitary block, printer room and a glass-walled meeting-room. These units are the basis of design and space organization like in Norway model.

Besides the working-method there are innovative solutions in the engineering technology too. The designers payed attention to environmental-friendly functioning, including 180 ground coupled heat pumps, that gratify the buildings’ heat demandand helps in the cooling, too. Mostly solar cells produce the used warm water, and the ventillation is also with geothermal heat exchanger. The Co2 emission is under the common level because of the technology used,and though some might say that commuting will have its bad effect, too, but the company also deals with this problem: the environmental manager said the transportation emission does not reach the 6% of the companys’ emission, because of the companys buses and home offices. On the whole the Telenor Headquarter is indeed a unique contemporary, way forward office building.

translation: Noémi Szikszai