Plant covered towers provide an oasis in the city

Project: Valley

Award: Multi Use, Silver, 2023

Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands

Architect: MVRDV

Client: EDGE

Combining offices, shops, catering, cultural facilities and 200 apartments in one building, Valley is an attempt to bring a green and human dimension back to the inhospitable office environment of Amsterdam’s Zuidas business district. The dramatic plant-covered building stands out with its three towers standing 67, 81 and 100 metres tall, as well as its spectacular cantilevered apartments.

Much of the building is open to the public: from the footpath that zig-zags up to the central valley from the street level, to the Grotto, an atrium that forms a covered street on the first floor. The grotto is connected to the outside by two large skylights that double as shallow water pools in the valley level above.

Design highlights

The building’s complex shape required technology experts to create custom digital tools to perfect its design, from a tool to ensure that every apartment had adequate light and views, to a tool that made possible the apparently random pattern of over 40,000 tiles. Landscape architects developed a matrix to select the right plants for each location in the building.

Photo credit: Ossip van Duivenbode and Daria Scagliola