ING Bank Amsterdam, Eco-Design and Architect: A.Alberts

ING Amsterdam Bank headquarters. Winner: international prize for 1988: best major ecological building in the world.

A number of Flowform® projects were carried out within the ten towered headquarters building. Emphasis was on a healthy, pleasant and ecologically sound solution for 1500 employees, with success proved by the low percentage sickness absenteeism.  Rain water catchment  was run through relaxing water features for the staff, while also improving water quality. Many other sustainable benefits were created by the overall design.

“The most poetic and ecologically sound innovations in the bank’s design are the Flowforms” Elaine Louie, New York Times Feb 1990

'Gaudi Gardens' treating water run off:

This Flowform® water sculpture, styled on an Antonio Gaudi theme, (the modernist Spanish architect) provides a relaxing pond and mountain stream experience for the bank’s employees while also oxygenating and improving the rain water roof water, before it went into the Amsterdam run off water system. John Wilkes’ Olympia asymmetrical forms were used in cascade series with chaos catchbowls in intervals to deepen the rhythmic treatment the water receives.

Olympia Water Gardens

John Wilkes’ complete Flowform® Olympia design was installed in one of the staff gardens in the complex. This complex Flowform sculpture takes water through different experiences, some tending backwards, some in balance and others strongly forwards.  Water is collected from the pond and returned to the centre of the cascade, where the waterflow moves artistically in relation to the energy inherent in all living things.

Small Water Garden

This two metre wide Flowform® single cavity sculpture is a tidal pond experience as water runs from the smaller portion into the expansive wing-shaped pond with a rhythmical flow and ebb. This occurs because of the shape of the sculpture born out of hydrological studies of fish heart embryology!

Flowform® Handrail

This unique handrail brings soft relaxing sounds of natural water flow inside the building, as well as the fascinating rhythms and light play of water flowing down the stairwell, visible for people walking up and down. As well it adds negative ions to the environment while carrying roof water down through to a final vertical sculpture in one of the foyers.