The new headquarters for the MOL Group designed by Foster + Partners, in southern Budapest, Hungary has now opened. The building, developed in collaboration with Finta Studio, consolidates the company’s Budapest operations in a single location. The project was featured as an integral part of the MOL Group’s sustainable vision for 2030, which provides a blueprint for the office of the future.

The MOL Headquarters seeks to preserve live-work relationships as part of the urban experience, where people can walk or cycle to work. The building is on track to achieve LEED Platinum and BREEAM Excellent certifications, setting new benchmarks both for Budapest and Hungary.
Foster + Partners designed the 28-storey building’s lower floors to house restaurants, a gym, a conference centre and a whole host of other facilities for staff, while the flexible office spaces are on the upper levels. Greenery travels through the heart of the building, from the central atrium to the rooftop, bringing nature closer to the workspace. It also acts as a social catalyst, creating spaces for collaboration, relaxation and inspiration.

Using cutting-edge technology to control light levels, temperature and views these workspaces are finely calibrated to create the perfect working environment, a light-filled inspirational space for people to work in. All occupants have a direct connection to the external environment providing daylight and views.


MOL Group Headquarters by Foster + Partners. Photograph by Nigel Young / Foster + Partners.


MOL Group Headquarters by Foster + Partners. Photograph by Nigel Young / Foster + Partners.

The building utilises low and zero-carbon technologies, such as integrated rooftop photovoltaic panels, and ground source heat pumps and features a greywater recycling and rainwater harvesting system. Heating and cooling are provided via a radiant panel system which enhances indoor environmental quality and comfort while allowing the central plant system to operate more efficiently compared to conventional systems. The heating and cooling plant system also integrates with the district heating system for added support and resilience, as well as cooling towers for ‘free-cooling’ when external conditions are appropriate.
 
“The architectural, structural and environmental engineering team at Foster + Partners aimed to set new standards for sustainable projects in the city and push the boundaries of workplace design. The tower and the podium are merged into a singular form, to create a unified campus that is enhanced by nature. The office spaces are connected by lush gardens which seamlessly link the floors together, encouraging collaboration and relaxation.”
Nigel Dancey, Head of Studio, Foster + Partners.
 


MOL Group Headquarters by Foster + Partners. Photograph by Nigel Young / Foster + Partners.

Project description by Foster + Partners

MOL Headquarters is the new headquarters for the MOL Group, a global oil and gas company based in Hungary. The new building consolidates the company’s operations in one place while creating an exciting new addition to the city’s skyline.

An integral part of the MOL Group’s sustainable vision for 2030, the building provides a blueprint for the office of the future. Its unique form integrates a 28-storey tower with a podium a single form to create a unified campus. The lower floors house restaurants, a gym, a conference centre and a whole host of other facilities for staff, while the flexible office spaces are on the upper levels.

Greenery travels through the heart of the building, from the central atrium to the rooftop, bringing nature closer to the workspace. It also acts as a social catalyst, creating spaces for collaboration, relaxation and inspiration. The offset service cores create large flexible areas that encourage collaborative patterns of working. Using cutting-edge technology to control light levels, temperature and views these workspaces are finely calibrated to create the perfect working environment, a light-filled inspirational space for people to work in.

Setting a new benchmark both for Budapest and Hungary, the design of the building makes the most of its urban context to drive a sustainable response. The MOL Headquarters seeks to preserve live-work relationships as part of the urban experience, where people are able to walk or cycle to work. All occupants have a direct connection to the external environment providing fresh air, daylight and views. The building utilises low and zero-carbon energy sources, such as photovoltaics, and features rainwater harvesting and storage facilities.

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Architects
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Collaborators
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Collaborating Architect.- Finta Studio.
Structural Engineer.- Foster + Partners, HydraStat, KÖRÖS Consult.
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Client
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MOL Group.
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Area / Dimensions
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Area.- 58,500m².
Height.- 120m.
Capacity.- 2,300.
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Dates
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Appointment.- 2017.
Completion.- 2022.
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Location
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Dombóvári út 28. 1117 Budapest, Hungary.
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Photography
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Norman Foster is considered by many to be the most prominent architect in Britain. He won the 1999 Pritzker Architecture Prize and the 2009 Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes Prize.

Lord Foster rebuilt the Reichstag as a new German Parliament in Berlin and designed a contemporary Great Court for the British Museum. He linked St. Paul's Cathedral to the Tate Modern with the Millennium Bridge, a steel footbridge across the Thames. He designed the Hearst Corporation Building in Manhattan, at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue.

He was born in Manchester, England, in 1935. Among his firm’s many other projects are London’s City Hall, the Bilbao Metro in Spain, the Canary Wharf Underground Station in London and the renovated courtyard of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

In the 1970s, Lord Foster was one of the most visible practitioners of high-tech architecture that fetishized machine culture. His triumphant 1986 Hong Kong and Shanghai bank building, conceived as a kit-of-parts plugged into a towering steel frame, was capitalism's answer to the populist Pompidou Center in Paris.

Nicolai Ouroussoff, The Times’s architecture critic, has written that although Lord Foster’s work has become sleeker and more predictable in recent years, his forms are always driven by an internal structural logic, and they treat their surroundings with a refreshing bluntness.

Awarded the Prince of Asturias of the Arts 2009.

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