Zurich: Swiss Re inaugurates new building
After ten years of planning and construction, Swiss Re is now inaugurating "Swiss Re Next," one of Switzerland's most modern office buildings, on Zurich's Mythenquai.
The new building at the reinsurer's headquarters was designed by Diener & Diener Architekten. It has 800 fully equipped workstations as well as additional work areas for around 1,100 people. In a first stage, some of the employees will move from the Adliswil site, where 2,700 people were previously employed, back to the headquarters.
The completion of "Swiss Re Next" is a "milestone on the way to the 'Campus Mythenquai', where employees working in Switzerland will be brought together at one location in the long term," the company writes. The new workplace concept implemented with the new building promotes collaboration, dialogue and flexibility, it adds. This concept, which dispenses with permanently allocated workstations, leads to significantly better use of the available space, Swiss Re says. Energy consumption per workstation, for example, is 80 percent lower than in the previous building.
Lake water is used to heat and cool the building by means of a heat pump. The short distances at the "Mythenquai Campus" would also bring synergy gains. "With the new space and workplace concept in 'Swiss Re Next', Swiss Re is creating sustainable workplaces and at the same time increasing work productivity," explains Thomas Wellauer, Group Chief Operating Officer of Swiss Re.
Swiss Re's future "Mythenquai Campus" is expected to house around 3,400 employees in the medium to long term. Another step in this direction will soon be the demolition of the Mythenschloss, a reconstructed residential and office building from the years of construction 1925-27 and 1982, respectively, which is to make way for a new office building by the architectural firm Meili/Peter.
