Lightness rising - new skyscraper changes the skyline at The Hague
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The Hague's skyline has a new silhouette. An extraordinary skyscraper has risen in the middle of the city: De Kroon – a building with a wonderful view of sea and The Hague at its feet. The apartments, shops and offices are gracefully connected over 40 stories ‐ thanks to light multifunctional flax dividing wall elements.
Three part harmony at dizzying heights
The De Kroon skyscraper was built in the middle of The Hague. In three part harmony with the adjacent new buildings for the Ministries of the Interior and Justice, the new skyscraper leaves its mark on the skyline. De Kroon replaced an old tower block. On lower floors, the new building maintains the scale of the historic city centre. The building has an overall height of approximately 131 meters and is divided into three distinct sections. The ground floor has 2,500 square meters of retail space, with 8,500 square meters of office space located above and then a final section with over 250 residential apartments.
The top floor has two very luxurious penthouse apartments with a breath‐taking view. Rapp+Rapp Architects with offices in Amsterdam and Berlin designed the De Kroon building.
Innovative material design
The skyscraper used a pioneering new method for the dividing walls in the apartments ‐ with numerous benefits. The dividing walls have a flax core sandwiched between sheetrock planks. The dividing walls from Faay in Vianen, Netherlands /Mainz, Germany are only 54 millimetres wide. The apartment dividing wall used these basic elements to create a constructive solution. At intervals of about 92 millimetres two parallel walls are set up using these elements and the area in between filled with 40‐millimeter thick mineral wool.
The system produces very stable walls with excellent noise insulation. The drywall manufacture of the complete wall allows for quick construction within the property, which was only one of advantages for the De Kroon construction project. Even though a drywall system was used on the project, the residents had all the same benefits of a standard solid wall. Faay dividing walls have stable dimensions thanks to their flax core and are screw tight over their entire surface.
So the wall can have screws fastened anywhere without screw anchors and each screw has a tensile strength of 100 kg.
Integral Components
When building the De Kroon skyscraper, the Faay wall elements were given a whole new “weight” in the structural engineering. As a square meter of Faay apartment dividing wall is much lighter than a square meter of standard masonry, the planners were able to distribute the weight reduction from the 5,500 square meters of apartment dividing walls over the 40 floors when designing the steel frame. All of which helps reduce construction costs. The pre‐manufactured dividing walls were also easy to transport and precise logistics helped increase the construction speed on each floor.
The innovative material design of the flax dividing walls is becoming a vital to efficient construction.
Moreover, the flax in the dividing wall also makes it ecological and sustainable.
Well designed and multifunctional The walls provide a well‐designed and precise system for dividing and false walls and combine excellent technological qualities with simple and practical use.
The wall elements are planked sheet rock but are also available in MDF or plywood. Each wall element is stable and assembled into a solid wall using a tongue and groove system.
A rail is mounted on the floor and ceiling, where the wall elements are then put in place. A tongue in the groove on the vertical side is used to adjust the element up and down and then connect it to the next wall element. When installed in parallel, the system can act as an apartment dividing wall. The space between is filled with mineral wool.
