Goddeeris NV had been growing so fast in recent years that moving to a new location was the only option. The building programme for the company – which installs HVAC and industrial piping – included office space for management plus social areas for the entire team, a warehouse and workshop and a covered car park. This project employed steel in a variety of forms and applications: profiled sheet mounted on sandwich panels or a frame in the facade finish; frames for the mounting of the facade finish made of tubes and profiles affixed to the main structure and with faceted rounded parts; porticoes made of steel profiles as the main structure for office and workshop; trusses made of profiles and tubes for the roofing of the carport; roof deck made of profiled panels finished with insulation and roof sealing; monocoques for staircases and mezzanines in offices made of bent 10 mm steel sheets welded together on site.

The current mishmash of buildings that grew up organically on the premises of Stone, a wholesaler dealing in natural stone, terrazzo and ceramic tiles, was crying out for a clear sense of order. The site has been rethought and reorganised to create a functional separation between storage, production and staff areas. The new buildings (production hall, slab hall and office building) are built on a steel structure and positioned as freestanding independent spaces that conform to the laws of industrial construction. And although it is a natural stone processing company, all facades are finished with profiled metal cladding, thereby establishing a visual connection between old and new. Subtle differences in colour and degree of detailing differentiate the volumes according to their specific function. All the interiors of the various buildings are finished in the same white-painted, repetitive steel structure, which is left exposed.