AFAS Experience center, Leusden | No square meter is the same

Six buildings with a challenge

The design for the AFAS Experience Center is filled with structural challenges from front to back. That was the reason why Dura Vermeer Bouw Hengelo decided in 2017 to enter the tender together with Lucassen Bouwconstructies. By offering optimizations and alternatives together, they were able to put an attractive plan on the table.

"That is indeed how it happened," says Marco Schippers, technical director of Lucassen Bouwconstructies. "We went through the entire plan together and looked at where we could offer favorable alternatives. Opportunities were plentiful. The design consisted of an endless series of parts, and each part was a structural challenge. Every square foot was different. Consider the office with its double-curved hanging arch structure that carries 35 feet of the front façade, the photo and film studios that cut through the two-day parking basement, and the cantilevered dome structure with cantilevered foyers that encloses the theater auditorium. And this is just a sampling of the structural challenges."

Time pressure

An additional challenge was the time constraint. Within weeks, the optimized design had to be calculated and modeled in order to realize the shell in 2019. "We had to pull quite a few tricks to meet the deadlines," Schippers confesses. "At the peak, five modelers and five structural engineers were working on the AFAS Experience Center. But all the greater was the feeling of happiness when we delivered all the calculations, drawings and models on time."

Also during the implementation phase

At the moment, Lucassen Bouwconstructies has been working on the AFAS Experience Center for two years. Most of the work is done, but the firm is expected to remain involved in the project for a long time. Schippers: "As a structural engineer we are not only active at the front end of the work; also during the execution we remain involved and carry out a lot of work. In this phase, among other things, we direct the suppliers and supervise the structural work on site."