Roughly five years ago, the leaders of Swedbank decided to move their operations out of the office building they had occupied for four decades in the heart of Stockholm. The 1970s edifice, along with neighboring buildings that the bank had expanded into, consisted primarily of cellular offices and long corridors and was cramped and dark. It “no longer matched their vision for banking's future,” says Daniel Markstrom, head of architecture for Humlegården, the developer of Swedbank's new 484,000-square-foot headquarters in Syndbyberg, a suburb and commuter hub about 5 miles from central Stockholm. What the bank wanted, says Markstrom, was a more flexible home that would accommodate all 2,700 employees and foster collaboration among them.
In response to these desires, Humlegården and its Copenhagen-based architect, 3XN, created a building for the roughly rectangular 1.2-acre site that is six stories tall at one end and gradually ascends to nine stories at the other. The steel-and-concrete structure has a zigzagging plan that forms what the designers describe as a “folded triple V.” It defines five dramatic skylit atriums—one within each fold—that offer visual connections among the bank's working groups.
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