Finansparken in Bjergsted is the new head office for SpareBank1 SR-Bank, which is located just outside Stavanger city center. It is one of the largest office buildings in Europe made of wood.
The area is just over 22,000 m² with 7 floors above ground and 3 floors below ground and accommodates approximately 650 employees.
The building designed by Helen & Hard and Saaha Architects is shaped like a triangle and fits perfectly into the urban environment. At the main entrance, from the south, a small square has been built which creates a friendly, green environment in the office building. To the east, the building has a slightly different character. The elongated façade gradually rises. On the site where the façade reaches the seventh floor, the building opens up towards the concert hall in Bjergsted Park.
The façade has been made of triple insulating glass units Pilkington Insulight™ Sun Triple. High performance solar control glass Pilkington Suncool™ 70/35 has been used as annealed, toughened or laminated glass depending on the safety, security or mechanical strength requirements in various insulating glass configurations. The same product has been used for spandrel area of the façade as Pilkington Spandrel Glass IGUs with the use of enamelled glass as an internal pane.
On the main entrance façade due to the big size of glass panes and high applied loads that needed to be taken into account for glass specification, triple glazed units made of 6 mm toughened Pilkington Suncool™ 70/35 T laminated to 4 mm toughened Pilkington Optifloat™ Clear T have been used as an external pane of IGU.
On the east, south and west facades there are external vertical glass fins that provide passive sun protection, supplemented with external screens on the south façade and interior sun protection for the rest of the building. Both products effectively prevent overheating of the rooms while maintaining good light transmission.
There is a glass roof over the atrium and sedum green roof over the rest of the building. In the inclined roof area that required higher solar control, insulating glass units made of Pilkington Suncool™ 50/25 have been applied as they provide lower solar heat transmittance.
The financial park is a very sustainable and innovative building. Timber construction is one of the important aspects of the building sustainability strategy. An energy-efficient building envelope and heating with heat pumps and 24 geothermal probes also contribute to this. In addition, the waste heat from the server rooms is fed into the heating system.
The building has been certified to BREEAM Outstanding level. It has also been recognised as Building of the Year 2019.