In 2009, with offices located in the surroundings of the Dutch capital, Red Bull Amsterdam wanted to move to a more urban location that would better reflect its culture and involvement in the arts and sports. Let us remember that the Austrian company goes much further than simply selling its famous energy drink. Since its beginnings, it has been involved in racing sports (Formula 1, NASCAR, motorcycle racing) and has been massively sponsoring extreme sports, like the Red Bull Crashed Ice world championship. The company has also invested a great deal in music, helping young artists or creating traveling workshops like the Red Bull Music Academy, and in dance, particularly with its famous B-Boys from the Red Bull BC One Battles.

1. red bull
amsterdam
Headquarters

2. general
information
Contact us An overview
ArchitecturAl design locAtion
Sid Lee Architecture Red Bull Nederland B.V.
75, Queen Street, Suite 1500, NDSM-Plein 26, Neveritaweg 34
Montreal (Québec) 1033 WB Amsterdam
H3C 2N6 Canada
BrAnding And grAphic design client
Sid Lee Amsterdam Red bull Netherlands
Gerard Doustraat 72-80, 1072VV
Amsterdam, Netherlands type
Office
telephone
Montreal: 514-282-2200 surfAce (scope)
Amsterdam: +31 20 6623030 Total surface: 875 m2 (9 420 sq.ft.)
WeB site
construction Budget
www.sidleearchitecture.com
$ 1,5 M
www.sidlee.com
production
contActs
May 2009 to April 2011
Name
Jean Pelland
Telephone occupAtion
514-282-6834 ext 554 April 2011
E-mail
jpelland@sidleearchitecture.com
puBlic relAtions
Name : Marie-Eve Chaumont
Telephone : 514-282-2200 ext 482
E-mail : media@sidlee.com
The landing

3. chapter 1:
The birth
In 2009, with offices located in the surroundings NASCAR, motorcycle racing) and has been
of the Dutch capital, Red Bull Amsterdam wanted massively sponsoring extreme sports, like the
to move to a more urban location that would Red Bull Crashed Ice world championship. The
better reflect its culture and involvement in the company has also invested a great deal in music,
of the beast
arts and sports. Let us remember that the Austrian helping young artists or creating traveling
company goes much further than simply selling workshops like the Red Bull Music Academy, and
its famous energy drink. Since its beginnings, it in dance, particularly with its famous B-Boys
has been involved in racing sports (Formula 1, from the Red Bull BC One Battles.
Project description

4. 1 2
Context
In competition with two other architecture firms, Noord district has been under complete
the teams at Sid Lee Architecture and Sid Lee redevelopment, attracting artists and major arts
Amsterdam convinced Red Bull managers to set and media companies such as MTV Europe.
up their new headquarters in an urban and offbeat That’s where Red Bull Amsterdam agreed to
site evocative of both street art culture and the settle, in an old heritage shipbuilding factory,
intensity of extreme sports. North of Amsterdam, facing a timeless crane and an old disused Russian
in an obsolete shipbuilding environment, the submarine…
3 4
3
4
1
5
2
LeGEND: LeGEND:
1. Existing exterior building 1. Zulu V class submarine B-80
2. Timeless crane on the shipyard 2. Timeless crane on the shipyard
3. Existing interior conditions 3. MTV Network
4. West facade 4. Skatepark - NDSM hangar
5. Zulu V class submarine B-80: old disused Russian submarine
RED BULL hEaDqUaRtERs RED BULL hEaDqUaRtERs
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5. “To design the inner space, we aimed at retrieving
Red Bull’s philosophy, dividing spaces according
to their use and spirit, with its two opposed and
complimentary hemispheres, reason versus intuition,
arts versus the industrial city, black versus white, the
rise of the angel (Red Bull gives you wings...) versus
the mention of the beast…”, Jean Pelland, project design architect and senior partner
Red Bull’s
“N orth wing” ethic
Inside this shipbuilding factory, with its three adjacent bays, we
focused on expressing the dichotomy of space, shifting from public
spaces to private ones, from black to white and from white to black.
Our idea was to combine the almost brutal simplicity of an
industrial place with Red Bull’s mystical invitation to perform.
The interior architecture with multiple layers of meaning conveys
this dual personality, reminding the user of mountain cliffs one
moment and skate board ramps the next. These triangle-shaped
piles, as if ripped off the body of a ship, build up semi-open spaces
that can be viewed from below, as niches, or from above, as
bridges and mezzanines across space. In the architecture we offer,
N nothing is clearly set; all is a matter of interpretation.
R AI
TB N
GH R AI
RI TB
F
LE
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The dive - Construction photo

6. The landing The dive The dive
The board room & the crash room The crash room
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7. The dive
The crash room
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8. chapter 2:
The architecture Thus, this interior architecture shows the duality
between mind and body, play and work,
socialization and creative privacy, which defines
Red Bull’s philosophy. And we started expressing
The beast: public spaces
This simple-looking dichotomy hides an
additional ambivalence, as one single space can
include various other spaces that differ as much
of ambiguity
this ambivalence through an opposition between by nature (open or not) as by function. In public
public and private spaces. The first of the three spaces, a closed recording studio is next to an
bays of the building is utterly dedicated to public open playground, with its video screens and bar,
spaces, whereas the two others contain the while farther, niche-shaped resting spaces swing
managers’ offices and workstations. between introspective and open shapes.
Space configuration
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9. THE CROSSING SKIN
THE DIVE
THE LANDING
AREAS
FLEX SPACE 2ND LEVEL
FLEX SPACE
2ND LEVEL
BOARD ROOM AREAS
GROUND LEVEL
THE DIVE
GROUND LEVEL
The beast:
public spaces
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The gallery

10. Passerelle flex space Time out Board room
DJ Booth DJ Booth and conference room / soundclash The dive
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11. The arena:
Working area
In the same spirit, private spaces were kept open, in order
to start a dialogue between collective workstations in the
middle, and managers’ offices and functional spaces all
around them. The whole place is unified with a pervasive
natural light that comes from a series of skylights across the
full span of the building which produces an amazing natural
lighting effect.
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12. Glass enclosure - construction photo
mEtAL ShELL
Metal shell - construction photo
GLASS ENcLOSURE
Stratos:
the foreign object
Located in the middle of the working area, a massive architectural object emerges as a symbol of this
architecture of ambiguity. This perforated black metal box interacts with the surrounding space
through its shape, texture and absence of color. Inspired by the shape of the roof, the volume of this
meeting room is like a photo-negative of the building structure itself. It has the mineral texture (caused
by natural and artificial light effects through its perforations) of a meteorite that would have fallen
through the atmosphere and absorbed the spirit of the place where it landed. It is as much a kind of
symbolic extraction from an open space as a tribute to Red Bull Stratos, Felix Baumgartner’s
unprecedented performance consisting in jumping from 120,000 feet to try to achieve the first
supersonic free fall in history.
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13. RED BULL hEaDqUaRtERs RED BULL hEaDqUaRtERs
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The Stratos

14. Playground
This architecture of ambiguity led us even further, brutality, we largely used simple plywood and raw
playing with brutal volumes and broken lines that metal plates. In opposition to this intentional
refuse verticality and horizontality. We built up simplicity of space layouts, walls and floors were
this language through a formal dynamism of covered with playful graphic works, stemming
architectural elements and the primitive, almost from Red Bull’s culture and developed by the Sid
geological simplicity of the whole. The space thus Lee Amsterdam team.
created questions our usual perspectives and
marks. In order to strengthen the material
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The Dive

15. chapter 3:
Craftsmen and
''Successful projects come first and foremost from supplier. The studio has showed us that it is
great craftsmen and builders; fortunately, we had possible to make plywood literally come alive,
some of the greatest in Holland working on this creating the most complex geometric shapes with
project. '' Steven Somogyi, project manager. it. Beyond technical skills, this project required
builders
intelligence and sensitivity to understand our
Therefore, we insist on paying a very special architectural metaphor and sometimes to capture
tribute to Fiction Factory, the manufacturing it beyond our expectations. We also want to
studio that made this project possible. In line thank Joravision for keeping a safe guard on the
with traditional Dutch workmanship, Fiction overall production process.
A brilliant manufacturer
Factory was more of a partner to us than a mere

16. SKIN
bONES
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17. RED BULL hEaDqUaRtERs RED BULL hEaDqUaRtERs
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18. chapter 4:
Rebel
The street and extreme sports cultures are some rooms. We also wished to highlight Red
illustrated in Red Bull’s ethic, characterized by a Bull’s universe of play and sport performances,
will to perform and not to respect rules. In instead of simply expressing the rebel side of the
collaboration with Sid Lee Amsterdam’s graphic company. For example, a karting track snakes on
culture
designers, the Sid Lee Architecture team chose to the wall and floor of a resting room and a trompe
express this philosophy trough a ubiquitous l’oeil features a show stage with its massive
graphic covering of vertical and horizontal speakers in a supposedly quiet room. In the
surfaces: ceilings, walls, floors—and even managers’ offices, BMX riders or skateboarders
furniture! Thus, graffiti are all over the walls in are jumping across walls!
and graphic work

19. Management office Management office Sound clash
Quiet room Quiet room Management office
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20. These performance-driven graffiti
show up in the most exuberant
expression in the restroom.
Inspired by Red Bull’s “Holy Shit
list”, the list of the craziest things
we wish to do, a ceiling, wall and
floor mosaic mimics a Renaissance
fresco, with a determined blasphemous
approach.
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21. chapter 5:
A multipurpose
As much a working area as a place to experiment into a party room. The benches in the resting
arts and sports, Red Bull Amsterdam’s room can be used as seats or storing elements. In
headquarters were bound to offer a double the same spirit, walls can be used in different
function: work and play. Everything is ways. They are blackboards to write on, projection
space
multipurpose here! The modular furniture in the screens with built-in TV sets, and even exhibition
common room forms various seats, but can also walls!
be piled up to turn the place from a playground
work and play

22. To impose in space a pervasive dialogue between a playful and
rebel culture and a raw environment, we scattered around
several hints as structural elements, pieces of furniture and
other artifacts of all types. Thus, the triangle geometry that
shapes the space morphology (from walls to the glass vault,
through industrial trusses across the bays) appears in the resting
room modular furniture and the floating tube lightings.
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Flex space

23. RED BULL hEaDqUaRtERs RED BULL hEaDqUaRtERs
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Flex space (mezzanine)

24. Wits and company spirit
We did not create this multipurpose space just to express Red Bull’s cultural ambivalence. Our idea was
also to convey the idea of resourcefulness, which is so much part of those that Red Bull supports, who
know how to build a BMX ramp with three little wooden pieces or who change a city into an urban
“parkour”. Red Bull’s interior space was designed in the same spirit: a bench will disappear to give birth
to a storing area; a wall shelf will open like a giant drawer to unveil a wardrobe…
And this ability to adapt to all kinds of situations also reveals itself in a talent for taking over a place.
Any mountain cliff can be an improvised ski run, any banister will become a skateboard rail. We alluded
to this remarkable adaptability by naming the various building areas: “The landing” for the main hall,
“The crashroom” for the resting room, “The dive” for the restaurant…
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25. chapter 6:
Architectural plans In summary:
surfAce AreA:
sections and Building
Total surface area: 9 420 sq.ft.
elevations
Public area: 3058 sq.ft.
Private area: 6362 sq.ft.
Mezzanine: 870 sq.ft.
Technical aspects of projetc cApAcities:
Staff number: 60 employees
QuAntities:
Management offices: 6
Closed offices: 13

26. ground floor
no scale
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27. mezzanine floor
no scale
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28. interior elevation
no scale
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29. interior elevation
no scale
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30. interior elevation
no scale
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31. interior elevation
no scale
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32. Credits
ArchitecturAl design locAl Architect (permits)
Sid Lee Architecture Kamstra Architecten BNA
75, Queen Street, Suite 1500, herengracht 11 1441 ev purmerend
Montreal (Québec) ir. ing. Paul Kamstra
H3C 2N6 Canada + 31 02 99 41 45 55
514-282-6834
sidleearchitecture.com generAl contrActor:
Jora Vision B.V.
BrAnding And grAphic design De Maessloot 2B 2231 PX Rijnsburg
Sid Lee Amsterdam +31 71 40 26 747
Gerard Doustraat 72-80, 1072VV
Amsterdam, Netherlands photos:
+31 20 66 23 030 Ewout Huibers
sidlee.com +31 62 95 94 778
ewout.tv
Builders: professionAl construction studio
Fiction Factory
1033 NX Amsterdam
+31 20 63 52 424
fictionfactory.nl
furniture
2D&W
Egelantiersgracht 217
1015 RK Amsterdam
+ 31 02 06 38 31 07
2DenW.nl

33. Another SIDLEE ARchItEctURE fanzine