Holcim is a global manufacturer and supplier of construction materials and building solutions, with a focus on low-carbon, circular, energy-efficient, resilient, and smart construction.
Previously, Holcim operated from several locations across Switzerland, primarily arranged as traditional cellular offices. The company set out to consolidate these workplaces within a single headquarters in Zug, central Switzerland, while moving towards a more flexible and adaptable way of working. Designed by Beyond Space in collaboration with Fritschi Beis Architektur, the new headquarters needed to represent the organisation, encourage employees to return to the workplace, and accommodate a wide range of working styles.
Holcim’s accommodation is distributed across the ground, third, and fourth floors of the existing Grafenau office complex at Grafenauweg 10 in Zug. The separate office wings also have no direct physical connection. To make these areas feel like a coherent whole, the interior was conceived as a three-dimensional campus.
Materials as architecture
Individual functions, including meeting rooms, Zoom rooms, and print areas, are designed as freestanding ‘building blocks’. Each follows a recognisable formal language inspired by Holcim’s material DNA.
The freestanding rooms are built using Holcim products and technologies, including 3D-printed concrete, carbon prestressed concrete (CPC), woodcrete (in which wood chips replace gravel as the aggregate), shotcrete (concrete sprayed onto a surface at high velocity), and low-carbon concrete blocks.
Positioned throughout the open floorplates, these volumes help to define open and semi-open workspaces while limiting acoustic disturbance between adjacent areas. The volumes also provide a ‘living showcase’, presenting Holcim’s identity and material innovation in a way that is visible and tactile.
Circular construction principles informed both the design strategy and the construction process, making material reuse, adaptability, and reduced environmental impact central to the workplace concept. Rather than being treated as an additional measure, circularity forms part of the architecture itself.
Reused aggregates were incorporated to reduce demand for virgin resources, while biopolymer flooring provides a lower-impact alternative across large surface areas.
Connecting the workplace
The office wings are connected by the ‘green lane’, a 180-metre-long landscaped route that functions as circulation space, meeting place, informal workspace, and the main entrance to the office environment. Its position creates a transition between the different parts of the building. Rather than being contained within freestanding planters, planting is integrated directly into the raised floor, creating a closer relationship between the greenery and the architecture while supporting biodiversity.
The ground floor accommodates the main entrance, customer experience centre, exhibition spaces, and central meeting centre. These areas incorporate 3D-printed concrete and several shotcrete applications. A terrazzo floor extends throughout this level, using crushed reinforced concrete as its aggregate.
The experience centre also contains an LED cube, with floor-to-ceiling screens on three sides supporting continuous, immersive presentations.
Flexible ways of working
On the office floors, the green lane acts as an active connector and social heart, while the office wings become progressively quieter towards their ends, supporting focused work.
There are no fixed offices, including for management, and all workstations are shared. Spatial variations accommodate different personalities, tasks, and working styles. Open, semi-open, and enclosed work zones are complemented by meeting spaces of different sizes distributed throughout the building.
Phase one of Holcim Headquarters has been completed, with phase two scheduled for delivery later in 2026.
