Tall & Urban News

As part of a competition that began in May of 2018, Tengbom has unveiled their winning proposal for a new tech beacon in Växjö, Sweden. Commissioned by Växjö city and clients Castellum and Visma, WeXO will form a vital component of the city’s growing IT infrastructure, and act as a physical lure for attracting businesses and startups to the area. The brief stipulated a design that focuses on the well-being of its users, materials and energy usage, and overall sustainability of the building.

WeXO acts as a gate to the city of Jönköping, as much as it is a symbol for innovation in the heart of Sweden’s wood industry.

Tengbom’s proposal for WeXO aims to create a building that is future-proofed for changes and advances in requirements from its tech-savvy users. the program incorporates a fluid, social meeting place where ideas can be exchanged between large companies and entrepreneurial startups, but also somewhere the public can connect with the future. The concept of well-being is at the heart of the design, which softly cocoons its occupants in timber. Green spaces, minimal energy use and sustainable material selection are also selected to create a role model for contemporary workspace architecture.

The characteristic façades are created by combining traditional wood shingles with high-tech glass, making WeXo an eye-catching beacon for the area.

WeXO is a sum of three interlaced parts. From the calm central entrance, the form unfurls upwards but also outwards, with a courtyard and expanses of glass inviting in daylight. A restaurant and seminar halls occupy the recreational lower levels. In the tower, the lower levels are kept open as co-working space. The tower rises to the seventh floor, on which visitors encounter the first terrace area, then continues a further 10 floors up, and is crowned by a large terrace. The terraced areas act as a pause in the building, for breakout meetings, informal gatherings and idea exchanges. The buildings are placed around a plaza where the entrance to the offices is found.

The city of Växjö has deep connections with the Swedish timber industry, therefore, the architects used natural, sustainable timber resources from the local area to reflect this. Its cedar-shingle façade tonally references the brick buildings in the vicinity, while the rounded corners of its tower soften its impression on the skyline. The proposal by Tengbom aims to create a flexible, progressive workplace that also maintains an active dialogue with the area in which it will be built.

The WeXo site rests at a diagonal crossing, connecting the surrounding areas of Arenastaden and Regementsstaden.

For more on this story, go to design boom.