SAP BUILDING GALWAY
This project for SAP is located on the periphery of Galway.
It is near the local airport, within a business park, in a place that has appeared, idealess, on the landscape. What could be the new utilitarian interpretation of these constraints based on environmental principals and high quality architecture, without upsetting the cost and development model? That is the problem set up by SAP’s Galway building.
SAP Galway is a ‘contact centre’ for a German software company with 360 staff, located on a business park to the east of Galway, on an exposed site elevated from the surrounding landscape. Direct technical queries are received and dealt with on the telephone. The staff are from a variety of nationalities, dealing with technical queries from around the Western hemisphere according to time zones and languages. The typical building occupancy is from 7 am to 1 am (18 hours), with teams working in 3 shifts.
The building is a high density occupancy building with high ventilation demand and high cooling load. Free cooling using outside air is the only cooling source utilised. An atrium separates office floor-plates which are connected via bridge structures.
The project received an RIAI Award in 2005.
