The new headquarters for
Booking.com houses 6,500 employees from more than 100 nationalities
No kitchen? No problem T
he striking new headquarters of online travel agency
Booking.com, in the Dutch city of Amsterdam, brought the unique challenge of catering
daily for thousands of staff without any kitchens at all on-site. With 6,500 employees and more than
100 different nationalities, the catering needs of the building were a key part of the company’s office plan. Te international headquarters of the
travel group, which books 287 million room nights per year, total 65,000 square meters of office space in the heart of the city, overlooking the water and Central Station. Tere are restaurants, coffee bars and dining sites located throughout the building, which was one of ten buildings worldwide to be awarded a MIPIM award for vision and sustainability, but the company wanted to minimize the space used for the cooking or preparation of meals. Ruben Alosery FCSI Emeritus, received a tender in October 2018 to work on the catering side of the project, with particular instructions for a streamlined catering concept that paid attention to the ecological, economic and social impact.
A crucial detail was that, with no
preparation kitchens or food warehouses, all food products were to be delivered fresh as ‘ready-to-use’ or refrigerated as a semi- finished product.
HUGE IMPACT ON THE UNKNOWN
“Challenge number one was the biggest; developing three restaurants with different food concepts for 3,000 to 4,900 lunch guests from more than 100 different nationalities and all this without kitchens,” says Alosery. “Te reason for no kitchens is that it is
not part of Booking’s core business, it ‘costs’ a lot of expensive square meters of office building,” Alosery says. “Tis has a huge impact on the
‘unknown’ during the design,” he adds. “Tis has never been done or made on such a large scale in a professional catering company in the Netherlands.” Te lack of kitchens meant that
designing a catering plan for the company centered around heating, regeneration and front cooking, said Alosery, plus accompanying dishwashing facilities. Te company also wanted all its
catering sites to come without cash registers,
with food and beverages free for staff. Opening in 2023, the headquarters have
three main sites for staff dining, including a restaurant for 1,500 lunch diners on the second floor, plus a cafe with takeaway food. On the fifth floor is a 750-seat restaurant and another coffee bar; while the ninth floor has a restaurant for hot food serving 750 lunch guests, with a drinks bar that could accommodate another 500 people.
SETTING SUSTAINABLE STANDARDS
Te building was designed to environmental BREAAM standard ‘Excellent’, with sustainable materials and 832 solar panels on the roof, plus technology to store and recover both hot and cold air beneath the ground during both the summer and the winter. All catering facilities and electrical
and mechanical installations paid “special attention to the air and refrigeration technology aligned with BREEAM- Excellent,” says Alosery.
Booking.com also partnered with
Refugee Company for a 1,500 square meter open restaurant on the ground floor called A Beautiful Mess, helping people with refugee backgrounds to be involved in work.
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