5Tracks

The three iconic, triangular monoliths Platform_A, Platform_B, and Platform_C define the urban edge along the railway. On the city side, the ensemble creates a solid urban front that integrates naturally with the adjacent Central Station and courthouse while aligning in height with its urban context. On the garden side, the buildings rise in a stepped rhythm, forming a varied backdrop that breaks the green heart of 5TRACKS into a series of ‘garden rooms’.
Each building is characterized by a distinct tone within one color family, featuring earthy tones of deep red, soft cream-white and green-grey. The concrete base façades and window frames follow a ton-sur-ton palette, allowing each structure to read as a cohesive sculpture. The façades feature a patches pattern, each with its own brickwork style, window size, and reveal depth. This approach gives the buildings a layered appearance, while still clearly belonging to one architectural family.

Each atrium features a full-sized mature tree, connecting it with the park outside, which is on the same level. The atrium acts as a social space and place to relax – ideal for coffee drinking, informal meetings and accidental encounters. It also provides interesting interior views for the three surrounding floors of office tenants. Industrial materials like brick and concrete, as used on the facades and in the same monochrome palette, make the atriums feel like part of the outside world.

5TRACKS enlivens the neighborhood by offering a combination of housing, offices, a hotel, and commercial amenities that activate both the street and garden sides. Platform_A includes a lobby with a bistro and terrace, as well as a conference center with a restaurant facing the garden. Platform_B and Platform_C offer approximately 15,700 m² of office space arranged around large atriums, topped by 168 apartments. These atriums, featuring tall glass façades towards the street and the garden, skylights, and the exterior materials continuing in the inner façades, function as ‘urban living rooms’. The shared inner courtyard serves as a welcoming public space for the city’s locals, seamlessly integrating 5TRACKS into the urban fabric. The design of both interior and exterior spaces encourages human interaction, thereby allowing communities to form.

The high-density, inner-city development is created with both technical and organizational principles: spatial flexibility and adaptability strategies, community-forming spaces, and a garden supporting biodiversity. Its open framework and strategically placed cores allow 5TRACKS to meet future needs as they evolve.

The use of recycled brick slips from FrontⓇ materials resulted in a 385,000 kg reduction of construction waste. The application of various brickwork patterns to the façade adds a ‘mid-scale’ layer of detail – each brick is fully used by cutting it into four thin slips, showcasing both the smooth exterior and the raw sawn side on the façade and resulting in a layered brick surface texture.