cepezed transforms the rijswijk shell campus

Kadans Science Partner has acquired the former Shell R&D campus Kessler Park in Rijswijk and together with cepezed, it is renewing the area into a lively and livable part of town with mixed functions. The architectural office and the facilitator of knowledge-intensive organizations and companies jointly compiled a plan that excited both Shell and the municipality as well the province. “The Kadans plan best matches the vision and frameworks indicated by the covenant partners and offers the right experience in exploiting such locations”, said president-director Marja van Loon of Shell, that has more than 50 years of research history at the park and wants to end this properly.

The campus hosts more than 63.000 m² of lettable floor space for offices and business premises. In the new plans, approximately half of this is intended for start-ups, mature businesses and knowledge institutions. With shared functions such as a restaurant and meeting rooms, various buildings will be made suitable as a multi-company building. TNO has already established an innovation center for energy and sustainability on the campus; this perfectly matches the vision focused on innovation and knowledge sharing. Additionally, a part of the existing office buildings will be transformed into, mainly, various types of housing.

The Shell campus offers many opportunities for future developments. The area is conveniently located next to Rijswijk station and on the knowledge-intensive axis The Hague-Delft-Rotterdam. The area also includes a large, two-layer parking garage. The buildings are also part of a strong urban structure and a substantial architectural quality with a high level of finishing and an excellent state of maintenance.

The transformation will proceed in different phases. The first of these is aimed at connecting the campus with the city. Therefore, the hidden inner gardens will be made accessible and new routes through the area will be laid out. For Kadans, cepezed is currently also designing The Accelerator research building at the Utrecht Science Park and a new multitenant R&D building at the Leiden Bio Science Park.