The MOL Campus, Budapest’s 1st True Skyscraper, Inaugurated
The MOL Campus, next to the Kopaszi Dam, on the day of the inauguration.
Photo by MTI/Zoltán Balogh
The MOL Campus, where around 2,500 employees will work, has been inaugurated. The 143-meter building will open its doors to the public next spring, with visitors able to go up to the 29th-floor observation deck. The building was designed by Foster and Partners of London and the Finta Studio of Hungary.
The building, the first true skyscraper in the Hungarian capital, is located in one of Budapest’s most dynamically developing areas, BudaPark. MOL aims to make its 28-story HQ one of the country’s landmarks, so in addition to the observation deck, the building also features a visitor center, two restaurants and a Fresh Corner.
The contemporary architecture of the office seems set to make it a dominant landmark in Budapest. Its uniqueness is also evident in the choice of location: the Buda area, surrounded by the Danube and an artificial bay, is, along with the Váci Corridor on the Pest side of the river, the most flourishing office district in the Hungarian capital.
MOL’s staff have, up to now, been working at nine different locations in the capital. The new headquarters aims to give them a harmonious working environment and to ensure efficient workflows in line with MOL’s strategy.
The interior design primarily focused on creating a modern, sustainable workplace that supports collaboration. The offices follow the ABW (Activity-Based Workplace) model, which means that each employee can choose his or her own working environment, depending on the task at hand, and can change it flexibly at any time. In the tower section, triple units, called triplets, house the various departments.
The view from one of the MOL Campus meeting rooms
Trust in the Future
“This is a building of the future. A walnut tree is planted, a house is built by those who trust in the future. He who trusts that not only he but also his descendants will enjoy these assets for generations to come,” Zsolt Hernádi, CEO of MOL Group, said at the official inauguration ceremony on December 8.
“MOL decided to build a new, privately owned headquarters in 2016 because we believe and trust in the future. We built this building, not for ourselves, but for the future, for future generations and future workers,” he explained.
“We want them to own it and carry on MOL’s success for decades to come. Everything in this building is about the employees, from the lovable community spaces to the collaborative working environment and sustainable solutions,” Hernádi added.
The company says that the MOL Campus is one of the greenest office buildings in Budapest and represents the highest level of energy efficiency and environmental awareness. MOL’s ambition is for the new headquarters to receive “Excellent” and “Platinum” certifications from the international third-party assessment schemes Breeam and Leed.
Thanks to innovative solutions such as its 900 sqm of solar panels, geothermal cooling and heating system, and greywater recycling, the MOL Campus meets the highest sustainability standards.
MOL Campus in Numbers
143 meters high (247 meters above sea level) • 28 stories • 9th tallest building in Central Europe • 86,000 sqm net floor area, equivalent to 12 football pitches • 900 sqm of solar panels • 86% of workstations receive natural light • 2,500 employees moving in from 9 locations in Budapest
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of December 16, 2022.
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