Ecca collection

Its pride in its products and individual approach to service is reflected in the sleek yet playful design of its recently completely new distribution centre. Sinuous steel walkways coloured in primary red and yellow skirt the largely angular external glass and sheet metal front elevation of the company’s office and showroom building.

A cup-shaped structure clad in shimmering fish scales of titanium zinc shingles sits within this front elevation. Housing several intimate meeting rooms, the shingles are attached to a wooden sub-structure. A vast wave-like canary-yellow roof, made from flat aluminium sandwich elements, sits - as if floating - above the entire structure on what appear to be almost too-thin, white columns, or pilotis.

The conceptual design of Quantore’s new 15,000 square-metre warehouse and adjoining 3,700 square-metre office and showroom was initiated by the Czech architect and artist Bořek Šípek. His plans for the building, while innovative, would have been prohibitively expensive to realise, and so construction and the eventual design, simplified considerably for financial reasons, was overseen by Haarlem-based architectural consultant and construction engineering firm Pieters Bouwtechniek.

The warehouse building comprises traditional steel cladding from Jack Muller, coil coated in a standard grey colour and set on to a steel frame. The steel cladding was chosen, says the client, as a high quality yet economical cladding solution.