Barely a year old and everyone knows it - the MOL Campus story

Everyone knows the MOL Campust. We see it every day, yet we don't know its full story: the secrets behind its construction, the unique solutions used by the contractors, and the most exciting details of the building. These were revealed to us by Péter Varga, managing director of MOL Campus; Zoltán Bakonyi, project manager of MOL Campus; Antal Fekete and Zoltán Tóth, lead architects at Finta és Társai Építész Stúdió, as well as András Wolf, deputy CEO of Market Építő Zrt., and Gergely Baumann, technical director of Market, at a public discussion held on 25 September.

The builder

The host of the evening, Gergely Ditróy, Business Development Director of Portfolio, first asked Péter Varga about the circumstances of the construction of MOL Campus, who told us that for eight years it was a topic that MOL needed a headquarters that could bring all employees together, thus significantly helping to make joint work more efficient. As he explained, MOL-csoport is a multinational company with a presence in more than 30 countries, a dynamic international workforce of 24,000 people and a history of more than 100 years.

MOL has recently launched a new strategy to become a major player in the circular economy of the Central and Eastern European region. This coincides with the idea of a new headquarters, which is a very important milestone: a symbol of the transformation, but also a priority to create the best possible working environment for employees.

Zoltán Bakonyi, the technical manager of MOL Campus, said in his presentation, "We are not a real estate development company, so we lacked the appropriate competences to carry out the project. Recognising this, six years ago MOL set up a group of professionals who could formulate our needs and expectations for the office building." Finally, an eighty-page specification was submitted to Finta and Partners Architects, who were responsible for the design, to outline the kind of building they wanted.

"I've seen many houses, but I've never seen systems on this scale," added Zoltán Bakonyi. The size of the task is also evident from the fact that the MOL originally had 8-10 people covering the different departments, which swelled to 35-40 by the end of the construction, and the specialists were mainly involved in the smart solutions department. 29 different low-voltage systems were developed, which not only had to be commissioned, but also had to be integrated into the complex system. And the work did not stop there: they are still working on refining the IT solutions. Zoltán Bakonyi also pointed out that "it soon became clear that in order to realise our vision, we needed to use most of the digital technologies available - something that has changed a lot in the construction industry over the last ten years. And it has been evolving ever since: the building is learning, but we are also getting more and more precise about what we need."

The designers

Antal Fekete and Zoltán Tóth Tóth, the leading architects of Finta and Partners Architecture, presented the concept of the building to the audience. As they explained, the Lágymányosi Bay and the Kopaszi Dam used to be the Danube embankment; where the MOL headquarters now stands, the Danube was still the dominant river during the Second World War. The area's recent history began with the park on the Kopaszi dam some 15 years ago, and around 2015-16 Property Market took over the remaining vacant land north of the power plant, for which the Danish company ADEPT has drawn up a development concept plan. The idea is to build office buildings next to busy roads and residential buildings in a protective ring around them. This plan already includes a 120-metre high building, and the regulatory plan has been approved by the authorities.

After it was decided that MOL would move into the largest office building planned, it launched an international invitation to tender, which was won by the London-based Foster + Partners star office. For all international projects, a local architect's office works on the design because they know the local regulatory environment well. This position was won by Finta Studio. There is an exchange process between the conceptual designer and the local office: the role of the original designer is reduced, while the role of the local office is strengthened as the project progresses.

A year-and-a-half-long process resulted in the final design, which responds to the two-faced, complicated site with a democratically organized building: the quiet park and waterfront on the dam side, and the three-track railway and 16-lane carriageway on the north side, were responded to by a conscious organization of functions.

The architects have tried to make the building more plastic for the audience by using the image of an apartment, where you can go from the ground floor as an entrance hall to the first floor, the living room. This is where employees arrive, meet each other and sit down in the dining room - a space that also offers a nice view of the bay. The upper floors are the living rooms, where the office spaces are located, and finally, at 120 metres, the roof terrace, which is also the highest accessible level of the building.

In the details, attendees were able to learn many behind-the-scenes secrets, such as the challenging process of designing the suspended ceiling, which involves years of work by several people, but also to see the outstanding security solutions and the shaping of the interior. In the process, interior design firm Kinzo (with their in-house partner Minusplus) brought colour and warm materials to the stark, technicist building that is typical of Foster's office.

The builder

András Wolf, deputy technical director of Market Építő Zrt., listed the challenges, as they needed 20,000 m² of footprint for the 8,000 m² building. "It was a big task to figure out how to run the site," he said. More than 10,000 workers turned over the site over the three years, with the peak being the final works, when 1,800 people worked on the site at any one time. "In addition," he pointed out, "the particular challenge of organisation was that, in addition to the workers, all the building materials and elements had to be transported up to the upper floors, up to 120 metres above ground."

No other base plate of such a height has been built in Hungary as the one under the MOL tower, but the five tower cranes supplied by the Belgian company included a 160-metre one. A German-Austrian company designed a crawlspace specifically for this building, which significantly accelerated the construction of the floors. "The first level was completed in 25 days, which scared us," notes the deputy general manager, but they soon managed to reduce the construction time per level to 9 days. On top of the finished reinforced concrete structure, a steel structure had to be built, the parameters of which are not particularly outstanding (a 23-metre high structure is relatively often built by a contractor), but this had to be assembled at a height of 120 metres.

"The façade was probably the biggest challenge in the construction of the building," says András Wolf. Although the headquarters was built to the design of Finta Studio, the fabrication and design of the façade was undertaken by Market, who worked with a Dutch team on more than 20,000 square metres of surface area, much of which is curved. The glass panels typically measure 1.35×3 metres, but the largest have reached up to 6 metres.

András Wolf mentioned two further interesting facts: 12,000 m² of terrazzo flooring was installed in the building, which is a fine example of the client's commitment to quality; Six-metre-tall trees were also planted in the plant islands, which were lifted into place during the final phase.

Unusual scale

After the details of the story, Péter Varga (MOL), Zoltán Bakonyi (MOL), Antal Fekete (Finta Studio) and Zoltán Tóth (Finta Studio), András Wolf and Gergely Baumann (Market) talked about the difficulties and the beauty of the work in a round table discussion. Below, we highlight some of the highlights from the panel discussion.

It was fortunate that a client willing to compromise, a design office with a cost-effective design and a problem-solving oriented generic designer met here, because the "design and build" was a last-minute project, and that is why they are all satisfied with the final result.

A number of seemingly minor details were a real challenge: the chilled-heating ceiling was tested two months before installation to see if it could meet the planned budget - to our surprise, it can do twice as much as needed. Despite this, it had to be installed over 26,000 square metres, more than anyone (of such a structure) had ever installed in a building before. The Dutch manufacturer has never produced such a volume, with 43 node types. In addition, most of the slabs are prestressed structures, with only a few centimetres of concrete cover over the steel structures, so fixing them was a particular difficulty.

Diverging views

Foster + Partners was responsible for the conceptual design, form and use of materials; Finta Studio for all other technical solutions. Of course, there were also professional disputes between them, as the design culture is different in a Western design firm than in this country - in the Western world, the designer only dreams up the form, the implementation is the responsibility of another engineering firm. If you look at the concept plan and the finished building, you see only minimal differences. This is a credit to the design and the domestic designers, but of course it is also due to the Foster firm's consistent and heavy-handed execution of its ideas. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that they stuck to a standard that ultimately elevated the work of all involved.

It is an important and truly remarkable achievement that, despite the unexpected difficulties of the global economy and the health sector, there was no significant movement on the original cost proposal. Tenders were invited first for the civil engineering works, then for the various building sections and the interior design elements, all of which were carried out in parallel, and the amount fixed in the draft was kept.

A lot depends on the subcontractors

At that time, the labour problem, which is still present today, was already a major problem, affecting costs, construction time and quality. In response to this, Market often worked in parallel with several companies on larger scale works, thus reducing their exposure, but it was also an important part of their business policy to work with old, proven partners wherever possible. They also used their own subsidiaries for structural, road, utility and electrical work, which gave them a high degree of security.

The most spectacular part of the building was the biggest challenge and unfortunately the biggest disappointment for the contractor, as their foreign façade partner found it much more difficult to cope with the difficulties of the world (e.g. COVID or the closure of the Suez Canal) than the domestic contractors. In a sterile world, the system of the Western company works much better than the domestic one, but Hungarian companies have proved to be much better at problem solving - although it is also true that there is still much to learn from the world's leading construction players.

Solutions can even be applied in education

The Market's commendable strategy started by mapping the market and opportunities before starting construction, and finding technological solutions that could meet the schedule and minimise the number of people needed. These included the use of crawlspace, the one-step pouring of the base slab, but of course they tried to organise everything from the earthworks to the façade construction so that they were not caught by surprise.

For such an outstanding project, you need exemplary cooperation from all participants. As we have learned, during the three years of construction, not a peep was uttered among those at the table, everyone took their job seriously and did their best to ensure that the building was completed to the quality expected by the client.

As many commented, it was impressive how well the different companies were able to work together on this project. Of course, the BIM helped them in this, but they also managed to maintain a good communication framework in human relations.

Finta Studio also felt it was important to note that they were very good suppliers to the contractor, in particular the door, glass wall and shading suppliers. Nevertheless, they encountered a number of problems during the design process, as they had to tweak the details endlessly in order to meet the expectations of the star architects, as well as their own expectations. They concluded by saying that we should be careful about using this house as a benchmark, because although it is nice to have a building of this pioneering design and high quality, it is good if one in 10,000 can be like this.

It starts after the construction period and will be in operation for up to 100 years.

All work rooms are also equipped for video conferencing - there are around 190 video conferencing devices in the building. Even though MOL moved into its new headquarters on 9 December last year, the project managers have not yet had time to sit back, as the smart solutions and other services are constantly being developed in response to feedback from colleagues.

The operational phase was an integral part of the design from the very beginning. From the very beginning, the factors that would make the building efficient and sustainable to operate were taken into account. The internal project team of MOL, which was involved in the construction from the very first decisions, is now responsible for the operation of the building - a very important thing, as they know the building inside out. In fact, operation is also a continuous improvement, because a house is never really finished, and no one can see that better than those who have been involved in its construction from the beginning.

The new Danube riverside district, the BudaPart part of the giant project handed over in December 2022 was also covered in our newspaper. The MOL Campus was built by the English company Market Építő Zrt., commissioned by MOL Ingatlankezelő Kft., and designed by Foster + Partners and Finta és Társai Építész Stúdió Kft.. rel="noopener">Market Építő Zrt. based on the designs of the English Foster + Partners and Finta és Társai Építész Stúdió Kft. design offices, in which MOL-csoport's 2,500 employees work simultaneously.