The dense and horizontal form of the building follows the tradition of city-making in this area of Hamburg, where buildings of monumental scale give a clear definition to the wide spaces of the streets. Here, the new building makes a distinctive and wide face to the park, and appears as a monumental figure beside the river, the large structures of the Oberhafenbrücke, and the railway. Great attention has been given to the texture of the façade. Seen from a distance, the building has an almost monolithic quality, as if carved with a fine chisel from a huge block of stone.

The building provides a light, flexible and open office working environment, with an overall configuration that is compact and well connected. Within the deep form of the block, the plan is designed as a network of interconnected rings around three courtyards. The first courtyard on the park-side forms the entrance hall – a large and luminous atrium designed as a meeting and event space. Around the entrance hall on the ground floor, facing the river and the park, are tall social spaces: a staff canteen, a café, and restaurants.  At the top of the building is a large, landscaped roof terrace for the use of staff, with distant views over the city.

The building is close to the Kontorhaus district of Hamburg, an area famous for its 1930s brick expressionist buildings. The distinctive surface relief in the façades of these beautiful buildings gives them a fine scale of detail and an unusual textural consistency at the urban scale. The headquarters building has some of these qualities. The façades are vertically proportioned and made with green-glazed terracotta, with rounded and bunched profiles forming a rich surface relief. The depth of the masonry relief, with its almost mineral quality, gives the buildings its unique identity and underlines its relationship with the natural qualities of the Lohsepark.

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