engineering

Maastoren

Maastoren is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Maastoren rather than just read about it. In short: The Maastoren (Dutch for Meuse Tower) is with its height of 165 metres (541 feet) the second tallest building in the Netherlands. The office building is situated on the bank of the Nieuwe Maas, after which the building is named, in the neighborhood Kop van Zuid in the South Holland city of Rotterdam.

Key takeaways

Maastoren belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Maastoren to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Maastoren from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Maastoren (Dutch for Meuse Tower) is with its height of 165 metres (541 feet) the second tallest building in the Netherlands. The office building is situated on the bank of the Nieuwe Maas, after which the building is named, in the neighborhood Kop van Zuid in the South Holland city of Rotterdam. The Maastoren was built between 2006 and 2009, and had OVG as its developer. The Maastoren has a total of 44 above ground floors and two underground floors. The Maastoren serves as the headquarters of the Dutch branch of Deloitte, and is used by the company AKD. In 2019, the State of the Netherlands leased an area of 7,000 m2 (75,347 sq ft). Around 1,600 employees of both companies work in the office building. The Maastoren has a total floor area of 69,000 m2 (742,710 sq ft), of which around 36,500 m2 (392,883 sq ft) is rentable office space. Also, the Maastoren features a parking garage with ten floors, which is operated by APCOA.

History

Prior to the construction When the Dutch branch of Deloitte wanted a new headquarters, it chose the current location of the Maastoren. Later, AKD stepped into the project as well. Both companies chose OVG as the developer of the new office building. Dam & Partners Architecten designed the Maastoren with Odile Decq Benoit Cornette. Also, engineering firm Zonneveld and the company Techniplan Adviseurs were involved in the developing process. Besix was the main contractor, and received €67 million for building the Maastoren. The municipality of Rotterdam agreed with the construction of the Maastoren, but in April 2006 the council called for a debate on the subject. At the end of May, alderman Hamit Karakus said to the council that the Maastoren would be built and that the municipality would listen to the objections. The council agreed with the construction in the following month. As a reaction, Vereniging Woon- en Leefklimaat Kop van Zuid/ Noordereiland (Dutch for Association Living Environment Kop van Zuid/Noordereiland) filed a lawsuit against the municipality of Rotterdam. The association aimed at preventing the Maastoren from being constructed, and was previously known as Comité Maastoren Nee! (Dutch for Committee Maastoren No!). 200 objections against a license had been filed, mostly because of the height of the Maastoren and the above ground parking garage. Some nearby residents also argued the office building would cause environmental and traffic problems, and complained about the lack of public eating facilities in the building.

Construction The process of making the site ready for construction started at the end of July 2006, but the preparations were shut down two weeks later on 3 September. On 21 September, the preparations were continued. The digging of the foundation started the following month. Part of the construction site was kept dry using sheet piles, because that part was situated in the river. In November 2006, all the remaining objections against the Maastoren were rejected by the general committee on objections of Rotterdam. The lawsuit against the construction, however, was still ongoing. On 25 April 2007, the groundbreaking took place. Ivo Opstelten, who was mayor of Rotterdam at that time, hammered the first pile into the ground. Back then, the opening of the Maastoren was planned in 2009. Meanwhile, the judge had given the verdict in the lawsuit of the association against Rotterdam, that was filed to stop the construction. The judge said the license was justified, and thus the municipality had won the lawsuit. On 27 May 2009, the Maastoren was topped out. At that time, all floors up to the twentieth floor were completely finished. To celebrate this occasion, alderman Hamit Karakus and CEO of OVG Coen van Oostram abseiled down the building to the 31st floor two days later. The construction was completed in November 2009. The developer, OVG, sold the Maastoren to the German company SEB Asset Management for €159.5 million the same year.

Opening and sale The Maastoren was put into use on 15 March 2010, and was officially opened two months later on 28 May. OVG, the developer, received a plaque from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The plaque states the Maastoren has a height of 164.75 metres (541 feet), and is the tallest building in the Netherlands. The plaque is displayed in the lobby of the Maastoren since the opening. During the opening, Ahmed Aboutaleb, the mayor of Rotterdam, received a copy of the book Maastoren about the building, which was published by the Rotterdam Skyscraper Foundation. In December 2014, the American real estate company NorthStar bought a portfolio, that consisted of eleven office buildings including the Maastoren, from SEB Asset Management. NorthStar paid €1.1 billion for the entire portfolio. In 2018, the Maastoren was acquired by an investment consortium led by FOM Real Estate from Heidelberg, Germany.

Architecture

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Maastoren

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Maastoren claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Maastoren before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Maastoren ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Maastoren

In research: Maastoren appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Maastoren in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Maastoren is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2009 establishments in the Netherlands, 21st-century architecture in the Netherlands, Buildings and structures completed in 2009, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Maastoren outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Maastoren in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Maastoren means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Maastoren out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Maastoren in simple terms?

Why does Maastoren matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Maastoren?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Maastoren.