Richard Meier’s giant white building in The Hague, which houses the City Hall and central library, has received a unique structural element. After concerns about the safety of the 42-metre-high bridges linking the wings from the second floor upwards, the city council approached Thomas Ferwagner, whose net inventors at Officium provided the solution. Together with the engineers from the company Carl Stahl (Süssen, Germany), Officium developed a mesh of stainless steel cables in square grids. The basic building grid was proportionally transposed to the cable system. Carl Stahl, specialist for stainless steel cables and nets, assembled the specially prepared cables on site to create the net. Each cable was put into exactly the right position, first vertically, then horizontally. A new type of connection technology was developed and implemented in Richard Meier’s building according to the strictest requirements for structure and support. In total, the technicians erected approximately 250,000 cable junction points. Not once on the entire 5000 sq. m. net, made of 70 km of stainless steel cable, was a right angle ignored.
