Task Management for New NATO Headquarters

The Project

The new NATO headquarters began construction in 2010 and was completed in 2016. The site spans 250,000 m2 and staffs approx. 3,800 in Belgium.

The previous headquarters were built in 1967, so the new headquarters were designed to provide the necessary space and modern facilities for NATO's main task, namely communication between the member states and the rest of the world.

The design for the new headquarters included around 190,000 m2 of office space, conference rooms and private areas, and offers the delegates of the member states their own areas which are fitted out to embassy standard. Additional joint areas for communication were also included.

After numerous analyses and feasibility studies, the structural, technical and security-specific requirements of the new building were defined, and an architectural competition was held in 2003. The winning design, by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) and ASSAR, was put through another in-depth analysis, and implementation planning was completed at the end of 2008.

Challenges

Such a highly complex project required stringent and robust management structures. Several internal committees and project teams, both international and from the host country Belgium, coordinated the new building.

Solutions

They were then supported by numerous external specialists, as well as an international planning team consisting of a consortium made up of SOM and the Belgian companies ASSAR and VK Engineering. In order to manage all the different teams, a separate planning building was set up for the architects and engineers on land belonging to the Belgian Ministry of Defence.

After a tender process, thinkproject was selected as the platform to support coordinators and project partners in their tasks.

Those responsible for the project decided to set up an internal solution requiring local hosting. The IT infrastructure needed to run the software and store data. This was then operated in a Belgian Ministry of Defence computer centre and is subject to the strictest security standards.

The Client

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is a military alliance between several American and European countries.