Architecture News Plus (ANP) – Architecture and Design Magazine

Dutch Embassy in Ethiopia

This is a project by de architectengroep Rijnboutt Ruijssenaars Hendriks van Gameren Mastenbroek and it is located at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Project's program: Embassy building housing the Ambassador's residence, embassy offices, Deputy Ambassador's residence and three staff houses. There are seventeen images for Dutch Embassy in Ethiopia.

: © Christian Richters

Project details

Project name: Dutch Embassy in Ethiopia
Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Program: Embassy building housing the Ambassador's residence, embassy offices, Deputy Ambassador's residence and three staff houses
Year: Completion: 2005
Client: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Project by: de architectengroep Rijnboutt Ruijssenaars Hendriks van Gameren Mastenbroek
Team: Principal Designers: Bjarne Mastenbroek, Dick Van Gameren • Design Team: Lada Hrsak, Wilmar Groenendijk, Jack Hoogeboom, Jeroen van Mechelen, Matteo Fosso, Miguel Loos, Michael Davis

Project images

Designer's statement

The compound of the Dutch Embassy consists of a five-hectare wooded area that slopes steeply towards the city. The design task was to situate the five individual buildings in the compound while retaining and enhancing the quality of the site's landscape. The strict horizontal volume of the main building cuts into the hill with the sloping terrain naturally dividing the building into two programmatic units; the ambassador’s residence and the chancellery.

The Embassy roof is a shallow pool, an element that combines Dutch tradition in water management and landscape technology, with the natural craggy countryside of Ethiopia. As in the Netherlands everyone lives and works under water. The building is visible at both ends and as the landscape slopes gradually upwards it disappears temporarily, transforming into a pool among the eucalyptus trees.

The other elements of the programme are articulated in a similarly ‘camouflaged’ way; the gatehouse peeks above the entrance wall, wrapped in the colours of the Dutch flag, the extension to the house of the deputy ambassador is slid underneath an existing villa and the three staff houses are built between the north double-wall of the compound.