A Maritime Inspired Design

Ferring’s Landmark Headquarters by Foster + Partners

Along the waterfront at Kastrup Harbour, where Copenhagen meets the horizon of the Øresund, stands the new headquarters of Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Designed by Foster + Partners and completed in 2022, the 35-metre-tall building rises above a large plinth, placing it level with the sea and granting clear views toward Malmö, the city where Ferring was founded in the 1950s. With its sweeping form and maritime presence, the six-storey headquarters appears almost as a vessel poised to set sail toward the strait’s blue waters. Today, it serves as an exceptional workplace for over 700 employees.

Designing a Floor with a Story

When selecting materials for the interior, Ferring sought not just durability but a narrative – something that would connect their global identity with the building’s striking location and Denmark’s deep maritime heritage.

The choice became a contemporary interpretation of a traditional ship’s deck. Hørning supplied oak long-strip parquet with inlaid black rubber joints, a detail that references the historic “flådeegetræer,” the fleet oaks chosen for Danish naval ships in the early 1800s. The result is a floor rooted in craftsmanship and symbolism, elegantly bridging corporate modernity with seafaring tradition.

Crafted for a Landmark Workplace

The long-strip oak parquet, precisely detailed with rubber inlays, gives the interior a calm, linear rhythm that complements the building’s sculptural geometry. It provides both warmth and robustness, essential in a high-traffic environment designed for hundreds of daily users. The material expression echoes the building’s architectural concept: strong, confident and distinctly connected to place.

Ferring’s headquarters stands as a rare example of corporate architecture that not only meets contemporary demands for function and sustainability, but embeds history and identity into its very surfaces. As photographed by Nigel Young for Foster + Partners, the building captures a sense of purpose and movement, much like the science and innovation taking place inside it.

In this project, the floor does more than carry footsteps. It carries a story, one of craftsmanship, heritage and the enduring ability of wood to connect architecture with the world around it.