The Moscow complex is one of five major Schlumberger research centers successfully operating in the world. To implement this project, the company rented a three-story building on Mosfilmovskaya Street, and the project for the layout of the interior space and interiors was commissioned by the architect Sergey Estrin. “The main task set before us was to create such a creative space that would reflect the scientific activities of the company, its focus on advanced technologies and environmentally friendly solutions. We tried to take into account these wishes and made the interior functionally comfortable and extremely individual,”says the author of the project.
First of all, the architects had to separate functions across different levels of the building. A laboratory is located on the basement floor, public areas are grouped at ground level - a reception, a cafeteria, a conference room, the second and third floors are reserved for employees' offices.
Since the company focuses on the openness and humanism of its developments, it was decided to make the public areas of the first floor as transparent and free as possible. The architects managed to fully open this space for viewing by shifting the reception area to the right of the main entrance. The counter itself, semicircular in plan, is made to order from white Corian with inserts of blue glass (blue is the corporate color of Schlumberger) and is surrounded by a kind of screen made of multi-colored glass. This element not only brings a bright color accent to the laconic interior of the entrance area, but also separates the reception area from the cafeteria, which, in turn, is already dominated by bright colors.
The recreation area on the second floor is also very bright and non-standard. In addition to its direct function - a place of informal communication between company employees - it also performs an educational role. The compositional center of its interior is a semicircular wall with niches in which real core samples are placed - soil or rock extracted from the well during drilling.
“In an effort to emphasize the specificity of the research center, we did not completely close the communications under the ceiling,” says Sergey Estrin. - The ventilation boxes and ceiling structures were simply painted white, and under them somewhere they pulled fabric, and somewhere they made mirrored inserts. This made it possible to visually raise relatively low ceilings, add lightness to the interior and simplify access for maintenance of engineering systems. A touch of technocracy is also present in the interior of the large conference room, which is located opposite the cafeteria. Its walls are lined with convex Offecct acoustic panels, which outwardly resemble either giant dashboards with many buttons, or Lego elements.
The offices of employees on the second and third floors are located along the perimeter of the building's light front. And their design also emphasizes the transparency, democracy and communication of the scientific community. In particular, the walls between the offices are made of glass, and the core of the entire composition is the area of small meeting rooms and workplaces of students-trainees and temporary employees located in the center of the floor. Noteworthy is the zigzag glass partition, in which transparent panels alternate with cobalt blue. Visually, it is perceived as a screen separating the offices from the corridor. In addition, its ergonomic shape protects employees walking along the corridor from accidental collisions with the opening door.
