Cooperation with X5 Retail Group, which owns, in particular, the Pyaterochka and Perekrestok brands, has become a fundamentally new experience for ADM Architects in the design of office complexes. Architect Andrei Romanov admits that for the first time in many years he came across such a detailed and thoughtful technical task, indicating that the customer has not only a sufficient amount of funds, but also a well-thought-out business ideology. The company, for which the phrases "social responsibility" and "environmental friendliness" are by no means an empty phrase, ordered a two-storey country office for the designers, in which the connection of the complex with the natural landscape would be preserved and a space on a human scale would be created. Separately, the terms of reference stipulated horizontal links between departments and an expanded social infrastructure: in particular, in addition to the canteen and coffee points, the complex was to include a kindergarten, fitness with a swimming pool and dry cleaning, and an underground parking lot to accommodate the cars of all employees.
While developing the concept of the building, ADM Architects strove to ensure that such "humanity" is reflected as fully as possible in its architectural appearance. The office they proposed consists of a grid of one- and two-story buildings that form courtyards. The grid does not have a rigid orthogonal character, it seems to be drawn with a free hand: the directions of the lines deviate slightly from right angles, giving the whole system mobility and picturesqueness. Some of the cells are occupied by a large volume of a conference room, and a shopping area adjoins the office part, where chain stores owned by the company will be located.
Each intersection of the buildings here is a kind of node in which meeting rooms, server rooms and archives are located, and around this or that department is formed. And since departments differ in size, from one to four blocks can adjoin one node, and, conversely, one department can grow to eight blocks and occupy two nodes. In the bulkhead buildings, in turn, there are workplaces: open space zones for employees and management offices. Separate areas are reserved for presentation spaces - the fact is that the company has a huge number of suppliers, and samples of their products must be demonstrated to potential customers.
All cases are planned to be made almost entirely transparent, and their thickness will not exceed 18-20 meters. Separate color accents in the architectural appearance of the complex will also be introduced with the help of glass in different, carefully selected shades. Andrei Romanov explains this simplicity of the solution by the fact that for the customer company this project is not an image project and the main emphasis is not on the brightness of the architectural appearance, but on the use of the simplest materials and high quality of construction.
The main luxury of this office will be the comfortable living environment created here, low-rise buildings on a human scale and a large number of green spaces. The arrangement of the volumes was thought out in such a way that in office premises and courtyards one could not hear the nearby Kiev highway. The site has a slight slope, and this elevation change made it possible to organize an entrance to the underground parking, thanks to which the entire ground area of the complex is freed from cars and turns into a pedestrian zone. In the landscaping project, the architects use a minimum of paving, the role of transitions from one department to another is played by wooden decks with benches, and the rest of the space is reserved for green lawns with trees and shrubs, creating the impression of a parkland. Taking into account the latter, the already mentioned parking was also designed: it repeats the grid of buildings and is located only under buildings, so planting trees will not be expensive.
“It is clear that it would be much easier and cheaper to build a couple of multi-storey buildings, but the company is ready to go for additional costs in order to obtain a non-standard, very comfortable living environment for its employees,” says Andrey Romanov. “And we, in turn, tried in our concept to express this aspiration of the customer as much as possible and to combine a tough technological approach, which any office requires, with a non-standard environmentally friendly space.”
