The competition for the best solutions of Russian and foreign architects in the field of business space design was held for the third time. This year more than 100 objects took part in it. The jury consisted of renowned architects, journalists, critics, developers, suppliers and manufacturers of building materials and office furniture. The jury members voted for the projects, the decision was made by summing the votes. The priority of the chairman of the jury, president of the Union of Architects of Russia, Andrei Bokov, was that the weight of his vote was doubled.
Opening the ceremony, Sergey Konnov (Managing Partner of OfficeNEXT & ProjectNEXT) said that this year the competition has become international - projects from Ukraine, Georgia and Lithuania participated in it. It should be noted that international contacts were not easy for the organizers: in particular, it turned out that Russia had no diplomatic relations in Georgia, and it was very difficult to invite Niko Japaridze, the winner of the prize in the Foreign Interior nomination, to the ceremony. However, the organizers coped with this. In addition, the award received a new nomination: "Design Idea", and starting in 2012, the organizers of OfficeNext decided to publish a new magazine - "Office Trend Book", dedicated to office furniture, management and designed to support brands participating in the forum.
The Best Office Awards are a rare occasion when not only designers, but also customers are awarded. And the general contractor and the management company also receive the Grand Prix. It was pleasant to watch how energetic and smart business people - customers - took up the microphone during the ceremony and spoke heartfelt grateful speeches to the architects. Conversely, the architects were very positive about their clients. When the general contractors also recognized that the architects are doing an important job, and the builders only help them to realize their plans (and not vice versa, as many of them believe), it became clear that it was a very wise and constructive decision to bring all the co-authors on one stage.
The commendable festive unity of customers and architects reached its apotheosis at the moment when the award winners in the Design Idea nomination, architects Dmitry Ovcharov and Boris Voskoboinikov, took the stage and received an award for the new interior of their own bureau. Two architects joined the stage together, one of them played the role of the customer, the other - the executor; to the approving laughter of the audience, they praised each other and received their awards.
The SPEECH bureau Choban Kuznetsov received the Grand Prix this year for the interior of the VIP-zone of the VTB office in the Federation Tower. This same interior received the second prize, in the nomination Chief's office. We must say right away that the members of the jury, according to the rules of the award, cannot vote for their own projects; in this way, fairness is respected, and at the same time, the organizers do not have to exclude either interesting projects or architects from the jury.
Sergei Tchoban shared his impressions of the competition with Archi.ru: “What you involuntarily pay attention to is the quality of the photos. There were several interesting works, which were let down by the quality of the project presentation. Spectacular photographs are very important for the perception of the interior. So all future participants in the competition can be advised to invite good photographers, of whom, by the way, we have few.
I have a lot of experience working with German interior architects in Germany and I can say that the level of projects there is much lower. There are many good architects in Russia who work with interiors, their level is objectively high. There are many bright, non-trivial ideas and high quality - it is clear that customers are investing good money in office space. I really liked the interior of Anton Mosin, voting, I marked him in several nominations, including the Grand Prix.
This is a good prestigious competition, and we are proud that we managed to take something, given such high competition. This is how it differs from architectural competitions, in which the number of works that you pay attention to is just a few. However, this is natural - the interior is easier to implement”.
The opinion of another member of the jury, editor-in-chief of Project Russia magazine Alexei Muratov, regarding the projects largely coincided with the position of Sergei Tchoban: “We must pay tribute to the organizers - they were very humane and offered to evaluate projects on a three-point scale. So it was not difficult to choose between one and three. Honestly, last year I liked the work more, there were brighter projects, and this year there are fewer good works. I liked Mosin's office, Choban's work and the very nice Aeroexpress office of the Arch group workshop. Usually Yandex shows a consistently high level - they work with the same architects Za bor. They are building in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Kiev and the level is even, regardless of location.
In the past year, there was a trend towards domestication of office space, it was more humanistic. And this year, something persists, but not as a pronounced trend. In my opinion, there is no pronounced trend at all, rather it is a situation when very famous architects design offices and retain their style, quality and language in them. Therefore, good work is obtained. So now the level is high, but no revelations."
The work of the Arch group workshop, the Aeroexpress office, highly praised by Alexei Muratov, participated in several nominations and received nothing, possibly because of the bad photos, which is a shame. But it can be viewed here and on the officenext.ru website.
Below we publish all the winning projects:
The project, which received two prizes at once: Grand Prix and an award in the nomination Executive office - VIP-zone of the VTB office in the Federation Tower (SPEECH bureau Choban Kuznetsov):
The "Audience Choice Award" nomination (which is chosen by voting of all comers on the Internet) presented the organizers with a surprise: by a large margin, a large number of votes in the Internet voting were won by two projects at once. Curiously, they embody two opposing approaches to office space design. In one case, this is a pure business interior. In another, an interior with exposed brickwork during the reconstruction process can serve as a backdrop for both an office and public and even living space: it all depends on the content and furnishings. Two Audience Prizes were awarded to:
ABD architects bureau for TNK-BP office.
Line Architects office for KARL STORZ Endoskopy-Vostok office.
Below are the jury's favorites for the remaining 10 nominations.
Nomination Space Organization:
EF English First office - KAD design architectural bureau.
Nomination Brand and Image:
Harley-Davidson Dealership Office® in Russia and the CIS -
architectural bureau "Form group"
Nomination Comfort and Economy:
Office for the administrative group of the company "VKontakte" -
architectural bureau Gullstén-Inkinen Design & Architecture
Nomination Lighting Design:
Xenon Capital Partners - MOSSINEPARTNERS architectural bureau
Design Idea nomination:
Own office of the architectural bureau NEFAresearch - NEFAresearch
Nomination Business Space in Public Interior:
Hotel W St. Petersburg - interior design by Antonio Citterio, Patricia Viel and partners
Nominated atrtium business center:
German Center for Industry and Trade Moscow - Sergey Estrin Architectural Workshop
Nomination Foreign interior:
Office of the National Olympic Committee of Georgia (Tbilisi) - Architects of Invention Ltd
Based on the results of the NEXT Rating (business activity indicator) nomination, the prize was awarded to NAYADA, which became the N1 supplier in the Office partitions segment in terms of the number of completed projects presented for the award.
