The 59th floor differs from other levels in that, in addition to six comfortable office blocks, there is also a group of representative premises. The latter included several spacious halls and occupied one of the corners of the tower. The main space is devoted to the multifunctional hall of the supervisory board, next to which there is a large dining room and a waiting room for bank guests. For each of these zones, SPEECH Choban & Kuznetsov has found its own palette of interior solutions.
The supervisory board room can be used in two modes: for meetings and for conferences. In the first case, a large rectangular table for 22 people and equipped with all the necessary audio and video support is used normally, and in the second, when most of the hall adjacent to the glass facade is converted into an auditorium, it is transformed. Half of the table top is lowered vertically, and the table itself turns into a presidium desk, oriented towards the audience. In order to accentuate the table area in both modes of use, the walls and ceiling around it are trimmed with wood panels, forming a kind of shell or capsule with rounded corners, as if installed inside the hall. The lamps create a special effect, like parallel ribbons cutting through the wooden cladding of the capsule. The final touch of the presentation was a glass panel depicting a bright blue sky, white clouds and the VTB logo, which adorns the back wall of the hall. It is made of four panels of anti-reflective glass, behind which are hidden monitors, visible only when switched on.
The room adjacent to the council hall can also be used in several ways: as a waiting area before the start of meetings and as a ceremonial dining room for council members. Its main decoration is two art objects competing for the right to be considered the dominant of the interior: a sculptural volume, reminiscent of a frozen column of liquid metal (it camouflages a banal column), and an original chandelier with a hundred glass balls that look like drops of water that never fell to the surface. table. In the manufacture of the metal shell of the column, a unique alloy of white bronze was used, with which only one Italian factory works. The two halves of the shell were cast in the original plaster cast and then welded and polished in place. This art object adds the necessary degree of drama to the interior of the dining room and at the same time relieves the atmosphere, as it works like a distorting mirror.
The lamp in the form of a glass rain was developed in tandem with the table and represents a single composition with it, for the creation of which it was even necessary to modify the structures of the suspended ceiling. Glass balls suspended on thin metal rods hang from a narrow slot with curved edges (plaster molds are installed in the ceiling), which form a "wave" that descends to the center of the table and rises to its edges. It uses fiber optic technology as a light source, providing an even distribution of light and a lightweight and vaping effect of the entire structure.
The rest of the floor, including the corridors and offices, is done just as effectively, albeit more pragmatically. The functional and typological differences of the new floor are reflected in its design. The basic principle - the use of a contrasting combination of wood and glass walls - has been preserved, but it is interpreted in a completely different way. Most of the walls here are lined with panels of bleached oak (only the reception areas are separated from the corridors by transparent glass partitions, into which door portals made of dark wood are embedded), the texture and color of which are emphasized by an energetic lighting design and a more radical color scheme of the ceiling (black perforated grillato). Despite such respectable and, in a good sense of the word, traditional materials, the office is somewhat reminiscent of frames from science fiction films - primarily due to the lamps installed in the walls and ceiling. The location and width of each plafond is determined by a grid of parallel lines superimposed on the floor plan: ceiling structures and corridor walls, enveloping the central staircase and elevator node, it crosses at different angles, due to which the wall planes and accent elements (lines on the carpet, ceiling panels and lamps) exist in different spatial systems. This creates an unusual optical effect of a transforming space, which is greatly enhanced by reflections in glass partitions.
The luminaires built into the wood paneling have become an integral part of the original wall cladding construction. The significant length of the corridors required the development of a solution that is both aesthetic, technological and economical. Instead of the horizontal installation of bleached oak panels, which required special care in the joints and was used on the lower floors, it was decided to install vertically panels from the floor to the suspended ceiling. A special mount was developed that easily holds the panels under their own weight: each of them has a relief rounding at the edges and is mounted overlapping with the adjacent one, which, together with the luminous inserts, creates an interesting plastic play along the entire length of the corridor.
The most important role in interior design is played by the unconventional solution of ceilings. Here, a grilyato suspended metal system with filling with black mesh cassettes is used. Usually, such brutal designs are used in public spaces of a democratic class, but in this case, their use is not motivated by considerations of economy. Installed here, Hunter Douglas panels have a small mesh and additional perforation of the planks, which creates a monolithic structural surface. Behind them are hidden ventilation ducts painted in black, electrical wiring and other technical devices necessary to maintain a comfortable microclimate in the office. They are practically invisible through the ceiling panels, but the permeable surface creates an interesting visual effect - the ceiling seems to be much higher than it really is.
