The symbolic red ribbon was cut by the founder of the company Evgeny Kaspersky and the head of the ABD architects bureau Boris Levyant. A tour of the new office for the guests of the evening was conducted by architects - the authors of the project Peter Fidelman, Natalya Seroglazova, Kira Konovalova - and the Director of the Interior Department of ABD architects Denis Kuvshinnikov.
The new office of the company is located in two five-storey buildings of the Olympia Park business center on the Leningradskoe highway. Its area is almost 30,000 square meters, which is several times larger than the footage of the previous home of Kaspersky Lab. The division into two buildings turned out to be very beneficial for the company: one building was completely occupied by technical specialists, developers and programmers, the other was occupied by marketing, sales and finance services. At the moment, the office employs 1,600 people, but the project was developed taking into account the possibility of accommodating 2,000 workplaces - Kaspersky Lab does not plan to stop there.
As Denis Kuvshinnikov said, the authors of the project, when developing the concept of the interior of the new office, defined their main task as “making non-Google”. In other words, the main emphasis was on the laconicism and functionality of all zones.
The first and fifth floors of each of the buildings are individual in planning, and for the rest, a typical open-space project with an area of 2700 sq. M. Was developed. The core of utilities is located in the center of each floor, and workplaces have been moved closer to the windows. This layout allows not only to fill them with daylight as much as possible, but also gives employees the opportunity to communicate with each other, which they were deprived of in the previous "corridor-type" office.
There are more than a hundred meeting rooms that Kaspersky Lab lacked before. But there are only 8 separate offices in the new office per floor, and their walls are made of completely transparent glass partitions, and in the absence of the head, employees can also use these premises as meeting rooms. But on each floor there is a large coffee point (patio) overlooking the river and relaxation areas with exercise equipment and board games, and on the first floor there is also a large gym with its own fitness trainer, a multifunctional hall suitable for both yoga and for rehearsals of musical groups, and even a sauna, designed by order of Eugene Kaspersky himself.
The heart of the building - both in terms of location and purpose - has become a virus laboratory, where the emergence of new computer "pests" is monitored every minute. Visually, this space is accentuated by higher ceilings and specially designed false walls, where ventilation is integrated. The air is transferred through a specially calculated number of micro holes in the decorative metal panels. Virlab's employees work at a large round table, above which additional monitors are located in a special suspended structure.
A little later, it is planned to complete the finishing of the second strategically important object - the museum of "Kaspersky Lab". “This is one of the most complex premises in the entire complex, for which we have developed unique structures weighing several tons,” Denis Kuvshinnikov told Archi.ru. Space with a total area of about 60 sq.m. will be equipped with twelve metal boxes that protrude from the walls and serve as a kind of showcases for placing various art objects and installations. Each box also has built-in digital screens to demonstrate the corporation's interactive capabilities. The museum is planned to be used for storing various artifacts of the company and presenting new products.
When designing the office, architects and engineers paid special attention to energy saving issues. For example, panoramic windows with a total area of over 10,000 sq. M. They not only offer scenic river views, but also maximize the use of natural light, and an intelligent lighting system helps to reduce energy consumption. A similar situation with water - in each bathroom there are sensors for controlling light and water supply. There are no plans to certify the project for LEED and BREAM, although the office meets all environmental requirements. As Evgeny Kaspersky himself admitted at the opening, the most important thing for him is that the new headquarters of the Laboratory is not only a “green”, spectacular and fashionable facility, but also a truly motivating workspace for employees, because their productivity after the move has increased significantly!
As a housewarming gift, ABD architects presented Kaspersky Lab with a portrait of its founder made of computer components. Now the architectural bureau faces a new task - to develop a brand book for a uniform design of all subsequent offices of Kaspersky Lab around the world.
