“EUROKOMMERZ” Workspace Company / Single Solution

Architects: Single Solution / Artem Slizunov, Vladimir Kuzmin
Location: Moscow, Russia
Project area: 3,200 sqm
Project year: 2007 – 2008
Photographs: Artem Slizunov, Vladimir Kuzmin

The office of the company “EUROKOMMERZ” in one of the historical buildings on the territory of a former Moscow Cotton-Printing Factory, located on Derbenevskaya Nab.

This office space measures 137 metres in length, 24 metres in width and more than 4 metres in height, and is divided into two sections by a partition. The walls are made of brick. Parallel to the long side on three axes, there are cast-iron columns acting as vertical supports. Built in the mid-19th century.

The main architectural solution is the metal construction of the pedestrian entresol with an adjoining ramp and staircases. The overall length of the assembled construction is 102 metres.

Because the design, planning and installation of the project had to be done to a tight time schedule, maximum use was made of modern design technology and of the laser processing of sheet material (sheet steel, COR-TEN, MDF panels, oak veneer sheets) and of the profile bending of sheet material (metal).

Turning, milling, polishing work was used only in especially important places which are subject to maximum pressure (the stanchions of the entresol and of the ramp, the transition hubs, the elements connecting the modules of the entresol and so on). All welding work was carried out in special frames to guarantee the maximum accuracy and avoid the thermal deformation of the modules.

All the fasteners (with the exception of the handrail in the entresol) are concealed. At all the joins of the entresol modules – the zones of the stanchions, a thermo-dampening layer of caoutchouc has been used to compensate for expansion of the construction of the entresol during temperature changes. The metal surfaces are corroded (rusty) steel and have a chemically created patina, fully imitating the existing cast-iron columns.