Text description provided by the architects. The client’s wish was to move their rather big company, which had been occupying several offices in the downtown, into a single building in one of the city’s green outskirts. The plot for the new office building is located in Olgino, a low-density residential suburb of St. Petersburg with small two- or three-storeyed houses all around.
The narrow flat site has its southern short side for a street frontage and is clearly visible from a railway line behind the street and a busy motorway behind the railway. The necessary offsets and height restrictions form the three-storeyed oblong volume of the building. Twelve rigid frames of engineered wood (12 by 12 meters each) compose its structural skeleton. The long lateral walls are clad with brick. The frontal facade is entirely glazed and in the evening it resembles a large showcase, which attracts an immediate attention to the building in the street panorama.
The 3,6 meters spacing of structural frames allows a flexible approach to layout. The southernmost unit is left empty to form a loggia. The main entrance is marked by a large vertical opening. All MEP ducts and pipes are part of the interior. All partitions are of glass except for small technical and service rooms.
