Photo: Relja Ivanić In addition to the revived "grand" automobile industry, FIAT, for which the city was known for decades, Kragujevac is increasingly becoming home to successful medium and small manufacturing companies.
Architectural spatial features and the character of those business buildings are always organically linked to the features of the company for which the space is intended. The internal and external performance of a company is defined by values that architects should articulate in spatial form.
The project request made it possible to shape the project following the vision and business sensibility of the company that has nurtured the entrepreneurial spirit of this city for almost 100 years. The facility was primarily designed to meet the needs of moving the business-administrative part of the company from the old location and to provide adequate space for product presentation.
The building is located within the business-industrial zone of Kragujevac. There is no direct reliance on some established forms and values in the environment, but the configuration of the terrain had a significant influence on the way the building was placed and how the main entrance, through which visitors have their first contact with the building, was designed. The initiated terrain configuration made it possible to perceive the first floor of the building as the ground floor on the side where the official entrance was planned. To highlight the difference in levels even more dramatically, a decision was made to highlight it additionally with a pedestrian bridge, which enabled visitors to experience the surprise of crossing the bridge that the building is not one-story.
View from above on the object - a pure geometric form of use in the design of space / Photo: Relja Ivanić
Pure geometric forms and principles, such as squares, circles, symmetry, rhythm, order, and proportion, are the reference systems within which the basic properties of the object are treated: function, construction, and finishing.
The management disposition below the sale and the visual and user surprises during the approach and movement through the facility were used as basic design principles. Directional, linear movement through space alternates with free movement on an open surface. Offices and service rooms communicate directly with the plateau, which is due to the previously mentioned disposition of the building on clearly uneven ground.
The glass facade of the exhibition part of the building was intended to communicate in the most direct way what is produced within this complex. To architecturally solve the problem of direct sunlight, a 2.5 m larmier was designed.
The idea of a circular atrium with a staircase is a direct connection to the symbol of the sun, also the name of the company. This shape can be seen in the interior of the building and is a surprise within the rather simply shaped square concept. This way, the use of this elemental form was not trivialized and enabled gathering functions to be concentrated around that circle.
A semicircular staircase with a relief wall in the background / Photo: Relja Ivanić
The functions of the object continue further on and present addition to the previously mentioned composition of different types of movement. The first physical contact of the visitor with the object is over the bridge that is connected to the plateau with organized parking for visitors, which directs the movement to the exhibition hall, whose base is square and within which the movement is undirected and free. The existence of the lower floor can only be seen by crossing the bridge. The facade of the salon is made of glass with the idea of directly communicating the company's activities. The exhibition hall is free without fixed partitions, to enable the loose organization of samples and their presentation. The administrative part of the building is located on the ground floor and is connected to the showroom via a staircase, within the new geometric shape in the space, a circle that unambiguously symbolizes the company's name. The circle on the ground floor becomes a gathering place around the olive tree. All offices are placed centripetal without hierarchical order.
The materials used in the interior are simple and unobtrusive in terms of color and texture. The terrazzo floor of the exhibition part of the building, visible steel elements painted white to disintegrate in the space and play a role in the transparency of the ground floor, cassette suspended ceiling with tin filling in the color RAL 9006, which is also the color of the roof, a circular wall made with a thick layer of specially hand-processed plaster, especially with a serrated tool, achieve a particularly tactile feeling. The central motif - the olive tree is planted directly in the ground by deliberately excluding a part of the base plate in that area. The lighting is a combination of classic industrial within the coffered ceiling, with special emphasis on the circular part of the building in the form of linear round lamps with a diameter of almost 5m in the atrium part, along with delicate point lighting of the circular corridor in the administrative part of the building.
The bridge that connects the exhibition floor of the building with the parking lot and from which the business floor at -1 level can be seen for the first time / Photo: Relja Ivanić
The business facility we present is a design response to external inputs and forces from the client's needs, all the way to the terrain configuration. On those grounds, an unobtrusive office building was obtained, which is partly transparent and partly an intimate workspace.
The growth of small and medium-sized companies almost always leads to the need for new business premises.
Pure geometric forms and principles, such as square, circle, symmetry, rhythm, order, and proportion are the reference system within which the basic properties of the object are treated: function, construction, and finishing.
The materials used in the interior are simple and unobtrusive in terms of color and texture.
AUTHORS: Marija and Petar Simović
PHOTO: Relja Ivanić
