Administrative buildings

     

Our office was awarded the assignment to design the administration building in conjunction with that for the neighbouring residential building.  Unlike the latter, this was conceived not as an elongated structure completing a block, but visualised as a floating, six-storey ‘solitaire’ in an ensemble adjacent to individual heterogeneous structures.  Its chosen location as a corner development is accentuated by a graduated glass façade.  The building is angled towards the road junction both diagonally and axially.  It creates a landmark within the urban space, and is aligned towards the city centre.  A pyramidal gradation of open-plan offices looks out onto the courtyard.  The offices are grouped before a hall with a glass-domed ceiling, which creates a vertical development node.  The façade was to be dressed in grey sandstone, with granite strips inset to provide structuring texture.