Our Moscow Office project represents an exciting approach to the creation of a new kind of office space. Project Orange were asked to design a complete scheme, including the landscaping, façades and interiors. The challenge was to create an architecture based around the reused structure of a 20,000 sqm former manufacturing building that has clarity, is simple to construct and is relevant.

By forming large atria and providing ample communal spaces, a previously harsh environment becomes an incubator for small to medium sized businesses. The building expresses its industrial heritage, bringing together the past and present. From the outside, continuous ground floor glazing permits glimpses of brightly painted pieces of the old steel structure. At night it glows allowing the brick box of the upper three floors to 'hover' off the ground, punctured by a syncopated rhythm of windows. Illuminated signage adds life to the monolithic form of the building, which is set within contemporary landscaping dotted with indigenous evergreens and pocket-sized parks.

Internally, the colour and vitality alluded to on the outside continue, enlivening the large internal atria, corridors and other communal spaces, which provide amenity for the workers that will inhabit the building. Materials are simple, with local timber sitting alongside bare concrete and painted steelwork to simultaneously convey the industrial past and provide a modern workplace.