C3 Office - PLAY&WORK

BASIC INFORMATION

Projekt: Pisarne C3 - WORK&PLAY
Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Client: Business
Year: 2018
Area: 160 sqm
Authors: BAAM architects
Typology: Business spaces
Photo/Viz: Blaž Jamšek, BAAM arhitekti

DESCRIPTION

With the emergence of flexible workstations, the concept of a classic office is in need of reconsideration. The factory-style "Yugo" workday (6:00-14:00) has been displaced by the transition workday (8:00-16:00), which has now shifted towards a western-style schedule (10:00-18:00). In designing offices for a start-up company, we questioned whether, in the era of the internet and growing technology, a set work schedule is even necessary, or how the workday can be exactly eight hours long every day.

In the new offices, work is conducted in cycles and depends on communication with different time zones. As such, the atmosphere in the offices can be relaxed at times and (overly) intensive at others. In response to these conditions, we collaborated with the client to design the WORK&PLAY offices, where the first half of the space is dedicated to offices and the other half to recreational activities. This allows coworkers to use the spaces to watch a late-night football match, do exercises on gym mats, or even have a sauna session. After all activities or exhausting meetings, a shower is available for refreshing.

The conventional workstation is also adapted. A laptop successfully replaces a stack of binders, so employees can occupy different workstations: a secluded corner or a space for group work on the couch.

These unconventional offices are located in a classicist building along the main Ljubljana promenade. The building has a distinctly symmetrical white façade with ornaments, massive wooden entrance doors, and some black highlights on the ground floor. Consequently, the floor plan of the rooms touching the façade follows its symmetry logic, while more distant spaces become asymmetrical. Most of the offices are white, but the entrance hall and core, like the façade, have accents executed in black wood. In this way, we connected the interior of the building with its exterior, emphasizing its privileged location in the vanishing old part of the city.

A classicist building with non-classic offices is a blend of two worlds. Just as the interior is marked by the exterior, so is the new workplace based on experiences of the old. The best of both worlds.