SUCCESS STORY — DESIGN
Office building “Tehnix“ 2020
designer — arh. Danijela Milojevic
The Miesian architectural simplicity
A multi-storey commercial building – a new formative and spatial contribution to Peke Dapcevica Street – was designed in the architectural milieu of the industrial zone and the complex in Kumodraz, its background consisting of a moulded iconography interspersed with sporadic folkloric elements. From a functional standpoint, it is organically and structurally connected to the existing main building on the site, emerging from a need to engage with the existing development potential of the site and raise it towards a new commercial and spatial value.
Under the conditions of the saturated tissue of the site and the limiting parabola of the structural line, the building finds space through a vertical escape, resting against the existing, yet never completed underground garage. This design finally completes and activates the garage through new functionality – it becomes a warehouse, with the bulk of the new wing of the commercial facility rising above it.
The cubist form of the new wing is clean and regular, interwoven with functional transport bases. It is developed through a ground floor and three stories above ground level organised in a clean skeletal setup wrapped in a glass screen. On the ground level, towards Peke Dapcevica Street, the base is drawn in from the construction line, leaving room for a covered front porch, opening the ground floor with its business premises towards passers-by and visitors. All of the floors above ground level are mutually connected with stairways and a panoramic elevator.
The elevator, along with balconies envisaged for each storey, opens a view for the users of the premises towards the wider Belgrade panorama from the north-east side of the site.
The Miesian architectural simplicity and geometrism put the glass membrane, interspersed with a metallic raster lattice, at the core of the artistic experience. With the discrete chromatic key of the membrane itself, incorporating the recognisable trademark colour of the investor’s company, the building blends into a single organic unit with the existing main building. At the same time, the playful syncopating rhythm of the raster grid, the openings, and the interplay of full and glazed areas places the building in a counterpoint with its simple environment and imposes itself as the dominant point of the entire artistic view of the complex.
Although the building rises from the tissue of diverse architectural forms surrounding it: residential, industrial, commercial… it does not upset its neighbours, introducing instead a new vigour and a pleasant atmosphere. The creative step forward made by the designer awakens the value of the entire architectural experience and overcomes the stereotype of the existing commercial buildings in the scenography of the industrial complex.
