New Cemex Headquarters

Prague, Czech Republic

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New Cemex Headquarters

Prague, Czech Republic

Firm

Atelier Povětroň

Type

Commercial › Office

YEAR

2012

The main task of this project was to design the interior office space for the company Cemex, which is engaged in the manufacturing of concrete mixtures, cement, and aggregates. The new offices will be located in the administrative center of City West in Prague Stodulky. The goal was to fit 50 work spaces and arrange them into an open layout, with seven closed offices for team leaders and a director, one large meeting room for 20 people, and another four small meeting rooms, with a total capacity for 30 seats. The office would also include a relaxation zone with a small gym and kitchenette.

The main concept of the proposal is to create a big divided open space with small offices and meeting rooms to form more intimate places in which the teams will work. Team leaders’ offices are located around this area, creating nooks, dividing small places, and offering a nicely relaxed working environment that enables direct contact between employees and their leaders. To achieve all of that, and at the same time maintain the feeling of a large common area, which is enhanced by high ceilings, no solid parts reach up to the ceiling. The room is not divided, but there are separated cells that shape the large open space.

The architects wanted the interior to express the company which will inhabit it and to make apparent at first sight their philosophy and attitude. In the interior materials were used that are associated with the company. The interior and exterior of the separate office cells are equipped with a cement plaster (concrete imitation), the glass-walled meeting rooms are covered with rusty construction steel-grid, and the reception is designed from wire baskets with stones from the quarry where the company draws aggregates. The philosophy of the company, their approach to sustainable development, and motivational pictures are visible in the graphics on the walls. A relaxation area is designed as a natural park with paths, a lawn, garden furniture, and sitting bags that look like large boulders. The open-space offices are equipped with used furniture from previous company headquarters. New boxes with plants, which are also placed in the room, are situated on the top of cupboards and create barriers between working places.

The main working space is around the big atrium and is divided into three functional units. The entrance is followed by a connecting wing, where the reception area is dominant and where toilets and other ancillary rooms are situated. In the northern section, where the working spaces are located, small meeting rooms are arranged in one block which divides this track longitudinally. In the southern part is the chill-out zone with the gym, the kitchenette, and the large meeting room.