Description: Commercial center and offices Surface: 35 000 m² Parking: 400 places Client: Benchmark Conception: 2005 Completion: 2010
Sustainable architecture in office building: the Benchmark Tower in Sofia
The building with its unique outstanding silhouette represents a Landmark on the main entrance of Sofia Boulevard Tzarigradsko Shosse. Its major Atrium Space that goes through its 14 levels, as well as the two minor atriums beside it, bring into the whole office space a natural daylight. There are abundant vegetation and trees on the bottom of these atriums as well as on the outer terraces, thus contributing for its environmentally friendly character. The double-skin facade on the south west side, which is most exposed to the sun is energy-saving and also forms an effective barrier from the noisy boulevard.
New concept for office space
There are two dominant tendencies in the 20th century, namely the оpen, free-flowing, flexible space with (flexible,) moveable partitions and the enclosed one (spaces) with corridors and private offices. In truth, both have their definite advantages and setbacks, as a consequence of the specificity and inner contradictions of the working process requiring individual efforts and parallel collective work. (In) Free-flowing (spaces, the) common spaces facilitate face-to-face communication and team work, but distraction and inability to concentrate are often the case. The problems are inverted in the second typology where the employees are isolated leading to increased bureaucracy, as the control is more difficult. Many attempts were made to resolve these problems by mixing the two patterns, but unfortunately positive results were sporadic and far apart.
Confucius observed thousands of years ago that (the) wild boars had learnt to keep the exact distance between them during the winter in order to keep warm without harming each other with their prickly coats. So China’s great philosopher and thinker concluded that humans must keep the appropriate distance from one another in order to have harmonious relations. How do we embody this principle in the organization of work spaces?
You don’t need to have walls to separate people : you can do so with vertical empty spaces, keeping them at the right distance so that they don’t disturb each other. These “spatial uni-partitions” have the advantage of creating conditions for individual work and, at the same time ensure a common communication area with natural light. Their dual function is to separate and unite at the same time! Everybody has its own “nest” adjacent to these “daylight wells”! Today the quality of the offices is usually measured by the technical equipment such as suspended ceilings, double floors, air-conditioning, etc. But where is the human factor?
The “serving spaces” and vertical communications situated in the building’s core are separated by the atriums from the “served spaces” in which offices are found. Thus the walls are replaced with a vertical space with daylight and vegetation contributing for the creation of a communication space. The office spaces are eleven meters wide with daylight coming from both sides, and in that way they are very flexible in their multipurpose use.
The project could be defined like this:
“spatial uni-partitions” of daylight and greenery as a substitute partition.
