‘The City of Opportunities’ — that’s how we’ve named our project, one of the storeys of Sberbank’s new office. The concept was inspired by Moscow and its beautiful districts, atmosphere, residents, and dynamics that many capitals of world´s leading countries would envy. The parts of the office are connected by a ‘ring road.’ The office itself is divided into six ‘districts’ designed on the basis of landmark sights of a relevant Moscow district: Sokolniki Park, Arbat, Krymskaya Embankment, Gagarin Square, VDNH, and Red Square. In addition to special design, there are meeting rooms in every ‘district’ of the office named after famous Moscow landmarks, like ‘lisya Nora’ (Fox Lodge), ‘Skvorechnik’ (Nesting Box), ‘Attraktsyon’ (Amusement Park), and other sights of Sokolniki Park.
Not only does the concept of the office deal with its meaningfulness and visual content, but it facilitates navigation, too. For instance, the ‘ring road’ helps one easily find their way around in this rather big (7,000 sqm, no less) office, quicker find a meeting room needed or reach coworkers. Sberbank’s office was designed in Agile format, and this is literally a huge step up in the country’s financial environment. The design provides for all the conditions needed. It streamlines the performance of bank’s staff, facilitates communication, and hastens the processes. Agile is more than design. It’s a special approach to work when cross-functional teams are put together to work on a specific task or product in an effective and prompt manner. Each of six office parts has everything needed for productive work: a coffee point, a reception zone, various kinds of meeting rooms, common and work areas, and many other things.
Agile work format is good for executives, too. Agile does not suppose large private offices. Executives seat together with staff members in an open-plan area and use all the services in the same way as their teams do. Such changes in the office space idea are likely to make a difference in corporate culture.
Two large areas are arranged in the midst of the office to do presentations, with multi-purpose sofas that can be used to work with laptops, and stacking chairs and tables. A game zone, a kitchen, meeting rooms, and leisure zones are arranged here, too. We’ve provided for various zones: small meeting rooms for quick meets, big meeting rooms for focused discussions, individual rooms for calls, and workspaces with cushioned furniture. Comfortable and diverse furniture adds to concentration and productivity, like high armchairs that enfold you almost all round.
Carefully designed details create warm ambience that encourages effective work and creativity. Offices in financial sector are starting to look more like IT companies with their usual atmosphere of certain freedom, creativity, and self-expression, says Sberbank’s CEO. This is what we were keeping in mind when designing the office for Russia’s lead bank.