promodo hub&office
Project Area: 2000 m2
Project Year: 2019-2020
Location: Kharkiv, Ukraine
Architects: bude architects I Denys Shataliuk, Julia Shataliuk,
Project Year: 2019-2020
Location: Kharkiv, Ukraine
Architects: bude architects I Denys Shataliuk, Julia Shataliuk,
Dmytro Chvanin, Yevheniia Fedchyshyna
Photo credit: Andriy Bezuglov
Photo credit: Andriy Bezuglov
about
Promodo hub & office is the space for Ukrainian company Promodo leading in the field of Internet marketing. It is located in Kharkiv, in one of the actively developing IT districts of the city. Our task was to create not just a comfortable office, but a transformable platform for conferences, lectures, art exhibitions, performances and cozy parties, a meeting place for exchange of ideas and experience.
functional program
The functional program of the object includes 2000 m2 with 3 main blocks: the office space for 220 employees of the company; the public space of the hub with an entrance group of about 400 m2 and 150 m2 of the academy for teaching students who can later become employees.
The office open spaces are designed taking into account the structure of the company and scenarios of the departments work, they are alternated with meeting rooms and common recreation areas.
concept
The city Kharkiv was taken as the main visual concept of the object, it was important for us to display the features and unique urban stories in the interior. Before starting the design, we researched main visual and semantic images the city is associated with, what favorite and important locations, people, projects, words, textures are associated with Kharkiv. At the entrance to the hub and office space, there is a reception with a map of the city, its most recognizable fragment with the Freedom Square and the surrounding ensemble of the Dezhprom constructivist complex and Karazin University.
The office heart is the kitchen with different functional areas for separating flows: a cooking area, a coffee point, a lounge area, a dining room and a technical block.
This is a bright space with the Kharkiv artist’s piece of art. It is called Truth Refrigerator 2 by Roma Minin, the pattern covers refrigerators and smoothly transitions to tiles.
There are meeting rooms of various types (informal and official), for a different number of people. Their concept is associated with favorite or recognizable locations in the city, with Kharkivites meeting places.
This meeting room is dedicated to the famous monument of constructivism - the Dezhprom, there were different engineering departments that used drawing boards in their work. So it is like a design studio with engineering lamps and a real model - layout of the city. The supports of drawing boards became supports for the table, and the board became the basis for transparent acrylic. The entrance glass group in the meeting room is with black frames and characteristic divisions as in constructivism buildings.
The corporate white and yellow Promodo meeting room reflects the company’s slogan “stand out”. A yellow bright cube from a metal frame cuts into a completely white space. The office has a lot of recycled and reused items. Lamps in the corporate meeting room were found at one of the factories, given for restoration, and now they create a warm lamp light in the meeting room.
Let’s meet near Stekliashka (a glass entrance to the Underground Station “University”, Freedom Square, Kharkiv, Ukraine) – this is a favorite meeting place of the city dwellers. In such way our themed meeting room appeared: “Stekliashka” is a completely glass meeting room, a collective image of main underground stations with truth details: an original subway seat and lamps, a chess playing area, a real subway sign, which was designed by the Kharkiv architect many years ago.
The meeting room is dedicated to the largest residential area in Ukraine - Saltovka. Panel slabs have become a prototype for the table and the flowerpot. The ceiling panels have the same layout as one of micro-districts, and its number 602 is painted on the wall.
There is a lot of wood, plywood and landscaping in the other meeting room. This story is about magnificent Kharkiv parks. In general, there is a lot of greenery throughout the office space.
The office also has small meeting rooms, for one to one, calls, working on a laptop.
The Giraffe sculpture is located in the hall, it is a symbol of the Promodo company. It was made of metal by the sculptor Max Demchenko.
Hangers for clothes are one of the custom-made elements. In Kharkiv they are called trempel. According to the legend, there was a factory of an industrialist Trempel in Kharkiv, which produced coat hangers, this is where it comes from. Each trempel in a wardrobe has its own number, a unique number, and now such hangers have become the hub’s branded merch and are used as gifts for guests.
Art is integrated into the office: city sketches by the sketcher Olesia Kornilova, illustrations of famous Kharkiv scientists and art creators by Olexander Grekhov, artwork of the Kharkiv street-art artist Hamlet.
The academy space consists of 2 different size classrooms. In front of them there is a hall with a coffee point, where students can spend time during breaks. This space is also used for exhibitions.
On the wall there is an artwork of the Kharkiv street-art artist Hamlet.
Promodo hub has become the center of attraction for Kharkivites, a favorite venue for events. Office tours are constantly held here; collaboration creates new ideas and projects.
The hub has two halls designed for different types of events and the number of guests, a lounge area, a coffee point with a barista. Its layout can be transformed depending on the event.
In the design, we used a lot of small elements related to the city. For decoration of the hub bar counter, we used tiles from the Bergenheim factory of 1876, it was a large powerful old factory in Kharkiv, which made tiles, bricks, chimneys. This tile has an interesting back side, with a Bergenheim brand and the Kharkiv inscription. We collected these tiles throughout the year at various antique sites and then painted them in white colour and faced the bar counter of the hub coffee point.
