Project: EOH IT Hub
Architect: Studio Perspektiv
Authors: Martin Stára, Ján Antal
Co-authors: Eva Schilhart Faberová, Barbora Babocká
Project location: Prague, Czech Republic
Completion year 2019
Project size: 1300 m2
Photo credits: Jakub Skokan, Martin Tůma / BoysPlayNice
Studio Perspektiv designed EOH IT Hub in Prague, an office interior inspired by multicellular organism and spaceships.
Description
“We began with the idea of merging two opposite scales. The microscopic and the macroscopic. Cells have to divide in order to multiply, grow and specialize properly. Space, for us, means endless opportunities and visions. It is full of creativity and imagination,” says Martin Stára, founder and managing partner of Studio Perspektiv.
“Inspired by varying and distinct phenomena of each scale, we communicate the idea through organic structures, anorganic surfaces, semitransparent walls and membranes, laser beams and an assorted color palette of a galaxy far far away,” adds Jan Antal, managing partner and author of the project.
Multicellular Organism
The two-storey office space is located in the Main Point building in Prague, Pankrác. The project’s authors have already built several floors of offices in this object. This time they decided to test its limits.
The organic shape of the house enabled them to play a variety of associations with the living and inanimate universe.
Mighty anthracite honeycombs descend from the concrete ceilings. They divide space according to importance and function, into irregular chambers of different dimensions. The honeycomb superstructure is complemented by crystalline forms of meeting rooms and technical facilities. These forms freely follow the basic order of space. From time to time they step out to the side, stretching or twisting here and there. Floors, sometimes elevated, arrange vast open spaces into auditoriums and stages, cafes and kitchens. EOH IT Hub offices are a cluster of cavities, chambers, divisions, and cells, a Petri dish of flowing space.
Spaceship
Reflections, transparency, glitches, mirroring. Starring light and its properties. Thin line profiles, which are installed not only in common areas and corridors, but also in meeting rooms and in some workplaces, are multiplied in stainless steel floor tiles and dark lacobel surfaces. In some places, they drift into the slatted ceiling, somewhere they themselves create a ceiling. Meanwhile, the shimmer of ideally shaped luminous bodies drops down on the bar counter.
A 45 degree angle of oak veneer mocks gravity and partly simulates the freedom of movement in a weightless state. Kitchen cabinets are designed to withstand the impact of space bodies. Plates of annealed steel follow each other precisely, the material is spotless – only its abstracted essence remains. The door opens to the touch, the handles render obsolete.
Large-format stainless steel floor panels were treated with a water jet to form a solid metal surface. Glazed partitions with frames embedded in floors and ceilings leave room for maximum transparency. Proper care was also given to exposed ceilings. Cabling and technological wiring are precisely arranged, following the luminaire grid and copying the edges of individual honeycombs.
The EOH IT Hub office project looks with confidence into the bright future of mankind. Thanks to close cooperation with the client, the authors managed to realize a work that carries several meanings and transcends the profane typological category called “office.” It’s a thrown-down glove for all the IT crowd of the whole galaxy.
