Zaha Hadid Architects’ Dominion Office Building employs a fantastical design for its atrium

The Dominion Office Building is one of the first new projects to be built in an area of Moscow that has primarily been home to industrial and residential buildings. The new office building, however, represents the recent growth of the creative and IT sectors in the southeast portion of the city.

Zaha Hadid Architects conceived the building as a series of vertically stacked plates, offset at each level. Curved elements connect each plate and a central atrium rises through each level to bring an abundance of natural light into the center of the building.

The atrium is arguably the most striking aspect of the project, as its use of contrasting black and white colors along with a series of staircases that look like they could have fallen right out of an M.C. Escher lithograph or a Harry Potter movie criss-cross their way to the top of the structure. Balconies on each level project into the atrium and a ground floor restaurant links the atrium to an outdoor terrace and the city street.

The office spaces are arranged in a system of standard rectilinear bays to accommodate small, expanding, or large companies. As is common among new office space, the ideas of interaction and collaboration were key design elements for the project. Aspects such as coffee and snack areas and relaxation zones on the balconies turn the atrium into a shared space that encourages interaction between co-workers and building tenants.

In total, the office provides 25,700 sm of space across nine total floors (seven office floors and 2 basement floors).

Photo: Hufton & Crow via Zaha Hadid Architects

The Harvard studies on the unintended effects of open office defines it as space where 'one entire floor was open, transparent and boundaryless… [with] assigned seats,' and the other had 'similarly assigned seats in an open office design, with large rooms of desks and monitors and no dividers between people's desks.'