The new Head office of ProCredit bank Macedonia is a modern building suitable for the new modern way of banking. It is dynamic, available and transparent, three basic principles on which ProCredit bank has also settled their vision.
According to the DUP we had a building plot of 1088m2 and total gross area to build of 7000m2, maximum height of 28m or ground floor and 6 floors. For the neighbor plot, the same plan was anticipated building plot with maximum height of 60m. Тhis was the first limiting factor in designing the new building since in the future the south facade of our building will be blocked with a 60m tall building. Second limiting factor was the orientation of the building plot itself, which was south north. The experience showed that the south orientation in Skopje is not very suitable for placing offices because of the heat in the summer.
Due to these limiting factors, we twist the part of the buildings that was plant for offices and we oriented most of them on east and west. We created a dynamic volume, which consist of three separate volumes combined in one. The tallest volume consists of total 5 floors including ground floor, the second tallest volume consists of 3 floors, and the smallest of them all is only 2 floors tall including ground floor. The disposition of functions itself determined the final volume. With the branch in the ground floor on its left corner, it was natural to pull that volume in order to highlight the entrance in the branch. In front of the main entrance, we create a mini square, and on the roofs, we create green terraces, which are available to all the employees. This dynamic volume has totally abandoned previous well-known model of office buildings with long, dark and narrow corridors with offices on both sights and has given us opportunity to implement our new vision for office building, which is based on these principles - dynamics, availableness and openness.
Dynamics is not implemented only in the volume of the building facade, but also insight the building. When you walk through the building, new perspectives open on every corner, both horizontally or vertically.
When we say that the building is available we do not mean that is available for disables, that standards are something on which we should not discussed. When we say available, we mean that the building is humane and open for its users and by users; we do not mean only employees but also the clients. Openness in the era of digital society strengthen the trust between the clients and the bank as well as the trust among employees. By implementing glass also on facade as well as on the internal walls, we enabled needed transparency.
The functional scheme is simple. Ground floor is reserved for clients (branch, lobby, meeting rooms, business center, sectors which are directly supporting clients), on first floor are management as well as offices, the third floor is for training center, cantina and IT center, as well as open green terrace and on third and fourth floor there are offices.
Nowadays changes are very often; therefore, we made the interior space highly flexible. The design module is 115sm/140sm, or half of the necessary area for one working place. By this module, we design the whole interior and the facade.
This minimalist expression of the facade was retained in the interior design, with the dominance of white color, wooden structure materials and glass, as well as using the red corporative color of the bank in the choice of furniture. We put greenery as an element both inside and outside, so we managed to create a calm and comfortable space for work.
