Production and Office Building Dubrovčan

A production and office building is located in Dubrovčan, a village northwest of Zagreb characterized by a rural and natural landscape. In an environment rapidly transforming into a small business and industrial zone, the site was originally used as a construction waste landfill. Following remediation, a new topography was created. In line with the natural terrain, three mounds were formed to house technical, production, and service areas, defining the central space and organizing pedestrian routes. Resting atop the mounds, a transparent horizontal disc is anchored within this unstable context.

This building for a construction company is a single-story volume with a square floor plan, organised around a circular atrium. The interior of the disk is conceived as a dynamic, horizontal working environment, with office spaces of different types and characters. The strips of typical offices are arranged along the perimeter, with corner meeting rooms and niches for group work, opening the central space towards the landscape. Wrapped around the atrium, this main communication space with entrance, reception, hot desk workstations, a circular presentation hall and a small auditorium, extends into the multifunctional common space and terrace on the lower floor. A spiral staircase connects this space with a small rooftop pavilion, roof terrace, and running track. The sequence of plans and transparent surfaces are designed to enhance interactions between users and their relations with the outdoor space. Both neutral and specific, the building draws the landscape in, creating unexpected spatial sequences.

The structural system consists of two pre-stressed concrete slabs, connected by peripheral V-shaped columns, four concrete cores, and freely positioned inclined columns. This design with large spans enables flexible space planning with lightweight, non-load-bearing partitions. All the construction and interior work was executed by local craftsmen, including the partition walls, furniture, and doors entirely from plywood, providing a warm contrast to the concrete and glazed surfaces. The architecture emphasizes long-term flexibility and sustainability—partitions can be removed in the future to adapt the building for entirely different uses, such as a kindergarten, home, shop, or art gallery, while preserving its fundamental spatial and conceptual qualities.