Due to its rapid growth, the unicorn IT company Infobip commissioned a new hybrid building in Zagreb. The company chose a location on the southern edge of Zagreb that, though not prestigious, is well connected in terms of infrastructure. The plot is located in an entropic and poorly regulated area with low-rise medium-density multi-dwelling buildings lacking both articulated public space and natural surroundings.
Client: Infobip
Designer: 3LHD
This prestigious investor’s campus with highly qualified employees had to compensate for these shortcomings, which is why the building is designed as a self-sufficient organism that provides its employees with everything they need during the work day, and even beyond. The investor requested that, in addition to the offices, a residential section be created for employees and guests, as well as other accompanying facilities such as a restaurant, spaces for recreation and a conference hall. The hybrid character of the project has led to the concept of stacking the spatial and programme elements on top of each other. The base of the building contains offices gathered around a central atrium, and the slender vertical block on top of it houses the residential units. Transitional floors play a key role in the building's spatial organisation. The ground floor, with an open garage and entrance, is based on the idea of a “drive-in” office, necessitated by the suburban context. The public space on the 4th floor, featuring a restaurant, conference hall and a large terrace-park, connects the base and the vertical block. It is a place of rest and informal gatherings and a link between the permanent and temporary users of the building. This systematically reflects the scenario of the transition between the different urban, programmatic and social landscapes in the cross-section of the building.
All of the constructive elements are carefully coordinated, while the structure and infrastructure of the building are explicitly laid bare as part of the building's interior and exterior design. The building clearly functions as a spatial and technological organism that is complete unto itself, demonstrating a "functional and conceptual transparency".
The Infobip building offers a stimulating work environment, introduces into the suburban entropic landscape a cultivated architectural complex that reflects the high ambitions of the company that it accommodates. The project demonstrates that it is the peri-urban areas on the edge of the city, unencumbered by issues of identity, historical heritage and other parameters, that will be best suited as a proving ground for architectural exploration and the testing of typologies that are self-sufficient, but not autistic.
