Nowadays Office

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Nowadays Office is a Moscow-based architectural firm established in 2013 by Nata Tatunashvili and Natalia Mastalerzh. Its team work on a broad variety of projects of varying scales, styles and functions, usually centring on public places of cultural significance. In 2019, the bureau designed the new Kremlin Museum. on Red Square, in collaboration with the prominent Russian architectural firm Meganom.

Nowadays’ work involves a site-centred approach to design, taking into account the materials, climate, culture and traditions of the location, and incorporating the surrounding environment into the design process. The firm draws on psychological concepts, notably employing Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky's notion of protivochuvstvie (literally "counter-sensation") to interpret the urban contradictions of Moscow. In 2013, Nowadays coined the term "Moscowness" to refer to the peculiar complexities of the city and its juxtaposed, indeterminate architecture. The findings of the associated research laid the basis for a number of Nowadays’ Moscow projects, including the Kremlin Museum, the Iskra café, and the concept for Solntsevo metro station, as well as the exhibition "Protivochuvstvie", held at the 20th International Architecture Exhibition ARCH-Moscow.

In 2021 Nowadays received a special mention at the international Architizer A+Firm Award in the category "Cultural Projects in Architecture". Architizer also listed Nowadays’ partners Nata Tatunashvili, Natalia Mastalerzh, Anna Kopeina and Anastasia Tikhomirova among the "100 innovative women in architecture", noting that the team is unusually made up of 80% women.

Selected projects

Microsoft Pavilion in the Sochi Olympic Park (2014)

2014 saw Nowadays design a modular tech-pavilion for Microsoft at Sochi's Olympic Park during the 2014 Winter Olympics. The concept for the structure built on the blocks of colour comprising the Microsoft logo as well as the Windows 8 interface. Given the requirements for convenient assembly and disassembly, the team selected wooden slats as the building blocks for the project’s boxy structures. These slats were evenly spaced around the perimeter walls, evoking a sense of fencing panels. The edges of the slats were painted in the colours denoting the various zones, but the faces were left untreated to create a moire effect, an approach which was also applied to the outer fences.

Multimedia art centre in Abrau Dyurso (2016)

MARS, Moscow’s first contemporary art gallery to be established in the post-Soviet era, has now been repurposed as an innovative multimedia art institute. In 2016, a new MARS centre was opened amid the idyllic scenery of Abrau-Dyurso - a picturesque locale in Southern Russia. Set within a disused, stone-clad champagne factory, the centre boasts a gallery that spans the entire first floor of the former industrial edifice. Inspired by the industrial history of the building, the project includes a series of light-based interventions - in both form and manner - into the space. Traces of the building's past were retained - factory switches and breaker boxes were left intact - and all interventions were carried out cautiously and respectfully, taking care to preserve the layers of history.

Multimedia exhibition in Gagarin Airport (2019)

This resident digital exposition permeating the entire Gagarin International Airport in Saratov, Russia, pays homage to the first man in space - Yuri Gagarin - who touched down in the city after completing first ever outer space voyage on April 12, 1961. Via design and modern media, Nowadays transmuted the airport into a spaceport, enabling visitors to experience a virtual journey through space and time. In 2020, the Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD), awarded the exhibition an honorary prize for Best Digital Experience Content.

Project for the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2020)

Nowadays’ concept for renovating the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale was shortlisted for the open call competition. The proposed concept centred around deliberately slowing the modern pace in order to observe and question everything - including the architectural brief itself. Every aspect of the installation underlined the pavilion’s transitional state. Large mirrors were situated beside the openings providing ingress to the pavilion, preventing visitors from obstructing the thoroughfare or themselves from becoming unsettled by the comings and goings of others. Each architectural element provided an opening to broader questions, such as the omission of a roof, which called into question architecture’s primary function as shelter. The windowless wall openings afforded the visitor meditation on the building’s connectedness with its surrounding environment, while the absence of offices allowed for the reconsideration of traditional forms of coworking.

Other projects

• Reconstruction of the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow (underway)
• AMMA — concept for a contemporary art museum in the Arctic city of Norilsk
• Voznesensky — reconstruction of a 19th-century building in the historic centre of Moscow
• Abrikosov’s House — reconstruction of the 17th-century historical mansion in the centre of Moscow
• Houses of Culture — a renovation project for three Soviet houses of culture
• Emerald House — a residential highrise in Moscow
• Offices  for the international investment company Gemcorp in Moscow City
• Iskra — a café in an 18th-century building in Moscow
• Renovation project for the Soviet cinema halls Varshava and Voskhod
• Public Bar — a speakeasy hidden in the basement of a historic building
• Kristall — an elaborate reconstruction project for a pre-Soviet factory’s public space
• Redaktsiya — a bar-cafe-coworking space for journalists in the centre of Moscow
• VDNKH square — a public space for a Science Festival at VDNKH
• Izby — vernacular escapism in an idyllic rural landscape

Exhibitions

• Protivochuvstvie. A research project and exhibition on Moscowness (2015)
• Best of Russia. Exhibition of contemporary Russian photography at the Winzavod Centre for Contemporary Art (2016)
• Jump. Exhibition of Philippe Halsman’s portraits at the Jewish Museum (2017)
• Beyond Imagination. Exhibition of Meiji era Japanese art at the Moscow Kremlin Museums (2017)
• 100 Treasures from the Russian State Archive. Exhibition at the New Manege (2018)
• Boris Kustodiev exhibition at the New Jerusalem Museum (2018)
• Multimedia exhibition at Gagarin Airport (2019)

Awards and recognition

• 2021 - special mention at the international Architizer A+Firm Award in the category "Cultural Projects in Architecture"
• 2020 - honorary prize for Best Digital Experience Content by the Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD)

External links

• NOWADAYS OFFICE official website

This article "Nowadays Office" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Nowadays Office. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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