The Best Office Awards is an international competition held in Moscow. It rewards the best designs in commercial projects in Russia. There are several categories in the competition and the event is organized by Russia’s best-known architecture and design event organizer Office Next. The competition awards ceremony is 29^th May in Gostiny Dvor in Moscow. The awards gala is the culmination of a three-day seminar and exhibition.

The international jury has 32 members from around the world.

GI has won in the competition on three occasions.

Additional information about the event: http://www.officenext-moscow.com/

The Nordic Built Challenge is an open multidisciplinary design contest that was held simultaneously in all the Nordic countries. The contest seeks sustainable and scalable design solutions for the renovation of five specific properties.

In the Finnish competition the building was a government office building named Hippostalo. The building is located in Finland’s second largest city, Tampere. The competition encouraged to develop solutions that were both innovative and sustainable, yet ensuring financial and practical viability.

GI participated in the competition as a member of an international team. The team included engineering company Granlund, Italian experience design consultancy and Belgian energy efficiency consultant. The team got shortlisted to the second phase out of 39 entries. Four entries from each five countries made it to the final phase. A quote of the jury’s statement on our team’s entry: A proposal presenting an idea of pointing out the importance and possibility to encourage people to adapt eco-efficient ways of using IT-solutions. Well-presented work environment zoning.

The country-winners were announced September 11^th 2013 in Stockholm. Among the five country winner a final Nordic winner is chosen. They will be awarded with NOK 1.000.000 for the best overall demonstration of the Nordic Built Charter.

GI congratulates the winner of the Finnish contest, KVA Arkkitehdit and their team and wishes them the best luck in the final phase.

More information: http://www.nordicinnovation.org/nordicbuilt/the-challenge/

Finnish design expertise has again been awarded in Russia.

Best Office Awards

It was the third time GI participated in the Best Office Awards competition. The competition awards the best office design projects in Russia in altogether 10 categories. The organizer OfficeNext is a well-known event organizer in the architecture and design fields. The award ceremony was held 16^th May in the Art Play design quartier in Moscow.

This year GI was awarded first prize in the Lighting Design category with the interior design of SIAB Bank’s premium club in Saint Petersburg.

Jury assessment:

“The outside views are wonderfully framed, the use of natural materials, technology innovations and ecological theme. Nordic design principles are perfectly combined with the architecture in Saint Petersburg.”

SIAB Bank Premium Club – the idea behind the design

The idea was to create an exclusive interior design but also, as importantly, to generate dialogue between the bank and its’ clients. Themes such as “Nature”, “Wine cellar”, “Chess”   and “Golf” are included in the design of the meeting rooms. The space solutions in the work area follow Nordic democratic principles instead of traditional Russian hierarchy.

Previous success

The SIAB project was also nominated in the Comfort and Ergonomics and Grand Prix categories. GI won the Comfort and Ergonomics category in 2012 with the design for V Kontakte, the largest social media site in Russia, and in 2011 for the design of Nokia’s HQ in Moscow. This year there was 100 projects that entered the competition and a new category Best International Project was introduced. Year by year the number of participants, as well as the reputation has grown. GI is one of the most successful companies to ever participate in the competition. The awards gala was shown live on Russian Today television programme. GI’s SIAB Premium Club interiors was the only project shown in the broadcast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxEgcQHlhnw&list=UUI-JLc7fB6aX2G85NuJlHAQ

Jari Inkinen CEO comments on the Russian clients:

“Local businesses see the importance of facilities as a way to improve the corporate brand. The success in the competition has brought us many new and interesting projects. The marketing methods differ significantly from Finland. In Russia you need to be present and ready to react to the smallest signals that the clients might send. The mornings after the award ceremonies have been a good example when clients begin calling us after being inspired to do something to their own spaces.

OfficeNext Talks – conference

Jari Inkinen also gave a presentation about workplace development in the OfficeNext Talks conference that took place before the award ceremony. Jari’s comments about the conference:

“It’s amazing to see how fast the world is developing in Russia. I’ve participated in the conference few times before and can only wonder how actively our neighbor wants to learn new things. The conference was three days long and included topics such as Healthy work environment and Sustainable development principles in commercial construction.”

Gullstén–Inkinen Design & Architecture

Established in 1988 by Hanna Gullstén and Jari Inkinen. GI is specialized in designing work and customer environments and improving office and commercial buildings. Gullstén–Inkinen has operated in Russia since 2007. The company turnover in the previous fiscal year was 2,7 million EUROs of which about 10 % came from export to Russia, Scandinavia and to the Baltic countries. This fiscal year the turnover is budgeted to be 3,2 million EUROs of which 25 % exported services.

Finnish design firm Gullstén-Inkinen Design & Architecture has won the ”Comfort and Ergonomics” award again in Moscow. The Best Office Awards competition is annually held by Project Next magazine.

The award was held 17^th May in Moscow at the Design Centre Artplay. The competition has 11 different categories and the winners are selected by a 24-member international jury combined with the result of online votes.

GI entered the competition with the interior design of V Kontakte’s headquarters in Saint Petersburg. V Kontakte, a Russian social media site that works in the former Soviet Union and has more than 100 million users. 70% of the users come from Russia.

In 2010 GI won the same award with the interior design for Nokia’s headquarters in Moscow.