MRDA designs Warsaw office

The 650-sqm office is located on the top floor of the refurbished tenement house of count Raczyński, which is an example of modernised classicism from the end of the 19th and early 20th century. The office is designed by contrasting dark and light spaces while the functions of individual rooms are conditioned by access to natural light, including large skylights over open workspaces. Thanks to this arrangement, there is no need for artificial lighting for most of the year. In contrast, there are social spaces and conference rooms behind a dark corridor belt which is the ‘axis’ of the office. One of them is the Flower Room. Floral motifs on the walls and ceiling as well as dark colours dominate inside, which is to stimulate creativity. The White Room is also unique as its colours and stucco are consistent with the architecture of the tenement house. “We had a unique opportunity to test unobvious systems, which may seem risky at first, in our own office. We used e.g. contrast of dark and light surfaces. The distribution of space forced us to abandon standard systems,” says Paulina Godzińska, an architect and partner in the MRDA studio. Meanwhile the office kitchen has been arranged in a cafe style, with elements facilitating integration such as illuminated glass surfaces with a forest motif and lush greenery under the ceiling. The office space is also comfortable – not only does it have comfortable furniture but also places that serve as ‘telephone boxes’.