Company Dermatex Area

The administrative-warehouse complex was designed for the needs of the company DERMATEX. The company is a manufacturer and designer of footwear and casual fashion. Its own production is carried out in various corners of the world. The products are transported in containers by trucks to a central distribution warehouse and from there redistributed on a scale of pallets and boxes to individual retailers. It was necessary to connect the company's own headquarters to the distribution warehouse - the administrative part. The builder's requirement was to create a representative, home-like, and distinctive environment for the company's management and several employees.
The most important task during the design of the complex was to create the client's privacy and delineate the company's own space within the impersonal and detaching layout of the commercial zone on the outskirts of the town. The construction on the surrounding plots was unknown at the time of design, and we found no other relationship to the environment, apart from the currently interesting southern views, which are only temporary.
The outcome of the design is a compact L-shaped building that unites both functions in one construction volume. This whole is covered by a simple 15% shed roof, sloping towards the rear, western part of the plot. The rectangular distribution hall, with an area of 1000 m², varies in height from 5 to 8 meters, and the narrow administrative section is spatially and volumetrically connected to the higher part of the hall on the northern side. The three-story administrative center is oriented with office spaces towards the south and east into its own landscaped green areas and occupies a wider section of the building. The narrower northern section is used for shared communal corridors with kitchens and direct staircases. On the ground floor of the administrative building, there is a retail store, offices, and employee facilities. Both upper floors contain standard office operations. In the tallest part of the third floor is the most important room – the shoe showroom, with upper natural lighting and shelves lined with walls. The hall is connected to the outdoor handling areas via a loading dock with a lifting platform for trucks and wide garage doors for loading into delivery vans and small trucks.
The external appearance of the building is shaped by a façade cladding made of vertically oriented slats of weathered zinc sheet with a module of 200 mm. The striping of the façade was not an artistic intention but a result of the delivery of uneven batches of sheets from a French manufacturer. Square windows of two sizes are arranged along the façade as needed. Complementary and counterpoint materials for the façade are steel locksmith elements, primarily window frames and entrance pergolas, which are coated with powder-coated enamel in anthracite color. The roofing is identical on both parts made of titanium-zinc trapezoidal sheet with freely placed skylights.
The warehouse hall is designed as a prefabricated skeleton with six spans of 7.2 m and a truss span of 22 m and a variable height under the truss. The columns are anchored to foundation cups, and the truss is placed diagonally with a slope of 15%.
The administrative building is designed as a monolithic wall system with exposed concrete on the interior side spanning 4.7 + 2.8 m. The ceiling panels with a thickness of 200 mm are also monolithic, as is the roof. The structural height of the floors is 3.3 m.
The exposed concrete was left visible on the walls and ceilings in the interior, covered only by custom-made built-in furniture walls and other loose furniture. Wooden slats are laid on the floors of the upper levels, while the ground floor features darker polished terrazzo. The surfaces in the restrooms are created with polyurethane screeds and coatings in various colors. The final appearance of the interior was developed in mutual dialogue with the client, who, due to his profession as a designer and dealer in footwear and fashion, is capable of perceiving the subtleties of surfaces and colors to an extent surprisingly high for the architect.