Erick van Egeraat wins competition to design Sberbank Corporate University

Spread over 30,000 square meters, the university will house education and conference facilities, dormitories, guest teacher quarters, teacher residences, a club building and sports facilities.

The design of the Sberbank Corporate University features spacious setting to create comfortable scaled public spaces. Education, lodging and sports functions are clustered in orthogonally defined volumes within the building. All building elements, except the townhouses, are connected with an elegant and climate controlled colonnade. This colonnade is programmed with recreational bar and relaxation functions, serving as a backbone of the entire complex.

A sustainable short building process has been defined by the architects to minimize construction waste. It includes the use of prefabricated concrete columns and floor slabs. All the façades and space dividing elements are made using prefabricated wood and glass elements.

The university complex also integrates sustainable design tools and technologies. The floor slabs incorporate cantilevers to provide space for terraces and summer shading, adding to the building’s thermal mass. It reduces the amount of energy needed for mechanical cooling and heating with the surplus heating or cooling capacity between these functional clusters to be exchanged. Majority of the buildings in the complex allow for natural cross ventilation to further reduce energy demands.

Most horizontal surfaces of the building will feature vegetated roofs to improve the air quality and the insulation standards of the building. The architects are aiming to execute the project with natural materials that have a low environmental impact such as wood, mineral stucco and granulated concrete. The prefabricated wooden elements will be placed without the use of formaldehyde.

The project is scheduled for opening in the first quarter of 2012. This would also be the sixth executed project of Erick van Egeraat in Russia.