bruketa&zinic + brigada: typotecture

before and after

the zavrtnica business centre of croatia’s capital city zagreb has received a facelift, thanks to the staff of the agency brigada,
part of the bruketa & žinić group, and its architects, interior and product designers. an entire block of buildings with four structures
has been refurbished as a whole by means of ‘typotecture’ – the use of extremely large scale typography on architectural structures.
the project is supported by B.M.V. engineering who own the commercial space, a collection of heterogeneous buildings found
within a former factory complex. in terms of their architecture, distribution and façades, the existing structures were all completely different.

to unify them as well as to tone down the building block, black and white were used to anchor the surrounding buildings.
in the concept, the central structure, no. 10 is particularly important. this is the seat of the administration of the zavrtnica business centre,
and the most dominant building of the unit. it is a cube shaped builing, and by painting it white, the designers succeded in raising it up out
of the back roundation and surrounding buildings, making it exceptionally more visible. not only upon entering the business centre,
but also at much larger distances. in this way, people entering and leaving the city can notice this building as a sort of landmark
just before entering the city, or upon departing from the nearby zagreb main train station.

the final look – the building can be seen from the train that runs by the business centre

the designers felt that using standard ‘legible’ typography would counter the architecture, as then the text would become the dominant
feature. with this, enlarged approach, the intent was to fully respect the architecture of the structure and its square form, while also creating added value, both in terms of graphics and signalization. the project was put together by architect damjan geber and product designer srdana alac, both from the brigada agency, branimir sabljic, a graphic designer from the agency bruketa&zinic om and the staff of b.m.v. engineering. brigada is a studio for the design and optimization of sales locations, product design and architecture, founded by bruketa&zinic om and damjan geber barch in 2010. brigada deals with creating the sales concepts, spacial design, design of interior
elements, drafting of books of standards, organization and supervision of works, right up to the start of operations and analysis of sales results. we work with clients such as tele2, adris grupa, lush and azerbaijan’s nar mobile. brigada is part of a group of agencies including the advertising agencies bruketa&zinic om zagreb and bruketa&zinic om baku, the brand consultants brandoctor and the digital agency brlog.

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