Office That Breathes by archicraft

In the center of Prague, we were asked to turn a stripped back concrete shell into a workplace, and rather than treating the bare structure as something to conceal, we saw an opportunity to build the entire interior around it. What was once a bare concrete skeleton has been reimagined as a warm, considered workplace across 4,450 square feet, shaped into offices, meeting rooms, open work areas, a dining room and a set of quieter spaces for rest.

Offices built inside older, structurally exposed buildings occupy an unusual position within workplace design. The concrete left behind by a building’s original construction carries a weight and history that a plasterboard ceiling cannot replicate, but that same rawness can just as easily read as unfinished or cold if nothing is done to balance it. The design challenge was less about hiding the concrete and more about surrounding it with enough warmth that the contrast reads as intentional rather than incomplete.

The exposed concrete ceiling became the anchor for the whole concept. Its brutalist roughness is offset by natural materials chosen specifically to soften it, including smoked oak floors, walnut veneered built ins, and linen inspired textiles. Warm tones are balanced against cooler touches of petrol and turquoise, repeated through the accessories and the greenery so the palette stays consistent from one room to the next rather than assembled space by space.

A floating library subtly partitions the dining area from the open work zone, while plants weave through the plan as a genuine architectural element rather than a decorative afterthought, bringing softness, movement and life into rooms that would otherwise read as hard and industrial. Combined with natural light and carefully considered illumination, the space takes on the character of a small Zen forest woven into the fabric of the city.

Beyond its material choices, the project demonstrates that a genuinely comfortable workplace does not require erasing a building’s structural history. Left exposed and then carefully balanced, raw concrete can support daily work just as well as any conventional finish, while giving the space a character no standard fit out could offer.

For the people who work here, the outcome is an office that feels intimate, grounded and inspiring, a workplace built around its structure rather than in spite of it.