The buildings that make up the SKOLKOVO Campus were born of a unique architectural vision. The founders of the school were faced with no small task — to create a flexible space that would bear witness to both the school’s innovative and progressive nature, as well as the Russian ideas in which it is rooted — ideas recognized throughout the world. Both of these aspects are an innate part of the work of Kazimir Malevich, the great Russian artist, whose painting, ‘Suprematism,’ served as the inspiration for the architectural design of the SKOLKOVO Campus.

The founding partners of the Moscow School of Management considered ideas submitted by a number of internationally-recognized architectural firms, but it was the unconventional vision and original concept of the British architect David Adjaye that drew their attention. They chose his Adjaye Associates studio to design the school’s building.

The focus of the design process was always the Campus intended functionality. The architect deliberately avoided the traditional college layout, found at schools like Oxford, when the Campus is built around a square court. At SKOLKOVO he took the opposite approach — all of the Campus buildings are accessible internally, without going outdoors. Mr Adjaye decided on this strategy as a defense against the Russian winter — once inside the Campus, one need not venture out again into the bitter cold. In fact, inside the Campus, one finds oneself in an enclosed city, complete with academic clusters, a congress hall, a cafe, streets, and squares — all inside of what they call the disk. The entire Campus is built on the basis of this disk, and from this disk one can enter any building in the city of SKOLKOVO.

No doubt, it wasn’t just the Russian climate that was responsible for SKOLKOVO design — it was the school’s very philosophy: to encourage human interaction and communication, harmony, and the balance between business and the human spirit. On Campus the students mingle freely with each other as well as with their instructors, all of which makes for a lively atmosphere.

The Campus building is also a kind of prism, through which the surrounding landscape can be viewed in a new light. It acts as a bridge between the nature beyond and the urban space within. Many of the structural elements of the Campus space are in constant ‘dialog’ with each other, echoing and reflecting one another. For example, the cafeteria tables mirror the shape of the natural light windows, and the color of the first floor walls in the disk matches the hue of the hotel walls. This springs from the very philosophy behind the school: to encourage human interaction and communication, harmony, and the balance between business and the human spirit.

Landscaping

A group of Italian landscape design students created the plan for the college grounds as part of their graduate thesis. They arrived in Moscow in the dead of winter, under the guidance of Prof. Gabriel Filippini, and were given only five days to develop and formally present their ideas. They made a careful study of the snowy Campus, discussing their findings with SKOLKOVO MBA students and the school’s management, and then the young landscape designers came up with a plan to make the Campus bloom.

The Campus unique building and surroundings blend together seamlessly, giving the impression of a harmonious, completed whole, where consideration has been given to each detail, be it a bench by the pond or a professor’s cottage. The landscaping was designed to form a natural link between the external and interior views of the building. Eventually, the Campus will include 15 hectares of green space.