Ministry of Education Headquarters | Elchin Askarov

Baku is an old city which is located between Europe and Asia, which makes it culturally diverse.

Lately, Baku has become one of the rapidly growing cities. These changes have come with some challenges which we explored and which made us to create our own philosophy in order to get solutions. (PART-01).

The area which is planned for the building of Ministry of Education in Baku, is surrounded with 5-6 storey traditional buildings. A local material – limestone – is used in these surrounding buildings. It gave us a wonderful opportunity to use our method while performing the next project. Our goal was to make a 4-storey building with traditional elements which grows to glass – a sustainable project. Another goal was to break the old Soviet standards (which sadly still being used in Baku) replacing them with the latest, modern methods. We used historical elements and tried to make them work as sustainable elements for today. It is a kind of conversion of an historical design to the modern façade elements.

  Traditional Azerbaijani architecture inspired our exterior solution. “Madrasa” type building is a traditional design in Azerbaijan. Efficient layout with natural light is calculated to reach the most part of the interior space. The 2 portals and 2 arcs on each side of the building symbolize transparency and openness.  Position of the building on the land plot allows creating substantial greenery on all the sides of the building, with emphasizing on the “sunny” south-eastern side and main entrance to the building. Here are the other main features: a sufficient number of both inside and outside parking lots, maximum access to the all parts of the building both by walking and for cars, separation of administrative “staff only” areas and public access and general areas, modern interactive working environment and circulation. Simple and elegant architectural solutions will provide and efficient and fast construction process.