MVA Raises a Ring-Shaped Office Disk on Three Grass Mounds over a Remediated Landfill near Zagreb

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This article covers topics related to Office Building, Installations, Architecture, Building Design. In Dubrovčan, northwest of Zagreb, a prestressed concrete slab on V-columns floats above new terrain, hiding production inside the hills it creates.

In Dubrovčan, northwest of Zagreb, a prestressed concrete slab on V-columns floats above new terrain, hiding production inside the hills it creates.

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UNI Editorial published Blog under Office Building, Installations on Oct 11, 2026

Most production buildings in fast-growing business zones arrive as sheds: a steel frame, a cladding catalogue, a parking apron. In Dubrovčan, a village northwest of Zagreb where farmland is steadily giving way to small industry, MVA Mikelić Vreš Arhitekti took a different route for the construction company MDK Građevinar. The site was a construction-waste landfill and material depot, a plot of shifting spoil heaps. The architects remediated it and shaped three grassed mounds that follow the natural slope. They then laid a single-storey square office disk across the top, with a circular atrium cut through its centre.

What interests us is the reversal. The messy part of the program (technical rooms, production, shared facilities) goes into the ground the architects made. The clean part, the offices, floats above on two prestressed concrete slabs. The landfill's unstable terrain becomes the building's foundation idea instead of a problem to flatten. The architects call the result "neutral and specific," and across 1,850 m² the phrase holds up better than most project slogans do.

Making Ground Instead of Levelling It

Long glazed pavilion with diagonal concrete bracing, raised over a grass mound and a curving path, under dense fog

Glazed pavilion with a cylindrical rooftop volume seen across paving and lawn, a lone figure walking the path in thick mist

Low glass pavilion with diagonal interior struts and a round rooftop drum, resting on a green mound under fog

Seen through the fog that often settles on this landscape, the building reads as a horizontal line resting on soft green humps. You struggle to tell where landform ends and architecture begins, and that is the point. The mounds are not decorative berms. They mark out the central space and the pedestrian approaches, and they hold real program inside.

The move also suits the context. The neighbouring plots are filling up with new commercial buildings that offer little to respond to. MVA sidesteps the problem by building its own topography, giving the project a context it controls while keeping a tie to the rural ground it replaces.

A Disk on V-Columns

Glazed pavilion with a cylindrical rooftop volume and cantilevered concrete roof, seen across a grassy slope in dense fog

Long elevation of a glazed pavilion with diagonal timber bracing and a cylindrical drum on the roof, seen over lawn at dusk

Long glazed pavilion with diagonal concrete bracing and a cylindrical volume above, set on a grassy slope at dusk

The structural logic is easy to read from outside. Two large prestressed slabs form floor and roof, and peripheral V-shaped columns stitch them together along the glazed edge. Four reinforced concrete cores and loose clusters of inclined columns carry the rest. The diagonals give a long, low elevation the rhythm it needs without resorting to fins or screens.

The cylindrical drum on the roof breaks the horizontal just enough to mark the building from a distance. It is the top of the vertical route that runs up from the atrium, and it signals that the roof is meant to be used.

The Glass Edge After Dark

Dusk view of the curved glass office level with angled columns and a mesh-clad drum above, lit from within

Corner view of the cantilevered glass-walled volume and roof drum above grassy mounds, with a young tree and a car light streak at dusk

At dusk the slab edge turns into a lit band, and the cantilever over the mounds becomes the strongest gesture on the site. The corner view shows how far the upper plate overhangs its base. Here the slab-and-core system earns its keep: long spans that make the cantilever look effortless rather than strained.

The Atrium as Hollow Centre

Curved ring-shaped building around a sunken courtyard with planted mound and concrete stairs, seen through a window in fog

Curved glass wall of an office floor above a sunken planted courtyard, lit from within at night with a rooftop terrace overhead

View from beneath a concrete underpass with strip lights, out to a sunken courtyard path, stairs and a glazed ring building

Cutting a circle out of a square plan is an old trick, but here it does several jobs at once. It brings daylight to the middle of a deep floor plate. It gives the offices an inward-facing view of planting and stairs. It also opens a sunken court that connects to the lower level through a concrete underpass. Walking in under the slab and arriving in a round green room is the project's best spatial sequence.

The curved glass ring around the court keeps the working floor visually tied to the landscape below it. Night views show the office level hovering over the planted hollow like a lantern set into a crater.

Routes Through the Landscape

Curved concrete edge below a glazed wall, with an autumn sapling and a planted slope with irrigation lines beside it

Looking down on a curving concrete walkway and bench between planted slopes below an office glass wall with drawn curtains

Lifting the building lets pedestrian paths and planting run underneath and between the mounds. Curving concrete walkways and benches thread between freshly planted slopes, with irrigation lines still visible. The landscape is clearly still growing in. MVA also handled the landscape design, which explains why the ground plane feels like part of the architecture rather than something applied afterwards.

A Ring of Flexible Workspace

Open office corridor with slanted concrete columns, mesh balustrade and red pendant lamps in bright sunlight

Terrazzo corridor curving along a board-marked concrete wall, with plywood partitions and a sheer curtain beside a glazed facade

Forked concrete column beside a curved stainless steel reception desk, with a person blurred in motion behind and a ring light overhead

Inside, closed offices line the outer façade, meeting rooms take the corners, and the ring around the atrium holds reception, hot desks and circulation. Because no interior walls carry load, the partitions are lightweight and demountable. For a client in the construction business, building in that kind of future renovation is a sensible bet.

The material palette is restrained: board-marked concrete, terrazzo, plywood, sheer curtains. Red pendants and a stainless steel reception desk at the foot of a forked column add warmth and a little theatre. The inclined columns stay visible throughout, so you never lose track of the structure holding up the roof.

Rooms for Gathering

Timber stepped seating with round cutouts beneath a curved window wall and red pendant lamps, soft daylight through curtains

Sunken seating pit with red shag carpet inside a curved board-formed concrete enclosure, lined with timber and lit by a warm cove light

Glazed end of the building with diagonal concrete struts and red chairs around a meeting table, lit at dusk

The collective rooms carry the most personality. Timber stepped seating under a curved window wall forms a small auditorium. A sunken pit lined with red shag carpet sits inside a board-formed concrete drum. A glazed end room holds a meeting table framed by diagonal struts. These spaces suggest a company that expects its staff to present, argue and linger, not just work at desks.

The auditorium also opens toward a multifunctional common space and an outdoor terrace at the lower level. That link turns the gathering spaces into a vertical sequence rather than isolated rooms.

Spiralling Up to the Roof

Black steel spiral staircase with mesh guard beside a concrete wall and window overlooking an autumn courtyard tree

Open stair void with a mesh balustrade and red pendant lamps hanging below a concrete ceiling, daylight filtering in from the glazed facade

A black steel spiral stair rises from the atrium to a rooftop pavilion, a terrace and a running track. Mesh guards keep the stair and the stair void light against the heavy concrete. A running track on top of a production building is a small luxury, but it completes the logic of the section: ground for making, middle for working, roof for everyone.

Plans and Drawings

Site plan drawing showing a square building with a circular courtyard set among roads, lawns, tree rows and neighbouring buildings

Lower level floor plan drawing showing separate rooms and a cafe with tables, arranged around a circular void and curving landscaped ramps

Upper floor plan drawing of a square building with perimeter offices around a circular courtyard, staircases and an angled entrance ramp

Two section drawings cutting through a long glass pavilion, showing a basement level, a rooftop volume and a grassy slope with red figures

Two elevation drawings of a low glazed pavilion with diagonal bracing, a small rooftop box, an entrance recess and trees on a grassy mound

Exploded axonometric drawing separating a roof with a red track and circular openings, a ring-shaped floor plate and black basement volumes in the terrain

The exploded axonometric explains the project better than any photograph. It shows a roof plate with a red track and circular openings, a ring-shaped floor, and black volumes sunk into the terrain. The plans confirm the clear split between the lower level, where rooms and a café sit among curving landscaped ramps, and the upper floor of perimeter offices around the void. The sections show how the slope, the basement and the rooftop drum line up on one vertical axis.

Why This Project Matters

Croatia's periurban edges, like those of most European cities, are filling with industrial and commercial buildings that treat land as a flat surface to pave. Dubrovčan shows another option. You can remediate a degraded site, rebuild its topography and use that new ground to absorb the least photogenic parts of a program. Doing so costs effort in the earthworks and in the structure, but it gives the building a landscape role that a standard shed never could.

The project also makes a quiet case for structural generosity in workplace design. Long prestressed spans, a few cores and demountable partitions mean the plan can change as the company changes. That kind of long life rarely makes headlines, and it is exactly what a construction firm's own headquarters should demonstrate.

Production and Office Building Dubrovčan by MVA Mikelić Vreš Arhitekti, Dubrovčan, Croatia. Area: 1,850 m². Completed: 2024. Photography by Jure Živković.

About the Studio

MVA Mikelić Vreš Arhitekti

Official website of MVA Mikelić Vreš Arhitekti, one of the studios behind this project.

mva.hr

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