PRESS RELEASE
JTI’s Moscow office recognized as the most comfortable in Russia
JTI Russia headquarters wins Best Office Awards
Moscow, June 1, 2016 – Best Office Awards 2016 winners have been announced in Moscow for the seventh time. The award for the best office design has established itself as a kind of Oscar for commercial and office interiors. In 2016, a jury of reputable architects had to select the best in 10 categories from 84 projects nominated for Best Office Awards. JTI’s Moscow office, which opened in September 2015, won in the “Comfortable Environment” category.
JTI’s office is located in Mercury City Tower, one of Moscow’s skyscrapers, where the company purchased five floors with a total area of almost 10,000 square meters in 2012, to create a comfortable environment for its employees working at the Moscow headquarters and sales department. The design was developed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), one of the largest US architecture firms, in cooperation with the international architectural practice Aukett Swanke, Universum Project, and Knight Frank.
JTI’s office in Mercury City Tower is distinctive for its splendid panoramic views over the central and western parts of Moscow and the Moscow City skyscrapers. One of the designer team’s key objectives was to make the best use of panoramic windows and natural light.
With an average of 18 square meters per employee, the office is very spacious. Most desks and lounge zones are placed near the skyscraper’s panoramic windows. The conference hall is equipped with cutting-edge audio and video systems. There is a variety of bars with comfortable couches and picturesque views; each floor has several kitchens and relax and coffee break zones.
The special acoustics enhances the feeling of comfort. The office is equipped with sound absorbing ceiling systems, sound barriers below raised access flooring, double-glazed windows in private offices and meeting rooms, automatic door bottom seals, etc. Common open spaces feature special acoustic partitions and booth chairs made of sound-absorbing materials. The British firm Sandy Brown Associates, which once served the Royal Academy of Music, BBC Media Centre in London, and the UN Conference Center, was JTI’s acoustics consultant.
Page 1 of 2
JTI’s office has been built to meet LEED green building certification standard (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), which contains over 40 strict requirements for energy and water saving, environmental technology innovations, and indoor air quality.
The office has bathroom fixtures with water-saving features, containers for separate waste collection, and a lighting management system allowing for energy savings of up to 75 percent (60 percent thanks to the use of natural light and 15 percent, to presence detection and time- based control).
In January 2016, JTI’s office was certified to the Gold level of LEED (there are four LEED rating levels: Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum). Today only nine offices in Russia are certified to the LEED standard, and JTI is the only company in Russia to achieve this level in the past three years.
“Our goal was to create a truly convenient, comfortable and stylish office for our employees. We didn’t take the easy way out, but rather focused on meeting high international environmental standards, and this was the biggest challenge of the project. The fact that we have won the competition between the country’s best offices in the "Comfortable Environment" category is the best evidence that we have achieved it”, said Marina Krechetnikova, JTI Russia’s Administration Director and the project lead.
Other winners of Best Office Awards:
A.T. Kearney’s project, designed by OFFCON architectural bureau, has been awarded Gran Prix at Best Office Awards 2016.
Winners in categories:
• Arrangement of Space
Alfa-Stroy project / VOX ARCHITECTS studio
• Brand and Image / Company Values
RD CONSTRUCTION project / IND Architects bureau
• Comfortable Environment
JTI Russia project / Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and Aukett Swanke architecture firms
• Lighting Design
Gazeta.ru project / Nefa Architects studio
Page 2 of 4
• Design Idea – two winners:
Championat.com project / Nefa Architects studio
MRTS project / Arch Group architecture bureau
• Construction Quality
SAP / OFFICEPROJECT architecture bureau / General contractor: Moscow Krasnye Holmy
• Business Center’s Best Atrium
Dominion Tower / Zaha Hadid Architects practice
• Best Foreign Project
Bearys Global Research Triangle / Collaborative Architecture
• People’s Choice Award
GEROPHARM/ Design Solutions bureau
All the information about projects – Best Office Awards nominees and winners – is available at www.officenext.ru
###
For more information please contact: Maria Belevitneva, Communications Manager, JTI Russia: Tel.: +7 903 676 30-36 [email protected]
Gleb Krampets, CEO, Press-Papier PR agency: Tel.: + 7 960 284 1771 [email protected]
About Best Office Awards Premium Best Office Awards premium is recognized by international community as one of the most prestigious independent assessment of corporate and public interiors across Russia, CIS and Eastern Europe. The prize is granted to the tandem of an architect and a client company of the winning project.
Page 3 of 4
The Best Office Awards premium has been organized by www.officenext.ru professional online portal lead by Sergey Konnov.
About JTI
JTI, a member of the Japan Tobacco Group of Companies, is a leading international tobacco manufacturer. The company is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and employs about 26,000 employees worldwide. Its core revenue in the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 was USD 10.3 billion. For more information visit www.jti.com.
JTI in Russia
JTI is the largest tobacco manufacturer on the Russian market. It is among the top five foreign companies in Russia, according to Forbes’ ranking.
JTI has a sales department and four factories in Russia: Petro in St. Petersburg, Liggett-Ducat in Moscow, CRES Neva in Leningrad Region, and JTI Yelets in Lipetsk Region. About 4,000 employees are working at JTI’s factories and offices in all major cities of Russia. JTI is among Russia’s best employers in terms of career development opportunities and employee compensation package.1
In 2014, JTI became the first Russian company to achieve the Bronze Level of the Investors in People Accreditation, an international system for people management quality accreditation.
In 2016, for the second time in a row, the Top Employers Institute recognized JTI Russia, and Petro factory in particular, as one of the best employers in Russia and Europe, and also confirmed its status as one of the world’s best employers.
In 2016, JTI Russia received the HR Brand award for outstanding achievements in the development of its employer brand.
1 According to Headhunter’s survey “Gender Differences in Companies,” 2015; “Career Start” rankings on Career.ru portal; “Best Company for Work and Career 2013” ranking by Elite Personnel newspaper, 2013; “Best Employers in Russia 2012” by Vedomosti newspaper, No. 33 (3295), 2013.
Page 4 of 4