Strigino airport VIP lounge | Nefa Architects

Strigino airport VIP lounge was designed by Nefa Architects,«Airports of Regions» is a leading airport holding company in Russia. Today the holding includes airports of Ekaterinburg (Koltsovo), Samara (Kurumoch), Rostov-on-Don and Nizhny Novgorod (Strigino).
Construction of a new passenger terminal at Strigino International Airport was completed in 2016, and Nefa Architects designed a business lounge. This project was a continuation of the fruitful cooperation between the holding and the architectural bureau. The challenge was to create a modern comfortable space for business-class passengers using domestic airlines.

Organization of space:
The business lounge is located inside the building, in the “clean zone” of the terminal. The total area of the lounge exceeds 300 square meters; its passenger capacity is up to 77 seats. Space accommodates a reception area, a restaurant, and two soft zones. Space zoning provides maximum comfort for all passengers. If a whole delegation is going to fly, you can stay at a common table or on a large sofa. For those who want privacy and silence, there are places in niches. The left wing includes a stylish media zone, and the restaurant is on the right side of the business lounge.

Design Concept:
The main idea of Strigino airport VIP lounge concept is to create the image of a large industrial city, which has its own scale and color. The artistic image is based on the contrasting combination of a bright red-ocher color of the patina and an almost black surface of the blued metal. Architects started from the dark red, burgundy, brown palette of the old bricks of the Kremlin wall, which sets the tone for the coloring of Nizhny Novgorod. The second obvious theme of the city`s image is its powerful industry, factory grounds where machines and mechanisms are produced, so the main material of the project is steel.

The authors of Strigino airport VIP lounge tried to convey the image of the industrial city with its numerous factories and plants, using brutal forms and materials in the interior. These are trimming of pipes in the ceiling and individual furniture with the texture of rusty metal, concrete table and facing with the oxidized steel.

Lighting solutions:
The lack of windows and daylight inside the building concentrated the architects` efforts on finding original lighting solutions – custom lamps were specially created for the project.

Acoustic solutions:
For additional comfort of passengers in the soft zone, acoustic panels were used. The project used non-standard materials and technologies – steel oxidation; individual studio-designed light fixtures, custom-made items.

Project info:
Client: Airports of Regions
Architects: Nefa Architects (Nefaresearch)
Location: Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Chief Architect: Dmitry Ovcharov
Authors Team: Dmitry Ovcharov, Elena Mertsalova
Architects: Elena Mertsalova, Maria Nasonova
Visualization: Rustam Yusupov
Chief Engineer: Sergey Kurepin
Project Management: Victoria Nagurnaya
Total Area: 320 sqm
Year: 2016
Photographs: Ilya Ivanov
Project Name: Strigino airport VIP lounge