ProjectNext and White Gardens business centre have announced an open international design competition with the aim of finding the best concept to overhaul the public arcade inside Roman Abramovich’s White Gardens office complex in Moscow.

Scott Brownrigg's CEO Darren Comber has been invited to join an esteemed jury of global architectural professionals who will judge the competition entries in the coming months. He is spearheading the practice’s expansion into Russia and has worked extensively in the region, with a particular focus on large office schemes such as the practice’s award-winning Skolkovo Park scheme in Moscow. 

Other members of the jury include Yevgenia Murinets, Head of the Board of the Architecture Council at Moscow’s Committee for Architecture and Urban Planning and Anatoly Belov, Editor-in-chief of Project Russia as well as representatives from other architectural practices.

The Arcade is a public space between the two blocks of the White Gardens business centre, which is located in the well-known White District. The glass-roofed space of the Arcade currently features restaurants, cafes and bars and has a floor area of more than 800 sq m. It will be transformed into a vibrant urban environment where both people working at the business centre and the general public will come to relax.

The Inter Space: White Gardens Arcade competition is open to entries from architectural, structural engineering and design firms, as well as from individual architects and designers. Participants are asked to generate ideas and proposals for organising the Arcade space and improving wayfinding and circulation routes in the area, with the aim of creating a new, comfortable environment which visitors will find interesting and stimulating.

The shortlisted teams will be announced in February 2016, after which they will prepare architectural drawings to be presented in summer 2016. The competition winner will be offered the design contract for the project. 

The competition has also been featured in Architects' Journal.