Floating Offices Being Built in Serbia Too – New Zen Business Trend for the Post-Covid Era (PHOTO)

Working on your laptop while overlooking the river and the forest on the opposite bank is a dream of many employees who struggle with an enormous amount of stress every day at work. This scenario is no longer just a wish – the coronavirus pandemic has proven that the job does not always have to be done at a traditional office and that a suitable place for work could be anywhere, from one’s own balcony to the garden of a nearby café.

People are definitely no longer satisfied to merely look at the plant in the corner of an office, and they’ve also long since become sick of the city landscape and its crowds. All this together has incited a new world trend in business operations, but also in architecture, which entails moving offices to water surfaces.

The new zen business mantra is – forget office spaces with a view to the water, let’s move companies directly to rivers, lakes and seas.

The trend of floating offices is slowly becoming popular in Europe among business people and such facilities are already being designed and built in the Netherlands, Germany, Poland.



The most impressive example is the largest floating office in the world, designed by Powerhouse Company. The office is anchored at the Port of Rijnhaven in Rotterdam and is meant to house the seat of the Global Center on Adaptation, co-chaired by Ban Ki-moon, a former Secretary-General of the United Nations. The office, which encompasses an area of 3,606 m2, will also house ABN AMRO Bank, the company RED, as well as the premises of the designing company which is the author of the project.



That neither Serbia nor the region are lagging behind when it comes to new business trends is confirmed for eKapija by the owner of the company Splavovitek & Marinas, Miljan Aleksic.

This company from Ivanovo near Pancevo exists for around ten years now and, according to Aleksic, is the only one in Serbia which offers the service of the turnkey construction of floating offices.

– We build floating facilities in Ivanovo and transport them by boats to the location where they are to be installed, we help obtain the permits and we finish the registration. In building the facilities, we take care of the conditions that floating structures need to meet, such as open profiles, a minimum hull thickness of 4 millimeters, a fecal pontoon for black and grey water and fire-resistant materials which are mandatory for commercial facilities – explains eKapija’s interviewee.

He points out that, so far, they’ve made around fifty floating offices for either individuals who want to work from home on a water surface or companies.

– The demands have increased during the pandemic. Plenty of people and companies are contacting us looking to move their work to rivers. We make the majority of floating offices for the Belgrade area, mostly on the Sava, but also on the Danube, but we are currently also preparing a project for a Croatian company which intends to move out of the city and onto a water surface and move the entire company to the river. The facility will be set up on the Drava and it will be a unique floating office in the region, with a large area, of 46 x 17 meters, with 36-m pontoons. One part will feature offices, whereas another will be comprised of a congress hall, and there will also be a catering kitchen and a large balcony for the employees’ access to kayaks and canoes – Aleksic says.

When asked how much such projects cost, Aleksic says that it all depends on the area of the facility, the design and the wishes of the clients, but that the average price ranges between EUR 50,000 and 100,000.

– Of course, some cost three times as much, and if they want to, clients can get sliding systems, an entire front portal facing the river and even a lateral one in glass, floor heating, waterproof external decks, even some specific requests such as hanging beds for working with a laptop… – our interviewee says and adds that, in addition to building them, Splavovitek & Marinas also designs such floating offices.



One of the interesting projects they are working on now is the floating office for the company Regulacije doo from Sremska Mitrovica, which has decided to move a part of its operations to Belgrade, on the Sava.

– This facility will have offices on the ground floor and the upper floor, on an area of 17 x 20 meters, heating and cooling through heat pumps, modern materials such as steel, plastic, aluminum, a glass fence, pergolas, a small bridge for access from the bank and a balcony for access from the water, as well as an apartment section for the employees’ rest – Aleksic reveals for eKapija.

B. Petrovic

SPLAVOVITEK&MARINAS N-ALEKSIĆ

VP Regulacije d.o.o. Sremska Mitrovica

Splavovitek and Marinas Pančevo

Regulacije doo Sremska Mitrovica

Powerhouse company

Global Center on Adaptation

Port of Rijnhaven

Sava

Danube

Miljan Aleksić

floating offices

raft office

raft offices