Sofia Airport Center
This project embraces the vision of a green, environmentally responsible workplace - an approach that forward-thinking companies recognize as the new standard for the future.
A Contemporary Workplace in Sync with the Landscape
Sofia Airport Center (SAC) is the first LEED-certified sustainable business complex in Bulgaria, offering a work environment that meets international quality standards and is designed in full harmony with nature. The project provides employees and visitors with optimal health conditions, an environmentally conscious approach, and an inspiring atmosphere that promotes both productivity and well-being. The landscape design plays a key role in the overall concept of the complex. The composition of the outdoor spaces includes the following functional zones: visitor parking, a main entrance with "Spanish Steps," plaza areas, a dry garden, a tropical greenhouse, and a park zone with a lake and dedicated recreational spaces.
A Welcoming Space with Life and Identity
The main approach to the complex is designed through wide steps, known as the “Spanish Steps,” featuring seating areas and green terraces with vibrant planting of seasonal and perennial flowers that attract various types of insects. In front of the main building’s entrance, a spacious area has been formed, intended for meetings and conversations, offering views toward the park of the complex. The centerpiece of the area is a geometric reflecting pool, framed by decorative fountains and gently sloping planters bursting with colorful seasonal flowers. Water here is presented in its dynamic form through the cheerful bubbling of the fountains, which also serve an ecological function – they capture fine dust particles from the air and help improve its quality. To add further color around the buildings, flower beds with perennial plants and evergreen ornamental shrubs and grasses have been included.
Vibrant Colors and Forms
The park area is designed in an organic style, featuring a naturally shaped lake at its center with floating fountains that bring life and movement to the space. Modelled geoplastics with smooth, nature-inspired forms break up the flat terrain, creating cozy resting spots and perspectives with depth. Throughout the area, flowering shrubs and clusters of perennial and seasonal flowers are planted in soft, elliptical shapes. The rich vegetation attracts insects and birds, promotes biodiversity, and contributes to a healthy ecosystem. A smooth visual transition from the geometric plant compositions around the buildings to the more naturalistic planting style in the park is achieved by repeating some of the plant species in both zones.
Green Roof Gardens
Three types of green roof gardens have been implemented across the complex: intensive, semi-intensive, and extensive. The intensive garden, with its deep soil layer, provides conditions for large-scale vegetation and serves as a natural transition between the architectural forms and the surrounding park. The semi-intensive roofs, with a thinner soil layer, are planted with grasses and small shrubs. One of them is the so-called “Dry Garden,” built above the entrance to the underground parking area, where soil is applied only in specific modelled geoplastics. The extensive garden, located on the roof of one of the office buildings, is covered with succulents and ground-cover species, contributing to energy efficiency and requiring minimal maintenance. These green roofs offer numerous environmental benefits — from microclimate regulation to the enhancement of urban biodiversity.
Combining aesthetics, sustainability, and care for the human experience, Sofia Airport Center affirms the power of landscape architecture to transform both the environment and the sense of place.
