Deus Particula diptych

Deus Particula diptych — IADA 2026 award

Deus Particula diptych received Platinum Winner recognition at the International Architecture & Design Awards 2026 in Entryway, Hallway & Staircase Design. Project status, design team and credits are listed alongside the presentation.

About the project

Deus Particula is a monumental diptych, created for the ground-floor lobbies of the newly completed office towers in Moscow City. Installed on opposite sides of the entrance sequence, the work combines reflective engineering, parametric design, and hand-applied painting in a single architectural gesture. Rather than serving as decoration, it transforms the lobby into a place of experience.

When our architectural studio studied Moscow City as an urban environment, it became clear that the district lacked public-scale artworks with enough conceptual and visual presence to act as cultural anchors. The ambition was therefore not simply to place art inside the building, but to make the lobby an extension of the city itself. From the beginning, the project was developed as a full integration of monumental art and architecture, from concept to technical realization.

The artist, originally trained as an architect, responded directly to the building’s central idea. Two towers rise around a transparent core framed by mirrored volumes. It creates the impression of a vertical beam of light held between reflections.

The artist’s proposal also connects the project to a longer architectural tradition: the Gothic ambition to link earth and sky through light. As in a cathedral, where light creates an upward pull and gives space a sense of elevation, the building suggests a luminous vertical axis. The artist’s intervention imagines that the axis meets the ground floor and disperses outward across the lobby walls.

The result is a flowing field of metaphorical light particles. It does not depict light itself, but traces its passage, as if motion had left a visible record suspended within a gold-toned, mirror-like surface. Its visual rhythm recalls murmuration, translated here into thousands of individually angled metal plates that shift with the viewer’s movement.

Art curator developed the parametric framework that made the work buildable. Working within a precise set of constraints, the team simulated the particle flow, mapped the composition onto an active parametric model, and tested full-scale mock-ups both in the studio and in the actual lobby. This process ensured that reflection, color, and spatial perception would function as one calibrated system.

What gives Deus Particula its distinct character is the balance between computation and craft. The parametric system organizes thousands of unique tilt angles and tonal variations, while the artist’s hand-painted graphic layer preserves the presence of the artist’s hand. Different brushing directions and finishes steer light across the surface, turning the metallic field into a canvas shaped equally by engineering and human gesture.

UNK Interiors

UNK Interiors is a Moscow-based architectural practice founded in 2000. The bureau works across various scales — from corporate headquarters and retail environments to public buildings and urban infrastructure. Its portfolio includes offices for L’Oréal , Bacardi, and others, the reconstruction of the Luzhniki Water Sports Palace, and the interiors of Moscow's Central Children's Store. What sets UNK apart is its ability to treat interior design as an extension of architectural thinking: each project integrates spatial planning, engineering, and material strategy into a single narrative, often tied to the identity of the place or the brand it serves. The team of architects, engineers, and interior designers works through every stage of a project, from concept to construction supervision. UNK's work has received European Property Awards, CRE Awards, and multiple Best Office Awards.