Framework in Space

Developed by "Studio 44", the project of a judo school is based on the opposition of the modernist principle of point support and the openness of deconstruction - with their sources lying in the traditional Japanese architecture. A fair share of abstraction helps to add some stylistic discourse to the necessary level of generalization.

Written by:
Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

29 August 2016

Object

The judo school whose design "Studio 45" completed a few months ago will be built on the Vyborg side in the district of Polyustrovo - an area that was once occupied by large Dukes dachas, then factories, and now predominantly by Soviet-type apartment buildings with an odd fraction of smaller dachas and spots of die-hard industrial parks. The judo school will occupy a large rectangle on the borderline between the Academic Sakharov Park and a residential area that consists predominantly of the 1970's panel nine-story houses interspersed with later additions. The city backdrop here is a habitual checkered gray; anyone who was born in the Soviet Union would recognize this view from a mile away. And, as for the park, it is not just any park, but a descendant of the Abamelek-Lazarevs' dacha, which pretty much turns it into a piece of the preindustrial suburbs that were later merged with the industrial Saint Petersburg. Later on, it was renamed into a "Young Pioneer" Park, and its northern park has kept this name to this day, the southern part having been renamed into the "Sakharov" Park and getting a monument to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - a copy brought all the way down from Japan. And, not so much by design as by coincidence, it turned out that this Japanese theme took root here: across from the monument, a new school of a Japanese martial art will be built. The school will have in it training and performance halls - not only for judo but for gymnastics as well; it will also have a highly developed infrastructure that will include, among other things, about a dozen rooms for guest athletes. This is going to be a great up-to-date school the height of a nine-story house (28.8 meters), the height measurements of the building fitting in nicely with the surroundings.

zooming — Sports and recreation complex of the judo school. Project, 2016 © Studio 44

The school building consists of a voluminous "grid" framework with a large cell span of 7.2x7.2 meters. It is planned that the framework will be coated with wood that will bring out the wood construction both on the inside and outside, following its structural logic. To an outside observer it will look - just as it looks now on the project visualizations - that the building's framework is indeed made of wood. In an odd checkered pattern, it is at some places covered in glass and at some places is coated with panels but still mostly it is transparent, viewable, and is designed prominently on the outside. The walls recede into the depth of the building forming on the facade an intermediate space that is akin to shallow stanzas - but still uninhabited. The outer plane of the facade is touched by the "legs" of the glazed stairwells. Just like all the other pillars, they support the bowl of the main competition hall - an inverted stepping pyramid whose volume is partially readable from the outside. The entire building turns into a support for the bowl of the main hall elevated 12 meters above the ground, its edges "resting" on the outside framework, and its basis - on the volumes of the minor halls of the bottom floors that are still pierced with point supports, just as they should be in accordance with the tradition of the architecture of today. The narrow verticals of the stairwells are evenly placed, like buttresses of a gothic temple, and, coupled with the crowning band of panoramic windows, they form on the facade a composition that reminds, on the one hand, a horizontal skyscraper on slender pillars, and, on the other hand (especially when viewed from a distance of the park) - a temple portal of the Far East architectural tradition: an array of colums that support a beam with two long protruding "tails" of the cantilevers. The likeness is still further enhanced by the steps of the spectators’ stalls which add characteristic bulges to the silhouettes of the cantilevers. The whole façade is turned into a portal - a gate to sport, which is more than symbolic. This portal is, however, far from classic - it has a pillar in its middle which made the architects shift the entrance with its broad marquee to the left: the geometry of the main façade took on some "irresponsible" quality, while the likeness to the hyper portal stopped being literal. Behind the top glass horizontal, there are cafes that circle the stalls along their perimeter that will command, just like the stairwells, a great panoramic view of the park and the city.

This mixture of avant-grade and modernism with a tilt to Japanese postwar metabolic architecture - with references to the traditional Japanese house, and, most importantly, the classic judo halls - are to be found everywhere in this building. One grows into the other, which seems more or less self-explanatory, as one abstracts himself from the form. Just like on a Picasso painting, where somebody's nose can be at the same time an abstract triangle, we can see here, depending on our mood and angle of vision, either a Japanese temple with a broad roof or a wooden pavilion, the kind that is popular today at architectural festivals, or a huge building designed in full accordance with the rules of modern architecture (which it actually is). So - and it comes as no surprise at all - what we see is a curious version of Pompidou Center's Piano&Rogers Pyramid, only tested with squares of wooden structure and changed almost beyond recognition, the masterpiece and the manifesto of the deconstruction architecture. And why not? The staircases are brought forward, behind them, there is the "bustle" of the building works crossed by diagonal metallic beams - the likeness to the famous escalator and the metallic grids on the main façade of the Paris museum is obvious, even though here, in Saint Petersburg, everything is a lot more reserved and farther away from hi-tech, and, even, conversely, sunk in the tradition of wooden construction. Another thing that comes to mind is Nikolai Plissky's "Hadron Collider", a hint at the mechanism of state-of-the-art technologies, built from rough timber - but then again, the distance from the prototype is not so great. And if we are to talk about deconstruction, it is something that is contained inside here - the building does not cast any "protuberances" outside and stays compact; the main façade looks more like a cut or a section of some part of the building's structure. No irony is in sight - quite the opposite, what we see is, for all intents and purposes, quite a serious discourse on the subject of the basics of modernist culture and its origin lying in the traditional oriental cultures.

And that's as true as it's going to get - the bare staircases that are brought forward here can be seen not only in Pompidou but also in many other modernist masterpieces - for example, in Andrew Meerson's "Pilots' House" with its oval stairwell towers. The crossings of sliced verticals and horizontals, on the other hand, put one in the mind of the Fuji Television building designed by Kenzo Tange, as well as some projects done by "Studio 44" itself where a "centipede" beam elevated on a multitude of supporting pillars is one of the favorite techniques; it is to be found, for example, in their contest project of a multifunctional complex on the alluvial land of the Vasilyevsky Island; or in the building of the defense ministry of Kazakhstan.

On the whole, however, the project is immersed in the Japanese tradition. The most obvious prototype is, of course, the Japanese house and the judo gyms with their wooden frameworks, lattices, and partitions covered in rice paper, light, transparent, agile, just as the spirit of a judo school should suggest. To a certain degree, the building of the Saint Petersburg school IS such a gym, only magnified manifold: 72x29 meters,12.6 meters to reach the beams, and 16 meters together with them - strictly speaking, it could contain a couple of 5-story residential buildings. Three tiers of ceiling beams - its main pride - also work to "explore the subject" directly referring us to the prototype of the Japanese red ceilings that in the old houses sometimes occupy a significant share of the home space dividing it into cubes. The ambient light that falls from all sides, including from the ceiling, is softened but still with a voluminous quality to it, and it enhances the Japanese framework feel of the space in which mass is seemingly completely inferior to structure.

But, as was already said, the modernist basis and the Japanese prototypes are closely connected here. The architecture of contemporary history is all about framework, which accounts for 90% of its beauty and success; this is also one of the principles of Le Corbusier. The point supports are derived from the specifics of the technology of reinforced concrete, and they help save building materials and space, as well as make walls light and transparent. But at the same time this technology dates back to all framework houses known to man, less to modernism in its European half-timber form, and more to the framework of a Japanese house that so many classics of the wooden tradition fell for. In other words, this evergreen technology of framework construction that has been around for at least a century has its roots in a tradition. In this case, the theme luckily coincided with the theme of the judo school, making the meaning complete or getting back to the sources at the new helix of development.

One cannot help recalling that "Studio 44" has already done another project built upon a wooden framework - the science museum in the city of Tomsk. Back then, it seemed that the architect revived the sculptural tradition of the early Soviet wooden avant-garde architecture, and that he was going to keep on using that language teetering on the verge of the literal, the recognizable, and the generalized. It is clear now that "Studio 44" views the idea - one of a wooden framework in this case - from many different angles, studying its numerous prototypes suggested by the context. Viewing the building's framework as a voluminous grid whose content is conditioned by the building's function, and, as a consequence, is rather flexible, is interesting in itself, and, besides, all through the XX century a lot was said on the subject, so the architects had a lot of starting points to lean on.

29 August 2016

Headlines now

Inverted Fortress

This year, there has been no shortage of intriguing architectural ideas around the Omsk airport. The project developed by the architectural company KPLN appeals to Omsk’s history as a wooden fortress that it was back in the day, but transforms the concept of a fortress beyond recognition: it “shaves off” the conical ends of “wooden logs”, then enlarges them, and then flips them over. The result is a hypostyle – a forest of conical columns on point supports, with skylights on top.

The Paradox of the Temporary

The concept of the Russian pavilion for EXPO 2025 in Osaka, proposed by the Wowhaus architects, is the last of the six projects we gathered from the 2022 competition. It is again worth noting that the results of this competition were not finalized due to the cancellation of Russia’s participation in World Expo 2025. It should be mentioned that Wowhaus created three versions for this competition, but only one is being presented, and it can’t be said that this version is thoroughly developed – rather, it is done in the spirit of a “student assignment”. Nevertheless, the project is interesting in its paradoxical nature: the architects emphasized the temporary character of the pavilion, and in its bubble-like forms sought to reflect the paradoxes of space and time.

The Forum of Time

The competition project for the Russian Pavilion at EXPO 2025 in Osaka designed by Aleksey Orlov and Arena Project Institute consists of cones and conical funnels connected into a non-trivial composition, where one can feel the hand of architects who have worked extensively with stadiums and other sports facilities. It’s very interesting to delve into its logic, structurally built on the theme of clocks, hourglasses and even sundials. Additionally, the architects have turned the exhibition pavilion into a series of interconnected amphitheaters, which is also highly relevant for world exhibitions. We are reminding you that the competition results were never announced.

Mirrors Everywhere

The project by Sergey Nebotov, Anastasia Gritskova, and the architectural company “Novoe” was created for the Russian pavilion at EXPO 2025, but within the framework of another competition, which, as we learned, took place even earlier, in 2021. At that time, the competition theme was “digital twins”, and there was minimal time for work, so the project, according to the architect himself, was more of a “student assignment”. Nevertheless, this project is interesting for its plan bordering on similarity with Baroque projects and the emblem of the exhibition, as well as its diverse and comprehensive reflectiveness.

Report

The Steppe Is Full of Beauty and Freedom

The goal of the exhibition “Dikoe Pole” (“Wild Field”) at the State Historical Museum was to move away from the archaeological listing of valuable items and to create an image of the steppe and nomads that was multidirectional and emotional – in other words, artistic. To achieve this goal, it was important to include works of contemporary art. One such work is the scenography of the exhibition space developed by CHART studio.

The Snowstorm Fish

The next project from the unfinished competition for the Russian Pavilion at EXPO 2025, which will be held in Osaka, Japan, is by Dashi Namdakov and Parsec Architects. The pavilion describes itself as an “architectural/sculptural” one, with its shape clearly reminiscent of abstract sculpture of the 1970s. It complements its program with a meditative hall named “Mendeleev’s Dreams”, and offers its visitors to slide from its roof at the end of the tour.

The Mirror of Your Soul

We continue to publish projects from the competition for the design of the Russian Pavilion at EXPO in Osaka 2025. We are reminding you that the results of the competition have not been announced, and hardly will ever be. The pavilion designed by ASADOV Architects combines a forest log cabin, the image of a hyper transition, and sculptures made of glowing threads – it focuses primarily on the scenography of the exhibition, which the pavilion builds sequentially like a string of impressions, dedicating it to the paradoxes of the Russian soul.

Part of the Ideal

In 2025, another World Expo will take place in Osaka, Japan, in which Russia will not participate. However, a competition for the Russian pavilion was indeed held, with six projects participating. The results were never announced as Russia’s participation was canceled; the competition has no winners. Nevertheless, Expo pavilion projects are typically designed for a bold and interesting architectural statement, so we’ve gathered all the six projects and will be publishing articles about them in random order. The first one is the project by Vladimir Plotkin and Reserve Union, which is distinguished by the clarity of its stereometric shape, the boldness of its structure, and the multiplicity of possible interpretations.

Object

The Fortress by the River

ASADOV Architects have developed a concept for a new residential district in the center of Kemerovo. To combat the harsh climate and monotonous everyday life, the architects proposed a block type of development with dominant towers, good insolation, facades detailed at eye level, and event programming.

Object

In the Rhombus Grid

Construction has begun on the building of the OMK (United Metallurgical Company) Corporate University in Nizhny Novgorod’s town of Vyksa, designed by Ostozhenka Architects. The most interesting aspect of the project is how the architects immersed it in the context: “extracting” a diagonal motif from the planning grid of Vyksa, they aligned the building, the square, and the park to match it. A truly masterful work with urban planning context on several different levels of perception has long since become the signature technique of Ostozhenka.

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Generational Connection

Another modern estate, designed by Roman Leonidov, is located in the Moscow region and brings together three generations of one family under one roof. To fit on a narrow plot without depriving anyone of personal space, the architects opted for a zigzag plan. The main volume in the house structure is accentuated by mezzanines with a reverse-sloped roof and ceilings featuring exposed beams.

Object

Three Dimensions of the City

We began to delve into the project by Sergey Skuratov, the residential complex “Depo” in Minsk, located at Victory Square, and it fascinated us completely. The project has at least several dimensions to it: historical – at some point, the developer decided to discontinue further collaboration with Sergey Skuratov Architects, but the concept was approved, and its implementation continues, mostly in accordance with the proposed ideas. The spatial and urban planning dimension – the architects both argue with the city and play along with it, deciphering nuances, and finding axes. And, finally, the tactile dimension – the constructed buildings also have their own intriguing features. Thus, this article also has two parts: it dwells on what has been built and what was conceived

Object

New “Flight”

Architects from “Mezonproject” have developed a project for the reconstruction of the regional youth center “Polyot”(“Flight”) in the city of Oryol. The summer youth center, built back in the late 1970s, will now become year-round and acquire many additional functions.

Object

The Yauza Towers

In Moscow, there aren’t that many buildings or projects designed by Nikita Yavein and Studio 44. In this article, we present to you the concept of a large multifunctional complex on the Yauza River, located between two parks, featuring a promenade, a crossroads of two pedestrian streets, a highly developed public space, and an original architectural solution. This solution combines a sophisticated, asymmetric façade grid, reminiscent of a game of fifteen puzzle, and bold protrusions of the upper parts of the buildings, completely masking the technical floors and sculpting the complex’s silhouette.

Object

Architecture and Leisure Park

For the suburban hotel complex, which envisages various formats of leisure, the architectural company T+T Architects proposed several types of accommodation, ranging from the classic “standard” in a common building to a “cave in the hill” and a “house in a tree”. An additional challenge consisted in integrating a few classic-style residences already existing on this territory into the “architectural forest park”.

Overview

The U-House

The Jois complex combines height with terraces, bringing the most expensive apartments from penthouses down to the bottom floors. The powerful iconic image of the U-shaped building is the result of the creative search for a new standard of living in high-rise buildings by the architects of “Genpro”.

Object

Black and White

In this article, we specifically discuss the interiors of the ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh. Interior design is a crucial component of the overall concept in this case, and precision and meticulous execution were highly important for the architects. Julia Tryaskina, head of UNK interiors, shares some of the developments.

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The “Snake” Mountain

The competition project for the seaside resort complex “Serpentine” combines several typologies: apartments of different classes, villas, and hotel rooms. For each of these typologies, the KPLN architects employ one of the images that are drawn from the natural environment – a serpentine road, a mountain stream, and rolling waves.

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Opal from Anna Mons’ Ring

The project of a small business center located near Tupolev Plaza and Radio Street proclaims the necessity of modern architecture in a specific area of Moscow commonly known as “Nemetskaya Sloboda” or “German settlement”. It substantiates its thesis with the thoroughness of details, a multitude of proposed and rejected form variants, and even a detailed description of the surrounding area. The project is interesting indeed, and it is even more interesting to see what will come of it.

Object

Feed ’Em All

A “House of Russian Cuisine” was designed and built by KROST Group at VDNKh for the “Rossiya” exhibition in record-breaking time. The pavilion is masterfully constructed in terms of the standards of modern public catering industry multiplied by the bustling cultural program of the exhibition, and it interprets the stylistically diverse character of VDNKh just as successfully. At the same time, much of its interior design can be traced back to the prototypes of the 1960s – so much so that even scenes from iconic Soviet movies of those years persistently come to mind.

Object

The Ensemble at the Mosque

OSA prepared a master plan for a district in the southern part of Derbent. The main task of the master plan is to initiate the formation of a modern comfortable environment in this city. The organization of residential areas is subordinated to the city’s spiritual center: depending on the location relative to the cathedral mosque, the houses are distinguished by façade and plastique solutions. The program also includes a “hospitality center”, administrative buildings, an educational cluster, and even an air bridge.

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Pargolovo Protestantism

A Protestant church is being built in St. Petersburg by the project of SLOI architects. One of the main features of the building is a wooden roof with 25-meter spans, which, among other things, forms the interior of the prayer hall. Also, there are other interesting details – we are telling you more about them.

Object

The Shape of the Inconceivable

The ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh brings to mind a famous maxim of all architects and critics: “You’ve come up with it? Now build it!” You rarely see such a selfless immersion in implementation of the project, and the formidable structural and engineering tasks set by UNK architects to themselves are presented here as an integral and important part of the architectural idea. The challenge matches the obliging status of the place – after all, it is an “exhibition of achievements”, and the pavilion is dedicated to the nuclear energy industry. Let’s take a closer look: from the outside, from the inside, and from the underside too.

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Rays of the Desert

A school for 1750 students is going to be built in Dubai, designed by IND Architects. The architects took into account the local specifics, and proposed a radial layout and spaces, in which the children will be comfortable throughout the day.

Object

The Dairy Theme

The concept of an office of a cheese-making company, designed for the enclosed area of a dairy factory, at least partially refers to industrial architecture. Perhaps that is why this concept is very simple, which seems the appropriate thing to do here. The building is enlivened by literally a couple of “master strokes”: the turning of the corner accentuates the entrance, and the shade of glass responds to the theme of “milk rivers” from Russian fairy tales.

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The Road to the Temple

Under a grant from the Small Towns Competition, the main street and temple area of the village of Nikolo-Berezovka near Neftekamsk has been improved. A consortium of APRELarchitects and Novaya Zemlya is turning the village into an open-air museum and integrating ruined buildings into public life.

Object

Towers Leaning Towards the Sun

The three towers of the residential complex “Novodanilovskaya 8” are new and the tallest neighbors of the Danilovsky Manufactory, “Fort”, and “Plaza”, complementing a whole cluster of modern buildings designed by renowned masters. At the same time, the towers are unique for this setting – they are residential, they are the tallest ones here, and they are located on a challenging site. In this article, we explore how architects Andrey Romanov and Ekaterina Kuznetsova tackled this far-from-trivial task.

Object

In the spirit of ROSTA posters

The new Rostselmash tractor factory, conceptualized by ASADOV Architects, is currently being completed in Rostov-on-Don. References to the Soviet architecture of the 1920’s and 1960’s resonate with the mission and strategic importance of the enterprise, and are also in line with the client’s wish: to pay homage to Rostov’s constructivism.

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The Northern Thebaid

The central part of Ferapontovo village, adjacent to the famous monastery with frescoes by Dionisy, has been improved according to the project by APRELarchitects. Now the place offers basic services for tourists, as well as a place for the villagers’ leisure.

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Brilliant Production

The architects from London-based MOST Architecture have designed the space for the high-tech production of Charge Cars, a high-performance production facility for high-speed electric cars that are assembled in the shell of legendary Ford Mustangs. The founders of both the company and the car assembly startup are Russians who were educated in their home country.