The block between Khoroshevskoye and Zvenigorodskoye highways began preparing for gentrification last year; several projects have now been announced or already entered the construction stage. For example, two complexes by the developer Sezar are planned on the site of the Krasnaya Presnya vegetable warehouse – City, in an art deco spirit, and Future, in a high-tech style. On the side of 1st Magistralnaya Street, an office center composed of 23 cubes is under construction, and Telegram channels are circulating renderings of a future 31-story mixed-use complex. Another major project is the Amber City residential complex, being built on the former site of the Khoroshevsky reinforced concrete factory DSK-1.
Amber City housing complex
Copyright: © Aleksey Ilin Architects
The site handled by Alexey Ilyin’s studio is shaped like an irregular wedge – its wide base faces Rozanov Street, a bundle of railway tracks, the Third Ring Road, and the Vagankovo Cemetery, while its sharp tip extends deep into the block toward the future Sezar Future (no pun intended) development and another residential complex. A planned access road trims the jagged wedge into a more regular triangle.
A preserved five-story building on Rozanov Street, presumably, triggered the two-part composition of the master plan: it is fairly long – 67 meters in length – but it seems to be this very building that, with an effortless gesture, “pushes apart” the high-rise complex, dividing it into two parts and two phases, the southern and the northern. This creates a spatial axis: one end points southeast toward Vagankovo, the other toward the Khoroshyovskaya Metro Station.
The axis divides the tower groups into two clusters. The southwest group – already well under construction – is more regular: three towers are united by a podium that forms the frontage of three streets, one of them partly existing and two planned. The eastern group is more dispersed and permeable: here, one tower “splinters off” to take its place in the row of residential buildings along 3rd Khoroshevsky Driveway. The connecting element is no longer a podium but a system of interlinked, multilevel plazas.
Amber City housing complex. The master plan
Copyright: © Aleksey Ilin Architects
All the six towers differ in height, ranging from 41 to 56 stories. Their façades, shapes, and orientations also vary, shaped by requirements for daylight exposure and views from the windows. Apartments on the upper floors will have panoramas spanning nearly half the city, but in this case a picturesque skyline is visible even from the ground level – thanks largely to the pause in Moscow’s urban fabric created by the Vagankovo Cemetery. The relatively free placement of the towers forms a sculptural silhouette that will unfold differently depending on the viewpoint.
Amber City housing complex
Copyright: © Aleksey Ilin Architects
The two central towers flanking the preserved five-story building serve as visual anchors, tying the entire complex into a unified ensemble. They are neither symmetrical nor identical – yet paradoxically joined by the spatial void they frame, as well as by their “profile” orientation: both buildings turn their narrow ends toward the Third Ring Road and Vagankovo, as if allowing a kind of flowing emptiness to pass between them. This kind of architectonic quality recalls the structure of a lock gate – as though giant plates were rotated to let through a flow that is invisible yet perceptible.
Amber City housing complex
Copyright: © Aleksey Ilin Architects
The two central towers, flanking the already-mentioned five-story building, are slightly taller than the others – 55 and 56 stories respectively. Their warm copper tone also makes them stand out; on the other, entirely white towers this color appears only as the subtle backing of their “crowns”. The western anchor is distinguished by the purity of its form, emphasized by simple vertical and horizontal divisions. The eastern one is more voluminous and sculptural: its cascades of verticals are interrupted by “islands” of continuous glazing, as if streams of water meet a boulder and flow around it. The terraces are facing the Moscow City complex. The remaining towers follow the same principle but in different variations: enamel-glass inserts link windows vertically or horizontally, creating a woven-like pattern.
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Amber City housing complexCopyright: © Aleksey Ilin Architects
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Amber City housing complexCopyright: © Aleksey Ilin Architects
The pattern “salutes” two other prominent new Moscow complexes – located farther away, roughly 2.5 kilometers off, and hypothetically visible along the D4 rail corridor: Headliner and the first quarter of Zapadny Port complex; and we should also keep Rublyovskoye 1 in mind. It was precisely there that the cross-woven façade structure was confidently developed, a super-graphic easily legible from afar or even from a moving car. Amber City picks up and continues this theme, building semantic connections and resonances, and choosing accents that feel related. A contextual dialogue between these high-rise projects is not only possible but acutely appropriate – and, given their magnificent scale, it unfolds across long distances; as if they “signal” to each other, passing along a kind of relay of kindred architectural statements.
One might even suppose that Amber City’s towers sit at the intersection of two themes: the profile-like propylaea – dominated by warm tones – face toward Presnya, while the other buildings, with their cross-hatched white grids, look more toward the southwest.
However, that is what you see from afar, from a kind of bird’s-eye view. Up close, Amber City reveals plenty of its own interesting features: traces of the architect’s signature style and the imprint of our era, enamored of technology and the romantic “remastering” of the 1930s. Here, streamlining rules everywhere with its flow of softened corners and lines. It turns the podium friezes into something like an ocean liner, elegantly masking technical grilles so that necessity becomes ornament.
In the apartments, the rounded window corners become an emotional attraction: reminiscent of Nakagin, yet spacious and comfortable. These curves, though they hark back to the 1930s – or the 1950s – still confidently imbue the entire complex with a futuristic note.
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Amber City housing complexCopyright: © Aleksey Ilin Architects
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Amber City housing complexCopyright: © Aleksey Ilin Architects
The podium level implements the “city within a city” concept: commercial spaces will meet people’s everyday needs – shops, cafés, gyms, pharmacies, and beauty salons. The district is developing rapidly, and business centers are already planned on adjacent plots, as on Khodynka; this will likely allow some new residents to work near home, reducing daily commuter flow across the city.
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Amber City housing complexCopyright: © Aleksey Ilin Architects
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Amber City housing complex. Plan of the 1 and 2 floorCopyright: © Aleksey Ilin Architects
In the space behind the central towers, along the axis of the pedestrian boulevard, the Amber City project will also include an educational complex designed for 500 children.
The compact placement of the towers leaves room to create a secure and comfortable environment. A pedestrian boulevard runs across the entire site, which covers an impressive 6 hectares. It begins at the intersection of the Third Ring Road and Zvenigorodskoye Highway, where a landscaped park area will be created, then crosses the courtyard of the first tower cluster and links it to the sports core of the second cluster, ending at 3rd Khoroshevsky Proyezd. In this way, the boulevard will connect various recreational zones for children and adults, art objects, and the so-called “minor architectural forms”. To make the spaces adjacent to the buildings more vibrant, the architects use multi-level zoning. According to designs by Derevo Park and Space, the landscape will be enriched with trees and shrubs.
Amber City housing complex
Copyright: © Aleksey Ilin Architects
The theme of amber – set by the name of the complex and its façade materials – is revealed most fully in the interiors of the public spaces. These were designed by UNK Interiors, who adapted the architectural concept to a scale where surfaces are literally within arm’s reach. To avoid a “cosmic coldness”, UNK complements the white tones and streamlined forms with tactile, textured materials, greenery, and diffused, lace-like lighting. The lobbies include coworking areas with meeting rooms, and from the eastern tower residents and their guests can access a children’s play space.
The apartments in Amber City will range from studios to four-bedroom units, from 27 to 105 square meters, with high ceilings – from 3.2 to 3.7 meters. Construction of both phases is planned to be completed in 2031.
