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Legend No.58

For “Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners”, the residential complex “LEGENDA on Komendantsky, 58” has become an ideological research project.

11 April 2016
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Despite the seaming typicality, designing multiunit residential complexes is by no means a trivial challenge. Here, specific requirements of the client are added to the obvious restrictions connected with the peculiarities of the land site and the size of the budget. Trying to adjust to the conditions of the competitive market, the clients set increasingly high standards and rigid boundaries. A typical case is LEGENDA company, which works with new large projects in St. Petersburg. It became popular thanks to the so-called “smart approach” which implies great variety of apartment layouts – up to 50 different variants – so that every potential buyer could choose an option according to their needs and possibilities. This takes a great deal of invention and imagination of the architect – especially if it concerns low- and mid-price segment.    

But then again, the first project of LEGENDA was exactly one of the “elite” category: neoclassical facades, natural stone finishing, décor in keeping with the best traditions of Stalin Empire style. All of this is the complex “Pobedy, 5”, a winner of multiple awards in the sphere of immobility which simultaneously became the first cooperation experience for the developer and “Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners” workshop. But, according to Evgeny Gerasimov, LEGENDA is a developer in search. It has set a popular goal – achieved by few: to build comfortable housing at affordable prices. During their work on the two pilot projects in mass segment, the company management determined the special “smart” principles. So when it came to a really large project (for 1470 apartments) in a quickly developing Primorsky District of St. Petersburg, the company turned to Gerasimov once again, in order to offer their clients not only practical apartment layouts, but also a worthy architectural solution. 

So Evgeny Gerasimov’s task – from an architect’s viewpoint – was in many ways an ideological one. Moreover, it was complicated by irregular configuration of the lot, restricted by Nizhne-Kamenskaya Street and Komendantsky Avenue. The prolonged triangle shape and the neighbouring large green massif defined the main zones: the entrance and commercial area of the complex faces the avenue, and the private yard borders on the natural massif, which – despite the fences – becomes its visual extension.

Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. View from the Glukharskaya Street. Project, 2015 © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners
Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. Master Plan © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners
 

In the coming future, nine 21-storey towers with three addresses will appear here. It is a full-fledged residential quarter for almost 3000 residents: within a walking distance, there is an already functioning sporting center; and in plan, there is a school construction nearby and a kindergarten in the complex itself. The first construction line, belonging to address “Komendantsky, 58”, includes only five buildings and 1008 apartments. But it is enough to read the whole “design-code” of the future block.

Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. Birds-eye view. Project, 2015 © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners

 
Its basic principles actually do eco the modern “block construction standards”. One of them is open ground floors: all the towers are connected with a two-level styllobate, whose rooms along the perimeter are meant for commercial and public organisations. This will be the place for doctors’ and cosmetologists’ consulting rooms, caffes and shops, and inside the complex, intended for the residents – a space, fashionably called “co-working”. Here, those who work remotely will be able to use equipped workplaces, school students – do their homework more focused, and the rest – have neighborly conversations and share the news. The second level of the styllobate is an office floor. At that, access to the courtyard is closed for the “outside users”, so the necessary privacy is preserved.

Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. View from the crossing of the Komendantsky and the Kovaleva prospects. Project, 2015 © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners


Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. Night view from the Glukharskaya Street. Project, 2015 © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners


Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. Stylobate with the public zones. Project, 2015 © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners

 
When it comes to the yard arrangement, it is the right time to remember the unusual shape of the lot in combination with the famous “block construction standards”, one of which is complex creation of living environment. The two-level underground parking-lot takes up almost the whole area, while the yard is “divided” on its functional roof and rises more than one meter above the ground level. It allows to emphasize the division into pedestrian and motor traffic areas.   

The client pays just as much attention to the functional richness of the yard, as to the apartment layouts. That is why, there are many different platforms and zones in the yard. For example, some platforms are intended specially for babies, others – for teenagers, and the third ones – for “grown-up” sports activities and picnics. This yard allows to hole up in private, or – on the contrary – arrange mass celebrations of neighbors. The numerous zones have different functions and different finish materials; but all of them are stylistically and physically united – by a 500-meter-long winding promenade-path.

Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. Yard. Project, 2015 © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners


Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. Yard. Family zone for the picnics. Project, 2015 © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners


Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. Open-air gym. Project, 2015 © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners
  

However, the most interesting part is the powerful architectural image of the complex itself, found by the authors: like an exotic avocado fruit, it faces the outside with its colorful, plastically rich “skin”, and the inside – with the bright, sun-yellow “flesh”. All the front facades of the complex are united with a colorful pattern that contains numerous pixels. At that, each house has its prevailing color, even though with many additional inclusions. As a result, each house obtained its own character within a uniform ensemble.  

Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. Birds-eye view. Project, 2015 © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners
  

The balconies, stanzas and bay-windows “catch” the beams of the real sun. Their completely arhythmic placement on the facades was preconditioned by the calculated parameters defined by the orientation of the buildings along the cardinal points and laws of phisics; and so they seem to be only decorative. The towers, rectangular in plan, are as if made of two sections, shifted along each other – the colorful pixels become volumetric, “alive”, they start moving and lose their likeness to a dull mosaic panel.   

Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. View from the window. Project, 2015 © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners


The apartment mix develops this idea. The buyer has an opportunity to choose an apartment from numerous options: for instance, one where the kitchen is united with the living-room, or separated from it; with the required number of bedrooms and bathrooms, with a dressing-room and a study. Among over 50 apartment layout options of the complex on Komendantsky Avenue, one is sure to find the wanted one.    

The last stroke is the readiness level of the accommodations: the apartments are offered with “white” finish, which leaves the buyer only to settle the issues of paint-tiles-wallpaper-floors. It does not take much time or effort – unlike the apartments that are sold in shell condition – but allows the owners to implement their own design preferences, choose the colors and textures.  

The first construction line of five towers is promised to be housed in the 4th quarter of 2018. Meanwhile, LEGENDA and “Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners” have started another common project – this time on Dalnevostochny Avenue, and once again with the “smart” layouts and in mass segment. This is the best proof of the fact that this ideological and architectural experiment was a success – and it is to be continued.   
Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. Birds-eye view. Project, 2015 © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners
Multiapartment buildings on the Komendantsky Prospect. Section views. Project, 2015 © Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners


11 April 2016

Headlines now
Daring Brilliance
In this article, we are exploring “New Vision”, the first school built in the past 25 years in Moscow’s Khamovniki. The building has three main features: it is designed in accordance with the universal principles of modern education, fostering learning through interaction and more; second, the façades combine structural molded glass and metallic glazed ceramics – expensive and technologically advanced materials. Third, this is the school of Garden Quarters, the latest addition to Moscow’s iconic Khamovniki district. Both a costly and, in its way, audacious acquisition, it carries a youthful boldness in its statement. Let’s explore how the school is designed and where the contrasts lie.
A Twist of the Core
A clever and concise sculptural solution – rotating each floor by N degrees – has created an ensemble of “dancing” towers: similar yet different, simple yet complex. The designers meticulously refined a single structural node and spent considerable effort on the column construction – after that, “everything else was easy”. The architects also rotated the core walls on each floor to maximize the efficiency of the office spaces.
The Sculpting of Spring Forest Matter
We’ve been observing this building for a couple of years now: seemingly simple, perhaps even unassuming, it fits in remarkably well with the micro-district context shaped by the Moscow MCD road junctions. This building sticks in the memory of everyone who drives along the highway, even occasionally. In our opinion, Sergey Nikeshkin, by blending popular architectural techniques and approaches of the 2010s, managed to turn a seemingly simple structure into a statement “on the theme of a house as such”. Let’s figure out how this happened.
Water and Wind Whet the Stone
The Arisha Terraces residential complex, designed by Asadov Architects, will be built in a district of Dubai dedicated to film and television production. To create shaded spaces and an intriguing silhouette, the architects opted for a funnel-shaped composition and nature-inspired forms of erosion and weathering. The roofs, podium, and underground spaces extend leisure opportunities within the boundaries of a man-made “oasis”.
Elevation 5642
The Genplan Institute of Moscow has developed a comprehensive development project for three ski resorts in the Caucasus, which have been designated as special economic zones of the tourism and recreation type. The first of these zones is Elbrus. The project includes the construction of new ski runs, cable cars, and hotels, as well as the modernization of stations and improvements to the Azau tourist meadow. To expand the audience and enhance year-round appeal, a network of eco-trails is also being developed. In this article, we provide a detailed breakdown of each stage.
The IT Town
Taking the example of the first completed phase of the “U” district, we examine how the new neighborhood in Innopolis will be organized. T+T Architects and HADAA formed a well-balanced and ingenious master plan with different types of housing, a green artery, a system of squares, and a park in the town’s central part.
The Heart Lies Within
The second-phase building of the Evgeny Primakov School already won multiple awards while still in the design stage. Now that it’s completed, some unfinished nuances remain – most notably, the exposed ceiling structures, which ideally should have been concealed. However, given the priority placed on the building’s volumetric composition, this does not seem critical. What matters more is the “Wow!” effect created by the space itself.
Magnetic Forces
“Krylatskaya 33” is the first large-scale residential complex to appear amidst the 1980s “micro-districts” that harmoniously coexist with the forests, the river, the slopes, and the sports infrastructure. Despite its imposing scale, the architects of Ostozhenka managed to turn the complex into something that can be best described as a “graceful dominant”. First, they designed the complex with consideration for the style and height of the surrounding micro-districts. Second, by introducing a pause in its tallest section, they created compositional tension – right along the urban planning axis of the area.
Orion’s Belt
The Stone Khodynka 2 office complex, designed by Kleinewelt Architekten for the company Stone, is built with an ergonomic layout following “healthy building” principles: natural light, ventilation, and all the necessary features for an efficient office environment. On the outside, it resembles – like many contemporary buildings – an iPhone: sleek, glowing, glass-and-metal, edges elegantly rounded. Yet, it responds sensitively to the Khodynka context, where the main theme is the contrast between vertical and horizontal lines. The key intrigue lies in the design of the “stylobate” as a suspended passage, leaving the space beneath it open for free pedestrian movement.
Grigory Revzin: “It Was a Bold Statement Made on the Sly. Something Won”
In this article, we discuss the debates surrounding the circus competition and the demolition of the CMEA building with the most renowned architectural critic of our time. A paradox emerges in the process: while nostalgia for the Brezhnev era seems to be in vogue in Russia, a landmark building – the “axis” of the Warsaw Pact – has been sentenced to demolition. Isn’t that strange? We also find out that wow-architecture has made a comeback as a post-COVID trend. However, to make a truly powerful statement, professionals still remain indispensable.
Exposed Concrete
One of the stages of improving a small square in the town of Lermontov was the construction of a skatepark. Entrusting this part of the project to the XSA team, the city gained a 250-meter trick track whose features resemble those of land art objects – unparalleled in Russia in both scale and design. Here’s a look at how the experimental snake run in the foothills of the Caucasus was built.
One Step Closer To the Dream
The challenges of getting all the mandatory approvals, an insufficient budget, and construction site difficulties did not prevent ASADOV Bureau from achieving its main goal in the realization of the school project in the town of Troitsk – taking another step away from outdated notions of educational spaces toward creating a fundamentally new academic environment.
Chalet on the Rock
An Accor hotel in Arkhyz, designed by A.Len, will be situated at the gateway to the resort’s main tourist hubs. The architects reinterpreted the widely popular chalet style while adding an unexpected twist – an unfinished structure preserved on the site. The design team transformed this remnant into an exciting space featuring an open-air pool and a restaurant with panoramic views of the region’s highest mountain ridges.
Sergey Skuratov: “By and large, the project has been realized in line with the original ideas”
In this issue, we talk to the chief architect of Garden Quarters, looking back at the history and key moments of a project that took 18 years to develop and has now finally been completed. What interests us most are the transformations that the project underwent during construction, and the way the “necessary void” of public space was formed, which turned this remarkable complex into a fragment of a whole new type of urban fabric – not just at the horizontal “street” level but in its vertical structure as well.
A Unique Representative
The recently concluded year 2024 can be considered the year of completion for the “Garden Quarters” residential complex in Moscow’s Khamovniki. This project is well-known and, in many ways, iconic. Rarely does one manage to preserve such a number of original ideas, achieving in the end a kind of urban planning Gesamtkunstwerk. Here is a subjective view from an architecture journalist, with an interview with Sergey Skuratov soon to follow.
Field of Life
The new project by the architectural company PNKB (an acronym for “Design, Research, and Advisory Bureau”), led by Sergey Gnedovsky and Anton Lyubimkin, for the Kulikovo Field Museum is dedicated to the field as a concept in its own right. The field has long been a focus of the museum’s thorough and successful research. Accordingly, the exterior of the new museum building is gentler than that of its predecessor, which was also designed by PNKB and dedicated specifically to the historic battle. Inside, however, the building confidently guides the visitor from a luminous atrium along a spiral path to the field – interpreted here as a field of life.
A Paper Clip above the River
In this article, we talk with Vitaly Lutz from the Genplan Institute of Moscow about the design and unique features of the pedestrian bridge that now links the two banks of the Yauza River in the new cluster of Bauman Moscow State Technical University (MSTU). The bridge’s form and functionality – particularly the inclusion of an amphitheater suspended over the river – were conceived during the planning phase of the territory’s development. Typically, this approach is not standard practice, but the architects advocate for it, referring to this intermediate project phase as the “pre-AGR” stage (AGR stands for Architectural and Urban Planning Approval). Such a practice, they argue, helps define key parameters of future projects and bridge the gap between urban planning and architectural design.
Living in the Architecture of One’s Own Making
Do architects design houses for themselves? You bet! In this article, we are examining a new book by TATLIN publishing house. This book – unprecedented for Russia – features 52 private homes designed and built by contemporary architects for themselves. It includes houses that are famous, even iconic, as well as lesser-known ones; large and small, stylish and eccentric. To some extent, the book reflects the history of Russian architecture over the past 30 years.
A City Block Isoline
Another competition project for a residential complex on the banks of the Volga in Nizhny Novgorod has been prepared by Studio 44. A team of architects led by Ivan Kozhin concluded that using a regular block layout in such a location would be inappropriate and developed a “custom design” approach: a chain of parceled multi-section buildings stretching along the entire embankment. Let’s explore the features and advantages of this unconventional method.
Competition: The Price of Creativity?
Any day now, we’re expecting the results of a competition held by the “Samolet” development group for a plot in Kommunarka. In the meantime, we share the impressions of Editor-in-Chief Julia Tarabarina, who managed to conduct a public talk. Though technically focused on the interaction between developers and architects, the public talk turned into a discussion about the pros and cons of architectural competitions.
Terraced Design
The “River Park” residential complex has confidently and securely shaped the Nagatinsky Backwater shoreline. Featuring a public embankment, elevated courtyards connected by pedestrian bridges, and brick façades, the development invites exploration of its nuanced response to the surrounding context, as well as hints of the architects’ megalithic design thinking.
A Kremlin’s Core and Meteorite Fragments
We continue our coverage of the competition projects for the residential district that the development company GloraX plans to build along the embankment of the Rowing Channel in Nizhny Novgorod. ASADOV Architects approached the concept through a deep dive into local identity, using storytelling to pinpoint a central idea for the design: the master plan and composition are imagined as if a meteorite had struck a “proto-Kremlin”. Sounds weird? Find more details below!
The Volga Regatta
GloraX plans to develop a residential complex spanning 14 hectares along the Volga River in Nizhny Novgorod. The winning design in a closed-door competition, created by GORA Architects, features housing typologies ranging from townhouses to terraced high-rise slabs, a balance of functions, diverse ways of engaging with the water, and even a dedicated island (no less!) for the city residents.
Life Plans
The master plan for the residential district “Prityazheniye” (“Gravity”) in Naberezhnye Chelny was developed by the architectural company A.Len, taking into account the specific urban planning context and partially implemented solutions of the first phase. However, the master plan prioritized its own values: a green framework, a system of focal points, a hierarchy of spaces, and pedestrian priority. After this, the question of what residents will do in their neighborhood simply doesn’t arise.
A New Track
We took a thorough look at D_Station, a railcar repair depot dating back to 1906, recently reconstructed while preserving its century-old industrial structure, upon the project by Sergey Trukhanov and T+T Architects. Though work on the interiors – set to house restaurants and public spaces – is still underway, the building’s exterior already offers plenty to see. Visitors can explore the blend of old and new brickwork, appreciate the architect’s unique interpretation of ruin aesthetics, and enjoy the newly built pedestrian route that connects the Citydel Business Center’s arches to Kazakova Street.
Four Different Surveys
The “Explore the City” competition, organized this year by the Genplan Institute of Moscow, stands out as a pretty unconventional one for the architectural field but aligns perfectly well with the character of urban planning work. The winning project analyzed contemporary residential complexes, combining urban planning insights with a realtor’s perspective to propose a hybrid approach. Other entries explored public centers, motivations for car ownership, and housing vacancy rates. A fifth participant withdrew. Here’s a closer look at the four completed works.
Scheduled Evolution
ASADOV Architects unveiled the EvyCenter pavilion, a microcultural hub for fostering personal growth, organizing workshops, and doing gymnastics. Additionally, this pavilion serves as a prototype for a scalable country house, drawing inspiration from the “Loskutok” project, and constructed from CLT panels in a factory. This marks the beginning of a developer project initiated by the architectural firm (sic!), which is seeking partners to expand both small Evy settlements and even larger Evy cities, which are, according to Andrey Asadov, aimed at fostering the “evolutionary” development of the people who will inhabit them.
The Golden Crown
The concept for a dental clinic in Yekaterinburg, developed by CNTR Studio, revolves around the idea of a “mouth full of gold”: pristine white porcelain stoneware walls are complemented by matte brass details. To avoid an overly literal interpretation, the architects focused on the building’s proportions, skillfully navigating between sunlight requirements and fire safety regulations.
Flexibility and Integration
Not long ago, we covered the project for the fourth phase of the ÁLIA residential complex, designed by APEX. Now, we’ve been shown different fence concepts they developed to enclose the complex’s private courtyards, incorporating a variety of public functions. We believe that the sheer fact that the complex’s architects were involved in such a detail as fencing speaks volumes.
A Step Forward
The HIDE residential complex represents a major milestone for ADM architects and their leaders Andrey Romanov and Ekaterina Kuznetsova in their quest for a fresh high-rise aesthetic – one that is flexible and layered, capable of bringing vibrancy to mass and silhouette while shaping form. Over recent years, this approach has become ADM’s “signature style”, with the golden HIDE tower playing a pivotal role in its evolution. Here, we delve into the project’s story, explore the details of the complex’s design, and uncover its core essence.