По-русски

​With a Swedish Accent

To design “Skandinavsky” UP-quarter, FSK “Lider” invited a Swedish architectural firm Semrén & Månsson.

02 August 2017
Object
mainImg

The UP-quarter “Skandinavsky” is being built three kilometers outside of the Moscow Ring Road, northwest of Mytishchi, on the territory of the former village of Borodino (just one of the several Russian namesakes of the famous village that witnessed the Napoleon battle in 1812). This place is but a 15 minutes’ bus ride away from Medvedkovo metro station. And, although Mytishchi, as is known, is already densely overbuilt, just outside the confines of Moscow’s satellite we see quite a different picture: this land is dominated by villages filled with private residences and forests that are quite abundant despite the proximity of the megalopolis. If we are to broaden our gaze, Mytishchi’s Borodino is but six kilometers away from the Pirogovskoe Lake; next to the village we will find the Khlebnikovsky and Pirogovsky parks, but the closest woodland is a forest belonging to the Mytishchi Forestry Station. As we can see, in spite of its proximity to the Moscow Ring Road (which is definitely a downside by Moscow standards), this place is still quite green and – due to the proximity of the famous Pirogovskoe Lake – almost boasting a resort status. Nearby, a few shopping malls have been built already, and new ones are being built as well. So it comes as no surprise that the FSK “Lider” developers chose this place for the construction of a large housing complex belonging to a new housing format that this company has been recently promoting on the market: formally referring to the comfort-class, it is endowed with a range of extra features that are sure to become a pleasant surprise for the consumer. To design this housing complex, FSK “Lider” invited the Swedish firm Semrén & Månsson – hence the name of “Skandinavsky”. Still, though, there are also Russian architects working for this firm.

Thus, on the twelve hectares of land stretching from north to south alongside the Ostashkovskoe Highway (incidentally, it is this highway that leads to the Pirogovskoe Lake), some forty to ninety meters away from the highway itself, there has already begun the construction of two residential buildings out of planned four, designed to house 80 000 square meters of apartments. These apartments constitute the first stage of construction. The second stage of construction will include another two buildings, a school and a kindergarten.

“This will be a small town yet completely self-sufficient” – says Maria Broman, the chief project architect of Semrén+Månsson. Three large sectional buildings are designed as blocks with an open-circuit plan. “As is known, blocks or “quarters” are becoming a hot trend in Moscow – the architects explain – But in Sweden they never seemed to lose popularity at all. So, in a sense, this is a Scandinavian trait”. However – and this is also common knowledge – the “pure” version of the block town planning is only good for houses no higher than 6 or 8 floors, which makes perfect sense because in this particular instance the planning is of mixed type. The circuits of the blocks are open; the night of the sections varies from 8 to 16 floors making the skyline uneven. It is planned that there will be underground parking garages beneath the three buildings. In front of the side wall of the third building, there is a 16-story centerpiece tower that faces the highway with its slightly tapering southeast corner. There is a two-story property sales office behind it – together with the overland guest parking lot they complete the image of the housing complex as seen from the highway.

UP-quarter "Skandinavsky" © Semrén & Månsson
UP-quarter "Skandinavsky". Building 4 (tower) and Building 3 (which are already being built) make up the first stage of construction © Semrén & Månsson


Further on north, the highway is separated from the complex by other private residences. One should say that in this particular instance this separation is a rather lucky circumstance. “Skandinavsky” is chiefly oriented toward its own internal boulevard that starts at the tower of Building 4 on the south side and stretches inside the housing complex forming its inside axis. The boulevard is open to vehicles but only ones belonging to residents and their guests. It separates a row of residential buildings and the territory that will be occupied by the second stage of construction: two residential buildings, a kindergarten, a school, and a stadium. In addition, the closed parts of the block are turned on the boulevard and form a city-type building front stretching along it, with cafés, shops, and – this was expressly specified – beauty salons in the first floors. There are no arches in the buildings but the entrance lobbies are designed in such a way that they can be entered from either side: one can enter such a lobby both from the yard and from the street, which significantly increases the porosity of the complex and provides a number of convenient shortcuts. The entire territory will be security guarded, so there will be no risk of evil-meaning strangers penetrating the complex.

Also important is the fact that the first stage that is currently under construction is bordering (almost side by side) on a small coppice, while in its north part there is a small natural creek. In the land organization project, there is a path leading to it which is accessible to all residents. This way, it turns out that the axis of the public space of the UP-quarter “Skandinavsky” is strung between the coppice and the creek – which must provide a diverse range of experiences here.

UP-quarter "Skandinavsky" © Semrén & Månsson


Working with the façades, the architects tried to “customize” the space as much as possible: the sections are not only of different height but their façades are also designed in different colors – from a reserved “north-European” tone varying from white to gray to yellow beige and brick red. However, the architects stopped short of taking this fashionable technique of imitating a city street to its limit: the façades are laconic and subjugated to a single common theme. “We had sort of a toolbox of different elements: windows, balconies, colors... We would mix them up, and then each section would get its own identity – explains the chief architect of the project Maria Broman – We think that it is important for the residents to be conscious of living, let’s say, in this particular brown house. Second, this individuality of separate buildings is important for the scale of the complex. This way, an impression is created that the complex is a lot smaller than it actually is”.

The reduction of scale is also partially enhanced by the fact that the top and bottom floors are designed differently than the façades of the main part. The buildings get a brick base, this base including three tiers on the side of the boulevard and offering a comfortable city scale to the pedestrian’s eye: a shop window plus two stories. However, the height of the base varies, just as the design of the upper floors does: in Building 3, they are only highlighted with color, and in Buildings 2 and 1 (which are to be built later) the two top floors are united by a slanted metal-sheet wall that gives them a likeness to a somewhat overblown mansard. At some points, the mansards form an elevated ledge, and at some places they alternate with recessions of modernist terraces, which also help the authors to create an illusion of a spontaneously developing city street. Inside the mansard stories, two-level apartments are designed.

UP-quarter "Skandinavsky" © Semrén & Månsson


UP-quarter "Skandinavsky" © Semrén & Månsson


The tower of Building 4, which, as we remember, is situated closer to the highway than the other buildings are, is significantly different: it is completely devoid of the light retro-fleur that is distinctively felt in the “quarter” buildings, and, while the quarters are reservedly conservative, the tower can be described as “reservedly innovative”. Its façades are “shrouded” by a mesh of white network – its slim ribs, otherwise sparse but dense where the staircases are, make this volume particularly slender and elegant. The gray color of the sunken-in surfaces forms a background – all this looks a bit like the Renaissance scratch-work technique of adoring façades, only on a significantly greater scale.

UP-quarter "Skandinavsky" © Semrén & Månsson


The authors also paid a lot of attention to the organization of the adjoining territory. The trees on the boulevard, the children’s playgrounds, the benches and flowerbeds – all this became the “101 kit” of our days, just as vehicle-free yards. The pedestrian zone – the bottom parts of the façades abs the hallway entrances – are elaborated down to the last detail, which is meant to render the immediate, almost tactile, perception of the territory by the people both comfortable and rich in emotion. In addition, the architects also provided for a lot of pleasant little things – for example, the entrance lobbies have not only rooms for go-carts and strollers but also places for washing the pets’ paws after the walk.

UP-quarter "Skandinavsky" © Semrén & Månsson


UP-quarter "Skandinavsky" © Semrén & Månsson


UP-quarter "Skandinavsky" © Semrén & Månsson


As for apartment layouts, the salespeople call them “typically Scandinavian”: square rooms and inbuilt closets. The apartments range from studios to three-room ones, each having a stanza balcony, either sunken in or standing out and glazed. The stanzas come with boxes for air conditioning units – it should be said that their grilles, looking as if they were made of wood, serve as a nice façade decoration. In sectional buildings small corridors are inevitable, while the tower, according to the architects, boasts particularly Swedish layouts: without corridors, with a large kitchen-and-living-room, from where one can get into the bedrooms. None of the apartments have either beating walls or columns inside of them – which will make any possible planning changes much easier.

UP-quarter "Skandinavsky". Building 4. Plan of the 2nd floor © Semrén & Månsson


UP-quarter "Skandinavsky". Building 3. Plan of the 3-14 floors © Semrén & Månsson


It is pretty obvious that in Sweden such huge housing complexes are a rare thing to be seen. But if we are to speak about the realities of the Russian cities, and particularly the realities of the Moscow area – it IS built with large-scale housing complexes, and any attempt to give their appearance a noble touch and organize their inside space is already something worth noting – just as the development of the housing market in the direction of UP-quarter ideas, the meaning of which, as proceeds from the very self-explanatory term, consists is “raising” a certain class of housing.

02 August 2017

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.