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​Athletic Load

Working with the Match Point housing complex, ABV Group, headed by Nikita Biryukov, was able to neatly “pack” a considerable amount of floor space, distributing the height of the complex and its imagery among the main functions: a sports arena, a residential building, and a small office one.

16 November 2017
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The Vasilisy Kozhinoi Street stretches along a railroad line northward from the Pobedy Park, not far away from the Kutuzovsky Avenue. North of the avenue, there is a strip of an apple garden that has survived into the present day, then there is a Byelorussian-bound railroad line, and still further away, behind the Kozhinoi Street, there is an area of brick 5-story houses interspersed with 12-story prefabricated buildings. The strip of land about 100 meters wide which runs between the railroad line and the street was once occupied by private single-story houses; in the seventies it housed a few small-sized industrial parks, a hotel belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the open-air stadium “Bagration”. Today, the spot of the stadium became the construction site for the multifunctional complex “Match Point” – built upon the project of ABV group, it inherits the stadium’s sportive function; it will also unite housing stock – over 1600 apartments – a certain number of offices, and an international volleyball arena for 3500 spectators. This arena – the biggest in Europe – will become the base of the “Dinamo” club. The client is “Voley Grand”, part of the management structure of “VTB Project” of VTB Group. 

The “tennis” name of Match Point was suggested by the developer. Strictly speaking, it has nothing to do with volleyball, although it does have something to do with sports in general. Match point in tennis is a point which if won by one of the players or sides will also win them the match, so, the name of the complex puts an interesting spin not only on the theme of sports as such but also the location of the complex next to the Pobedy (“Victory”) Park. “One step away from victory” – says the advertising slogan on the housing complex website. The border of the park is mere 300 hundred meters away by a straight line, while the metro station bearing the same name is but a 12 minutes’ walk away.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Visualization along the Vasilisy Kozhinoi Street. View 3 © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Location plan. The current situation © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Location plan. Project © ABV Group


According to the leader of ABV Group, Nikita Biryukov, this project turned out to be a stumbling block to many architects because it required solving several impossible things at once: to combine a grand-scale sports facility, rather strong housing density, and rigorous height restrictions. After the budget was all but exhausted by several failed attempts, the customer resorted to a closed-doors competition – which was ultimately won by Nikita Biryukov and ABV Group. “The Dinamo Company was looking to build a stadium for international games here – shares Nikita Biryukov – and, in order to do that, they had to build a housing complex to make the money. Meaning – it had to be such kind of a housing complex that would make enough money to finance the sports part”. Because of that, the arena became an extra workload and an extra challenge. Plus, because of the proximity of the railroad, the architects had to reinforce the foundation.

The entire complex, including the residential buildings and the volleyball arena, rests on a three-level underground parking garage designed to accommodate for 1609 cars. The laconic oval “hockey puck” of the arena, decorated – very much in the spirit of the 1970’s – with an austere row of light-beige ribs of vertical lamellae, is situated in the west part of the complex – when backlit at night, it looks as if it were literally hovering in the air.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Night light. View 3 © ABV Group


Again, in the spirit of the 1970’s, the arena is surrounded by an open-air gallery accessed by symmetrical ascending staircases from the “grand entrance” side on the Kozhinoi Street – they are slightly reminiscent of a similar walkway in the “Olimpiysky” sports complex.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The facade in axes 1a-15a. Sports complex © ABV Group


From the opposite side, a rectangular volume of the gym shoots out from the main volume in the direction of the railroad line: it is sunken two tiers into the ground, thus only slightly changing the contour of the second floor; higher up, the rounded shape is pure and laconic.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the -1st level. Sports complex © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the -2nd level. Sports complex © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the 1st floor. Sports complex © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Section 1-1. Sports complex © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The facade in axes П-А. Sports complex © ABV Group


While the volleyball arena, the high-profile element of the ensemble, can be architecturally traced back to the seventies and even the eighties with their search for “reduced order”, the volumes of the residential buildings are dominated by the contextual motif. First of all, they are designed in the form of a strictly symmetric frame, and on the plan they look very much like the postwar Stalin houses of the Kutuzovsky Avenue and its surroundings, the difference being that Match Point is two-three times larger in size. As we remember, one of the difficult tasks was to combine the square footage output with the height restrictions and insolation requirements. Hence, the silhouette of two large “stairs”: in the south part facing the railway station and the Kutuzovsky Avenue, there are two corner buildings, towers 28 stories each, of an almost 100 meter height; in the north part facing the Vasilisy Kozhinoi Street, the buildings are 13 stories high – almost on a level with the neighboring buildings.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Visualization along the Vasilisy Kozhinoi Street. View 2 © ABV Group


In order to make sure that the towers obscure as little sunlight as possible from the south side, an opening appeared in the middle, equal to their width.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Night light. View from the Kutuzovsky Avenue © ABV Group


Meanwhile, the height difference between the south and the north part is considerable – 5 stories. In order to compensate for it, the architects added a small “stair” of “transition” sections in the panorama of the towers: 18 stories, 63 meters.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The facade in axes 24-1. Sports complex © ABV Group


The hundred-meter towers – just short of skyscrapers – will be perceived chiefly from a distance and work in the long perspective of the Kutuzovsky Avenue. Hence the color – pale-yellow and beige; a clear-cut division into top, middle, and bottom, combination of light-colored verticals and visually “sunken-in” horizontals – the rhythmic theme of the high-rises and their younger brothers of a smaller height, such as the romantic forts of Zinevich – buildings 21 and 25, located not far away from here, closer to the city center down the Kutuzovsky Avenue.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. View from the Kutuzovsky Avenue. Visualization © ABV Group


The theme of Stalin art-deco, however, is not totally dominant here: setting the classic rhythm, the architects immediately break away from it, “stringing” the volumes of the buildings upon the broad bands of the verticals of glass stanzas: they visually dissect the towers into more slender parts turning them into a semblance of tetra-pylons, at the same time putting one in the mind of one of the techniques referring to the postmodernist architecture of Ricardo Bofill because the glass bands visually take a lot of weight off the building.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. View from the Kutuzovsky Avenue backup highway. Visualization © ABV Group


Similar glass verticals also separate the towers from the low-rise buildings which face the street. Inside their first floor, there is a recessed pedestrian gallery – a relative of the Rivoli Street, shopping arcades of the XVIII century, and the central character of the theories proposed by Moscow town planners of the 1980’s – it forms a comfort zone before the shops and restaurants of the first floor providing protection from the wind and the rain for the guests and customers, as well as for the people going to and from the metro station.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Night light. View 2 from the Vasilisy Kozhinoi Street © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the 1st floor. Sports complex © ABV Group


The tripartite composition of the façade also reminds one of some of the nearby “Stalin” buildings – basically, it can be traced back to the formula of the Palladian palace. The only slight difference may lie in the fact that, just as the towers, it is totally devoid of any decor, stripped down to the point of being all linear, its esthetics formed by slender, almost fragile, faceting of the glass of the stanzas and the inserts that visually enhance their depth, made of opaque green glass.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Night light. View 1 from the Vasilisy Kozhinoi Street © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Night light. View 1 from the Vasilisy Kozhinoi Street © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The facade in axes 1-24. Sports complex © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The facade in axes 20-5. Sports complex © ABV Group


The stanzas are designed in such a way that each of the apartments has one, while the range of apartment layouts, as is the custom nowadays, is moderately diverse, from studios to three-room apartments with a few exclusive variants going beyond the basic layout patterns. Specifically, on the street side the thirteenth floor gets 4-room apartments 350 square meters each – but these “unique pieces” are relatively few here. Generally, the floor area of the apartments is pretty moderate, from 30 to 100 square meters. The floor plans of all the buildings are of the corridor-and-section type: each two sections are linked by a corridor. As for the “dark corners” that are generally characteristic of the city block planning, all the four of them here are occupied by elevator shafts – the layouts are just as rational as the façades.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the 2nd floor. Sports complex © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the 13th floor. Sports complex © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the standard (25-28) floor. Sports complex © ABV Group


Thus, the architecture of Match Point is strictly orthogonal – this is pure and elegant modernism, but a few hints at the classic postwar architecture inspired by the context of the Kutuzovsky Avenue helped the architects to avoid using the standard modernist “grid” on the façade, added some sophistication and historical depth, as well as helped the building to “make friends” with its surroundings. Perhaps, aside from the “Stalin Empire Style”, one could also make an appropriate recollection of the symmetric avant-garde at the dawn of its existence – for example, “Gostorg” by Boris Velikovsky.

The elegance of the forms is matched by the materials used. There were some certain budget constraints but the architects put in a lot of effort to make this housing complex look expensive. There was also an option of using a wood-imitating decoration material. However, the architects settled on the Jurassic stone on the first two tiers and painted steel cassettes – sturdier and more beautiful than aluminum one – going higher all the way up. As was already said, the complex is ruled by the light-beige color, a couple of shades lighter than the “Stalin” brick and stone. It is combined with darker gray aluminum in the glazing sashes, grilles of perforated metal, whose pattern was carefully selected, striped baskets for the air-conditioning units and air-exit grilles. All of the façades are made up of thin layers; the beige surfaces are slightly closer, the dark metal and the grilles are slightly deeper inside; the resulting effect of combining cutaway metal, stone and glass, brings us to an austere-looking, maybe even high-tech version of Art Deco, still, nevertheless, resonant with modern experiments of ornamental architecture.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Fragment of Facade 1. Layout of the materials. Sports complex © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Fragment of Facade 2. Layout of the materials. Sports complex © ABV Group


The rigorous symmetry whose laws are obeyed by all of the described subtleties is violated – or, should we say, livened up – but once. Getting inside the yard through the pass-through colonnade in the center of the gallery running along the Vasilisy Kozhinoi Street, we find ourselves standing face to face with a quite modern (yet full of baroque-style plastique) façade of a three-story office building standing amidst the 28-story towers: large windows of horizontal proportions, livened up by triangular ledges of the bay windows, look like giant master switches, thus also fitting the atmosphere of nostalgic modernism, although with a certain, however slight, note of “neo” in their tune. On the other hand, because of its unexpectedly “local” scale, this building looks slightly alien here, and this is where the play of associations comes in: it looks a bit like it has survived from the days past, or, maybe, quite the opposite, appeared after the construction of the main local grid of residential houses.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Office building. Visualization © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Facade in axes K-H and H-K (office). Sports complex © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Fragment of the Facade. Layout of the materials. Sports complex © ABV Group


Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Section 3-3 © ABV Group


Thus, it turns out that the ostentatious outward segregation into different functions – arena, housing, and offices – is also combined with segregation of the stylistic and even historical type: the seventies, the “cleared up” version of the Stalin classics, and the agile bay windows of the contemporary modernism. This way, the arena reminds us about the cult of sport in the USSR; the residential house is respectable in the spirit of the once-elite Kutuzovsky Avenue (still pretty expensive today), and the office is today’s architecture. Even the kindergarten comes into play – the reeds on its wall occupy in this order the place of nature that is possibly meant to signify the future in this context. But then again, these same themes can be read from the complex’s typology alone: the Stalin house is a phenotype that is more than sturdy and appropriate, the same applies to the stadium of the seventies, and the office must become the “window”, while the kindergarten is in fact the garden, a realm of natural uncertainty.

Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Visualization. Sports complex © ABV Group


Although, apart from the very subtle play with the chronology of meanings, the complex is quite contemporary, and meets a lot of requirements of today – it provides parking places for almost every apartment, has a vehicle-free yard and a landscaped arena, public bottom floors and a gallery for the comfortable work of the stores. This whole thing is being built in the area of Moscow City and the Kutuzovsky Avenue, in an expensive and prestigious district, in which large housing complexes are currently being built everywhere along the Moskva River instead of former industrial parks. The area of Fili and the Pobedy Park must soon change significantly, and grow larger in its scale. The input of the architects consists in giving this process a certain shape, putting it into some kind of visual and volumetric framework, and finding the best possible solution in the conditions of rather strict requirements, including that of taking this densely populated area to a level of becoming the catalyst for creating a new and improved urban environment.
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Landscape lighting plan. Sports complex © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Masterplan. Traffic organization plan © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Facade in axes П-А. Sports complex © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Facade in axes А-П. Sports complex © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the 2nd floor. Sports complex © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the 3rd floor. Sports complex © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the 4th floor. Sports complex © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the 5th floor. Sports complex © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the maintenance floor. Sports complex © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the roof. Sports complex © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Night light. View 2 from the Vasilisy Kozhinoi Street © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the standard (3-9) floor © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the 10th floor © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the standard (11-12) floor © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the 14th floor © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the 19th floor © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the standard (20-24) floor © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the standard (25-26) floor © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the roof © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the -1st level of the parkimg garage © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the -2nd level of the parkimg garage © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. The plan of the -3rd level of the parkimg garage © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Section 1-1 © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Section 2-2 © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Facade in axes К-Г © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Facade in axes 5-20 © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Facade in axes А-Н © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Facade in axes Н-А © ABV Group
Multifunctional complex with apartments and a volleball arena. Facade in axes К-Н and Н-К © ABV Group


16 November 2017

Headlines now
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.
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.
Gold in the Sands
A new office for a transcontinental company specializing in resource extraction and processing has opened in Dubai. Designed by T+T Architects, masters of creating spaces that are contemporary, diverse, flexible, and original, this project exemplifies their expertise. On the executive floor, a massive brass-clad partition dominates, while layered textures of compressed earth create a contextually resonant backdrop.
Layers and Levels of Flight
This project goes way back – Reserve Union won this architectural competition at the end of 2011, and the building was completed in 2018, so it’s practically “archival”. However, despite being relatively unknown, the building can hardly be considered “dated” and remains a prime example of architectural expression, particularly in the headquarters genre. And it’s especially fitting for an aviation company office. In some ways, it resembles the Aeroflot headquarters at Sheremetyevo but with its own unique identity, following the signature style of Vladimir Plotkin. In this article, we take an in-depth look at the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) headquarters in the Moscow agglomeration town of Zhukovsky, supplemented by recent photographs from Alexey Naroditsky – a shoot that became only recently possible due to the fact that improvements were finally made in the surrounding area.
Light and Shadow
In this article, we delve into the architectural design of the “Chaika” house by DNK ag architects, which was recently completed in 2023 as part of the collection of signature designs at ZILArt. As is well-known, all the buildings in this complex follow a design code, yet each one is distinct. This particular building stands out not only for its whiteness and minimalism but also for the refined use of a limited number of techniques that, together, create what can confidently be called synergy.
Casus Novae
A master plan was developed for a large residential area with a name of “DNS City”, but now that its implementation began, the plan has been arbitrarily reformatted and replaced with something that, while similar on the surface, is actually quite different. This is not the first time such a thing happens, but it’s always frustrating. With permission from the author, we are sharing Maria Elkina’s post.
Treasure Hunting
The GAFA bureau, in collaboration with Tegola and Arkhitail, organized an expedition to the island of Kilpola in Karelia as part of Moskomarkhitektura’s “Open City” festival. There, amidst moss and rocks, the students sought answers to questions like: what is the sacred, where does it dwell, and what sustains it? Assisting the participants in this quest were landscape engineer Evgeny Levin, artist Nicholas Roerich, a moose, and the lack of cellular connection. Here’s how the story unfolded.
Depths of the Earth, Streams of Water
In the Malaya Okhta district, the Akzent building, designed by Stepan Liphart, was constructed. It follows a classic tripartite structure, yet it’s what you might call “hand-drawn”: each façade is unique in its form and details, some of which aren’t immediately noticeable. In this article, we explore the context and, together with the architect, delve into how the form was developed.
Fir Tree Dynamics
The “Airports of Region” holding is planning to build an airport in Karachay-Cherkessia, aiming to make the Arkhyz and Dombay resorts more accessible to travelers. The project that won in an invitation-only competition, submitted by Sergey Nikeshkin’s KPLN, blends natural imagery inspired by the shape of a conifer seed, open-air waiting spaces, majestic large trees, and a green roof elevated on needle-like columns. The result is both nature-inspired and WOW.
​A Brick Shell
In the process of designing a clubhouse situated among pine trees in a prestigious suburban area near Moscow, the architectural firm “A.Len” did the façade design part. The combination of different types of brick and masonry correlates with the volumetric and plastique solutions, further enhanced by the inclusion of wood-painted fragments and metal “glazing”.
Word Forms
ATRIUM architects love ambitious challenges, and for the firm’s thirtieth anniversary, they boldly play a game of words with an exhibition that dives deep into a self-created vocabulary. They immerse their projects – especially art installations – into this glossary, as if plunging into a current of their own. You feel as if you’re flowing through the veins of pure art, immersed in a universe of vertical cities, educational spaces – of which the architects are true masters – and the cultural codes of various locations. But what truly captivates is the bold statement that Vera Butko and Anton Nadtochy make, both through their work and this exhibition: architecture, above all, is art – the art of working with form and space.
Flexibility and Acuteness of Modernity
Luxurious, fluid, large “kokoshniks” and spiral barrel columns, as if made from colorful chewing gum: there seem to be no other mansion like this in Moscow, designed in the “Neo-Russian-Modern” style. And the “Teremok” on Malaya Kaluzhskaya, previously somewhat obscure, has “come alive with new colors” and gained visibility after its restoration for the office of the “architectural ecosystem” as the architects love to call themselves. It’s evident that Julius Borisov and the architects at UNK put their hearts into finding this new office and bringing it up to date. Let’s delve into the paradoxes of this mansion’s history and its plasticity. Spoiler: two versions of modernity meet here, both balancing on the razor’s edge of “what’s current”.
Yuri Vissarionov: “A modular house does not belong to the land”
It belongs to space, or to the air... It turns out that 3D printing is more effective when combined with a modular approach: the house is built in a workshop and then adapted to the site, including on uneven terrain. Yuri Vissarionov shares his latest experience in designing tourist complexes, both in central Russia and in the south. These include houseboats, homes printed from lightweight concrete using a 3D printer, and, of course, frame houses.
​Moscow’s First
“The quality of education largely depends on the quality of the educational environment”. This principle of the last decade has been realized by Sergey Skuratov in the project for the First Moscow Gymnasium on Rostovskaya Embankment in the Khamovniki district. The building seamlessly integrates into the complex urban landscape, responding both to the pedestrian flow of the city and the quiet alleyways. It skillfully takes advantage of the height differences and aligns with modern trends in educational space design. Let’s take a closer look.
Looking at the Water
The site of Villa Sonata stretches from the road to the water’s edge, offering its own shoreline, pier, and a picturesque river panorama. To reveal these sweeping views, Roman Leonidov “cut” the façade diagonally parallel to the river, thus getting two main axes for the house and, consequently, “two heads”. The internal core – two double-height spaces, a living room and a conservatory, with a “bridge” above them – makes the house both “transparent” and filled with light.
The White Wing
Well, it’s not exactly white. It’s more of a beige, white-stone structure that plays with the color of limestone – smoother surfaces are lighter, while rougher ones are darker. This wing unites various elements: it absorbs and interprets the surrounding themes. It responds to everything, yet maintains a cohesive expression – a challenging task! – while also incorporating recognizable features of its own, such as the dynamic cuts at the bottom, top, and middle.
Urban Dunes
The XSA Ramps team designed and built a three-part sports hub for a park in Rostov-on-Don, welcoming people of all ages and fitness levels. The skate plaza, pump track, and playground are all meticulously crafted with details that attract a diverse range of visitors. The technical execution of the shapes and slopes transforms this space into a kind of sculptural composition.
Proportional Growth
The project for the fourth phase of the ÁLIA residential area has been announced. The buildings are situated on an elongated plot – almost a “ray” that shoots out from the center of the area towards the river. Their layout reflects both a response to Moscow’s architectural preferences over the past 15 years, shifting “from blocks to towers”, and an interpretation of the neighboring business park designed by SOM. Additionally, the best apartments here are not located at the very top but closer to the middle, forming a glowing “waistline”.
The “Staircase” Building
In designing the “Details” residential complex in New Moscow, Rais Baishev spiced up the now-popular Moscow theme of a “courtyard” building with an idea drawn from the surrealist drawings by Maurits Escher. He envisioned the stepped silhouettes and descending slopes as a metaphysical mega-staircase, creating a key void within the courtyard that gave the project an internal “spine”. This concept is felt both in the building’s silhouette and on its façades.
Projection of the Quarter
No one doubted that the building that Vladimir Plotkin designed as part of the “Garden Quarters” would be the most modernist of all. And it turned out just that way: while adhering to the common design code, the building successfully combines brick and white stone, rhythmically responding to the neighboring building designed by Ostozhenka, yet tactfully and persistently making a few statements of its own. This includes the projection of the ideal urban development composition “14–9–6”, which can be found right next door, mathematical calculations, including those for various types of terraces (and perhaps the only reminder of the Soviet past of the Kauchuk rubber factory!), and the white “cross-stitch” pattern of the façade grid.