Seven Hills of Moscow

Seven installations for Moscow Fireworks Festival and a multistory raft in the city of Vyksa – these and other projects were realized by the team of interns of the 4th internship of Wowhaus.

Written by:
Alla Pavlikova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

07 December 2017

Overview

The Wowhaus internship is an educational project that helps young architects to immerse themselves into the profession, not in the routine, but in a creative way – honing, and sometimes implementing their ideas in collaboration with practicing architects of the firm, including its leaders Oleg Shapiro and Dmitry Likin. According to the Wowhaus architects, the fourth internship proved to be the most fruitful one. Over a short period of time, a team of seven young lady architects who came from all over the country was able to design and build the project of a raft for Vyksa’s Art-Ovrag (“Art-Ravine”) Festival, and take part in many large-scale projects of the firm.

The interns recall that they got down to their first task in less than an hour after their initial interview. A schedule just as tight was applied to the whole studying course: workshops, lectures, brainstorming sessions, sleepless nights, participation in construction work and author supervision.

Marina Pakhomova
Intern of the fourth internship;
currently a junior architect of Wowhaus:

“Figuratively speaking, I was lucky to catch the last train on that project, submitting my portfolio an hour before the deadline. After I got back to Moscow from Germany, where I finished graduate school, I dreamed of finding a job that I could really enjoy. Wowhaus seemed to me the most interesting option. But when I was submitting my application I did not expect the competition to be so tough – seven applicants per place. I was lucky enough to become a part of a large team with its own philosophy and its own attitude towards the profession. I was also lucky with the team of interns – we were all thinking in the same lines, and we were able to find common ground very quickly, and do interesting projects together”.

Maybe, due to the fact that the team was a very close-knit one, the Wowhaus leaders made a decision to invite all the interns to work for the firm in the capacity of junior architects. Below, we are covering a few projects that were done with the input from Wowhaus interns 2017.

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The “Paradox” raft in Vyksa

zooming — Oleg Shapiro and the interns at the Art-Ovrag Festival in Vyksa. Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko

Rotating one element consisting of two flights of stairs helped the architects to create a tight spatial knot on a small floating island, mastering the whole of it. Although the raft was on the rocky side, and the guests had to duck now and then, it could still take aboard a record number of people and sail them around. After the festival, all the rafts, including “Paradox”, were transferred into the city ownership, and are now used as pleasure boats on a local creek.

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Hills for the Fireworks Festival

The International Fireworks Festival took place in Moscow in mid-August. Before the festival, the interns, who by that time already had the status of the architects of the firm, developed, under the guidance of Anastasia Izmakova, concepts for seven art objects that were meant to symbolize the seven hills of the nation’s capital – Borovitsky, Tagansky, Strastnoy, Sretensky, Invanovskaya and Pskovskaya mounts, and the Vorobyevy (“Sparrow”) Hills. Every intern was commissioned with one location. The work of the project began with profound historical studies – a two-hour lecture delivered by the Moscow history expert Philipp Smirnov, which allowed the interns to get a maximum of information not only about the hills but about Moscow in general.

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The Borovitsky Hill
Sophia Zhukova

This installation was presented as a symbolic city square circled by a red wooden fence, in the center of which stands a swing 12 meters tall. Painted red, just as the fence, this swing looked more like a tower. As for the square, in spite of the fact that its coverage was grass, it still put the visitors in the mind of the Red Square with its Kremlin walls, while the material that the author of the project chose for the fence – pieces of timber of different sizes – served as a reminder of a pine-tree forest that used to be here centuries ago. Hence, the name of Borovitsky (which can be loosely translated as “Forest” – translator’s note) Hill.

“The Red Square is a steady association, from which we wanted to break away as much as possible – explains the author of the project Sophia Zhukova – The only thing that literally refers to it is the color. Historically, the Red Square has always been the place of people’s gatherings, and this is pretty much why I chose the idea of the people’s unity to base my project upon. Hence, the image of a swing as a universal uniting element that is loved by children and adults alike”.

During the whole festival, the swing, in which, in accordance with the old Russian tradition, one could only swing in an upright standing position, did enjoy great popularity. The interns are recalling that even the construction workers who assembled the swing in the park could not resist the temptation to take a swing after their work was done.

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Shvivaya Mount. The Tagansky Hill

Ekaterina Kovbashina

The Shvivaya Mount was the place where crafts were developed. For centuries, this part of the city hosted weavers’ workshops, so, creating her installation, Ekaterina Kovbashina proceeded from the image of a weaving loom. The weaving loom, which, according to the author’s idea, was to be used to its direct purpose during the festival, occupied the central position in the installation. What grew up around it looked something like a tower assembled from its individual elements and parts. The visitors could step inside the tower and even try to weave a strip of canvas.

“I originally planned that the construction of the tower would be metallic but it was ultimately made of wood – Ekaterina Kovbashina says – another thing that I wasn’t able to do was have the threads backlit and include the interactive part. But generally, all the elements of the project are there: the object was a big hit with children, while adults would examine it from different angles and play the game of associations – someone compared it with a butterfly’s cocoon, someone – with a penguin. This is my first project implemented on such a grand scale”.

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Sparrow Hills
Kristina Rykova

Designing her project, Kristina Rykova drew inspiration from the high-rise building of the Moscow State University – she took the star that crowns the high-rises’s spear as the starting point. Its real size is quite impressive – a whopping 8 meters in diameter. One cannot conceive that fact, however, because we all are used to seeing this star from a distance. What Kristina proposed to do was get this star down from heaven to earth, and she came up with a wooden structure whose plan repeats the contour of the star on a real-size scale. The opening that the structure has in its roof is of the same shape only it is smaller. It was also planned that stars would be used for decorating the walls as well. The idea was that, coming inside, the visitor would see the stars above, below, and even all around him.

“The project underwent significant changes in the course of the construction – Kristina Rykova explains – Initially, I planned to build my project from wood but this idea turned out to be prohibitively expensive. The wooden parts were ultimately replaced with red ribbons”. Nevertheless, the image of the star is easily readable in the altered project as well.

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Ivanovskaya Mount
Alina Malysheva

The Ivanovskaya Mount is connected with the image of the Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral. However, Alina Malysheva decided to base her project not on the image of the cathedral itself, but on the organ whose sound filled its walls since 1837. The installation explores the bright artistic image of the organ that consists of numerous pipes. In this particular instance, however, the pipes, wrapped in white semitransparent perforated film, are placed in a rather chaotic fashion and have a huge scale – from giant ones, inside of which you can step like you would into a room to tiny decorative ones. In the windy weather, with the air blowing through the pipes of different diameter, the entire installation will be livened up by musical accompaniment.

In addition to the fact that the installation is essentially a musical instrument, Alina proposed to place musical instruments of her original design inside of each of the larger pipes – for example, a makeshift xylophone, a church bell, or a communication tube. She was not able to realize this idea, though, and, instead, came up with a new one: an interactive installation that would allow the visitors to add effects to the sound of their voices. “This playful aspect of the installation was something that our visitors liked very much – Alina Malysheva recalls – People would hit the keys, run from one pipe to another like they would in a labyrinth, they would shout and stomp, creating a constant echo”.

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The Sretensky Hill
Alina Rakhmatullina

The Lubyanka Square once had on it a large water-supplying fountain: people would come here with barrels and buckets to get water from the Mytishchi aqueduct. It was this specific image that constituted the basis for the art object designed by Alina Rakhmatullina. The young architect proposed to make a fountain from numerous intertwining water pipes painted different bright colors. The water flows through the pipes in a cyclic fashion, filling a reservoir at the base of the structure. In order to make the water fill the reservoir, one has to push the button. What makes the whole process more fun is the fact that after one pushes the button the water can issue from any of the pipes, and you never know which pipe it will be next.

During the festival, the fountain occupied its due place in the food court zone, and got yet another functional purpose: Alina Rakhmatullina recalls that people would use it to wash their hands before meals. As for the little guests of the festival, they most of all enjoyed the button pushing game.

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The Strastnoy Hill
Nina Stepina

The Strastnoy Hill and the Tverskaya Street situated on it are all about locomotion. This street has always been the city’s main artery: this road was ridden upon by the first horse-drawn streetcar, diligences, and the first tramway. However, the most interesting thing that ever happened to this place was the widening of this street in the 1930’s. This was the time when whole buildings came in motion – they were moved over to the new red line on rails.

The Nina Stepina installation also has rails in it, upon which trolleys run. A peculiar 25-meter railway is decorated by a lightweight structure of numerous rectangular arches. Viewed in perspective, they resemble a portal which looks particularly mind-blowing at night thanks to its backlights. The portal ends in a large screen which plays nonstop historical movies about Moscow and the Tverskaya Street.

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Pskovskaya Mount
Ekaterina Sporykhina

The Pskovskaya Mount used to be situated in the east part of the Zaryadye area, and today there is little left of it – a memory in the park buildings and a high position of the Saint George Church. Rich history of this district of Moscow yielded a lot of images for the creation of an installation: at different times, this place was a commercial and a residential area, a Jewish ghetto, and an English estate. Then all of the buildings were taken down to make room for the construction of the eighth Stalin high-rise, and this was the time when the mount disappeared – the terrain was leveled out.

Ekaterina Sporykhina, an architect of Wowhaus, who had to replace one of her interns on this project, decided to recreate in her installation the “Rossiya” hotel on a 1:10 scale in order to remind about this undisputed milestone in the development not only of the Pskovskaya Mount but of the whole city as well. The light wooden installation of thin planks accurately repeats the dimensions and the structure of the torn-down hotel with a large inner yard and a tower in the middle. The author even kept up the hotel function of the project, organizing inside something in the way of hotel rooms with hammocks and soft poufs.

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Wowhaus takes in new interns several times a year, make sure to follow the updates and announcements.

07 December 2017

Headlines now

Object

Perspective View

CNTR Architects has designed a business center for a new district in Yekaterinburg, aiming to reduce the need for commuting and make the residential environment more diverse. The architectural solutions are equally focused on creating spatial flexibility, comfortable working conditions, and a memorable image that could allow the building to become a spatial landmark of the district.

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Malevich and Bathhouses, Nature and High-Tech

The Malevich Bathhouse complex is scheduled to open in the fall of 2025 on the Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Highway. The project, designed by DBA-GROUP under the leadership of Vladislav Andreev, is an example of an unconventional approach to the image of a spa in general and of a bathhouse in particular. Deliberately avoiding any kind of allusion, the architects opted for streamlined forms with characteristic rounded corners, a combination of wood with bent glass, and restrained contemporary shapes – both inside and out. Let’s take a closer look at the project.

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Rather, a Tablecloth and a Glass!

After many years, the long-abandoned Horse Guards Department building in St. Petersburg has finally received the attention it deserves: according to a design by Studio 44, the first restoration and adaptation works are scheduled to begin this year. Both the intended function and the general scope of works imply minimal alteration to the complex, which has preserved traces of its three-century history. All solutions are reversible and aimed, above all, at opening the monument to the city and immersing it in a lively social scene – hence the choice of a cultural center scenario with a strong gastronomic component.

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The City as a Narrative

Sergey Skuratov’s approach to large urban plots could best be described as a “total design code”. The architect pays equal attention to the overall composition and the smallest of details, striving to ensure that every aspect is thoroughly thought out and subordinated to the original vision. It’s a Renaissance-like approach, really – a titanic effort demanding remarkable willpower and perseverance. The results are likewise grand – architecture that makes a statement. This article looks at the revived concept for the central section of the Seventh Heaven residential district in Kazan, a composition so thoroughly considered that even the “gradient of visual emphasis” (sic!) across the facades has been carefully worked out. It also touches on the narrative idea behind the project – and even the architect’s own doubts about it.

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A Laconic Image of Time

The Time Square residential complex, built on the northern edge of St. Petersburg, appears more concise and efficient than its neighbor and predecessor, the New Time complex. Nevertheless, the architect’s hand is clearly felt: themes of “black and white”, “inside and outside”, and most notably, the “lamellar” quality of the facades that seems to visibly “eat away” at the buildings’ mass – everything is played out like a well-written score. One is reminded of both classical modernism and the so-called “post-constructivism”.

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The Flower of the Lake

The prototype for the building of the Kamal Theater in Kazan is an ice flower: a rare and fragile natural phenomenon of Lake Kaban “froze” in the large, soaring outlines of the glass screens enclosing the main volume, shaping its silhouette and shielding the stained-glass windows from the sun. The project, led by the Wowhaus consortium and including global architecture “star” Kengo Kuma, won the 2021/2022 competition and was realized close to the original concept in a short – very short – period of time. The theater opened in early 2025. It was Kengo Kuma who proposed the image of an ice flower and the contraposition of cold on the outside and warmth on the inside. Between 2022 and 2024, Wowhaus did everything possible to bring this vision to life, practically living on-site. Now we are taking a closer look at this landmark building and its captivating story.

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Peaceful Integration on Mira Avenue

The MIRA residential complex (the word mir means “peace” in Russian), perched above the steep banks of the Yauza River and Mira Avenue, lives up to its name not only technically, but also visually and conceptually. Sleek, high-rise, and glass-clad, it responds both to Zholtovsky’s classicism and to the modernism of the nearby “House on Stilts”. Drawing on features from its neighbors, it reconciles them within a shared architectural language rooted in contemporary façade design. Let’s take a closer look at how this is done.

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An Interior for a New Format of Education

The design of the new building for Tyumen State University (TyumSU) was initially developed before the pandemic but later revised to meet new educational requirements. The university has adopted a “2+2+2” system, which eliminates traditional divisions into groups and academic streams in favor of individualized study programs. These changes were implemented swiftly – right at the start of construction. Now that the building is complete, we are taking a closer look.

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New Aeroflot Office: Lightness, Play, Comfort

Even if you have no plans to fly with Aeroflot anytime soon, their new office at 2A 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street is still worth a visit for its interior design alone.

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Penthouses and Kokoshniks

A new residential complex designed by ASADOV Architects for the Krasnaya Roza business district responds to its proximity to 17th-century landmarks – the chambers of the Hamovny Dvor and St. Nicholas Church – as well as to the need to preserve valuable façades of a historic rental house built in the Russian Revival style. The architects proposed a set of buildings of varying heights, whose façades reference ecclesiastical architecture. But we were also able to detect other associations.

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Centipede Town

The new school campus designed by ATRIUM Architects, located on the shores of a protected lake in the Imeretian Lowland Ornithological Reserve, represents an important and ambitious undertaking for the team: this is not just a school, but a Presidential Lyceum for the comprehensive development of gifted children – 2,500 students from age 3 through high school. At the same time, it is also envisioned as a new civic hub for the entire Sirius territory. In this article, we unpack the structure and architecture of this “lyceum town”.

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Warm Black and White

The second phase of “Quarter 31”, designed by KPLN and built in the Moscow suburb town of Pushkino, reveals a multifaceted character. At first glance, the complex appears to be defined by geometry and a monochrome palette. But a closer look reveals a number of “irregular” details: a gradient of glazing and flared window frames, a hierarchy of façades, volumetric brickwork, and even architectural references to natural phenomena. We explore all the rules – and exceptions – that we were able to discover here.

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Skylights and Staircase

Photos from March show the nearly completed headquarters of FSK Group on Shenogina Street. The building’s exterior is calm and minimalist; the interior is engaging and multi-layered. The conical skylights of the executive office, cast in raw concrete, and the sweeping spiral staircase leading to it, are particularly striking. In fact, there’s more than one spiral staircase here, and the first two floors effectively form a small shopping center. More below.

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The Whale of Future Identity

Or is it a veil? Or a snow-covered plain? Vera Butko, Anton Nadtochy, and the architects of ATRIUM faced a complex and momentous task: to propose a design for the “Russia” National Center. It had to be contemporary, yet firmly rooted in cultural codes. Unique, and yet subtly reminiscent of many things at once. It must be said – the task found the right authors. Let’s explore in detail the image they envisioned.

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Greater Altai: A Systemic Development Plan

The master plan for tourism development in Greater Altai encompasses three regions: Kuzbass, the Altai Republic, and Altai Krai. It is one of twelve projects developed as part of the large-scale state program bearing the simple name of “Tourism Development”. The project’s slogan reads: “Greater Altai – a place of strength, health, and spirit in the very heart of Siberia”. What are the proposed growth points, and how will the plan help increase the flow of both domestic and international tourists? Read on to find out.

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The Colorful City

While working on a large-scale project in Moscow’s Kuntsevo district – one that has yet to be given a name – Kleinewelt Architekten proposed not only a diverse array of tower silhouettes in “Empire-style” hues and a thoughtful mix of building heights, creating a six-story “neo-urbanist” city with a block-based layout at ground level, but also rooted their design in historical and contextual reasoning. The project includes the reconstruction of several Stalin-era residential buildings that remain from the postwar town of Kuntsevo, as well as the reconstruction of a 1953 railway station that was demolished in 2017.

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In Orbit of Moscow City

The Orbital business center is both simple and complex. Simple in its minimalist form and optimal office layout solution: a central core, a light-filled façade, plenty of glass; and from the unusual side – a technical floor cleverly placed at the building’s side ends. Complex – well, if only because it resembles a celestial body hovering on metallic legs near Magistralnaya Street. Why this specific shape, what it consists of, and what makes this “boutique” office building (purchased immediately after its completion) so unique – all of this and more is covered in our story.

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The Altai Ornament

The architectural company Empate has developed the concept for an eco-settlement located on a remote site in Altai. The master plan, which resembles a traditional ornament or even a utopian city, forms a clear system of public and private spaces. The architects also designed six types of houses for the settlement, drawing inspiration from the region’s culture, folklore, and vernacular building practices.

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Pro Forma

Photos have emerged of the newly completed whisky distillery in Chernyakhovsk, designed by TOTEMENT / PAPER – a continuation of their earlier work on the nearby Cognac Museum. From what is, in essence, a merely technical and utilitarian volume and space, the architects have created a fully-fledged theatre of impressions. Let’s take a closer look. We highly recommend a visit to what may look like a factory, but is in fact an experiment in theatricalizing the process of strong spirit production – and not only that, but also of “pure art”, capable of evolving anywhere.

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The Arch and the Triangle

The new Stone Mnevniki business center by Kleinewelt Architekten – designed for the same client as their projects in Khodynka – bears certain similarities to those earlier developments, but not entirely. In Mnevniki, there are more angular elements, and the architects themselves describe the project as being built on contrast. Indeed, while the first phase contains subtle references to classical architecture – light touches like arches, both upright and inverted, evoking the spirit of the 1980s – the second phase draws more distantly on the modernism of the 1970s. What unites them is a boldly expressive public space design, a kaleidoscope of rays and triangles.

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Health Factory

While working on a wellness and tourist complex on the banks of the Yenisei River, the architects at Vissarionov Studio set out to create healing spaces that would amplify the benefits of nature and medical treatments for both body and soul. The spatial solutions are designed to encourage interaction between the guests and the landscape, as well as each other.

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The Blooming Mechanics of a Glass Forest

The Savvinskaya 27 apartment complex built by Level Group, currently nearing completion on an elongated riverfront site next to the Novodevichy Convent, boasts a form that’s daring even by modern Moscow standards. Visually, it resembles the collaborative creation of a glassblower and a sculptor: a kind of glass-and-concrete jungle, rhythmically structured yet growing energetically and vividly. Bringing such an idea to life was by no means an easy task. In this article, we discuss the concept by ODA and the methods used by APEX architects to implement it, along with a look at the building’s main units and detailing.

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Grace and Unity

Villa “Grace”, designed by Roman Leonidov’s studio and built in the Moscow suburbs, strikes a balance between elegant minimalism and the expansive gestures of the Russian soul. The main house is conceived as a sequence of four self-contained volumes – each could exist independently, yet it chooses to be part of a whole. Unity is achieved through color and a system of shared spaces, while the rich plasticity of the forms – refined throughout the construction process – compensates for the near-total absence of decorative elements.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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”.

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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.

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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.

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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.