Building Blocks for Gulliver

On the crest of the Krylatskie Hills, a housing complex is being completed, unprecedented in its diversity of architectural solutions employed in its construction and in its constructional complexity. The answers to these challenges were found by the Dutch architects de Architekten Cie in collaboration with the Russian bureau APEX.

Written by:
Lilya Aronova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

22 March 2018

Object

The housing complex Vander Park is an edifice noticeable in any respect. Located at the strategically important crossing of the Rublev Highway and the Yartsevskaya Street at the top of one of the Krylatskie Hills, it looks a rather imposing volume in itself, arising from the ratio between the area of the land site and the square footage target figures set by the developer. The site got into the spotlight of the architectural community’s attention in 2013, when a closed competition was announced with a rather impressive lineup of contestants. The competition was won by Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS but shortly after that the developer changed his mind and invited for designing the complex the Dutch company, which already had some experience of mastering the Russian vast expanses of land. Today’s name of the complex is a tribute to the national origin of the company, which evidently hints at a touch of aristocratic quality of the project: the prefix “van der” signifies the aristocratic origin of its bearer, which corresponds to the class of the project that in the process of work grew from business class to business premium.

zooming — "Vander Park" housing complex © PIK Group

In spite of the notorious prestige of the Rublev Highway, the area in question has been developing rather chaotically, and, according to the APEX leader, Anton Bondarenko, there was not much in that area that could be used as a starting point, with which the architects could interact. What can be considered as a closest conditional centerpiece is only a 150-meter tower on the opposite side of the Yartsevskaya Street; all around, there are five-story houses (soon to be demolished), further on, down the Rublev Highway, there is an array of low-rise prefabricated buildings shifted slightly deeper away from the highway. Meaning – like it or lump it, but the new complex inevitably is taking on the role of the centerpiece. Peculiar is the fact that, in spite of all of the conditions described above, the last thing that the designers of Vander Park had to worry about was obscuring the sunshine to one building or another – rather, they themselves had to solve the task of running away from the long shadow stretching as long as up to the Molodezhnaya metro station, next to which yet another 150-meter tower stands. Otherwise, the city fabric is pretty sparse here, and the issues of density and insolation were only to be solved inside of the complex. However, it was these requirements that to a large extent influenced the volumetric solution: the towers and the shifts in the volumes allowed the architects to essentially “mold” the form that provides for all of the insolation requirements.

The curvilinear uneven land site, inscribed in a conditional square, includes ten towers of different height – from 19 to 26 stories high – set at different angles to one another. The towers rest on a podium that occupies the entire area of the land site – beneath it, there is a parking garage – plus, these towers are connected with low-rise sectional blocks from four to six stories high. All of these are grouped into two macro-units connected by a gallery that runs all along the entire inner side of the yard at the level of the first floor. The bottom floors host retail and local businesses – these include a supermarket, a fitness center, a children’s club, a medical center, and a beauty salon. Each of the towers, in turn, consists of modular blocks that are placed on top of one another in a seemingly haphazard fashion – as if some giant toddler unskillfully, yet diligently, was building here his town from gigantic toy building blocks.

When developing the concept of this housing project, the designers drew inspiration from the image of Moscow as a modern megalopolis with a high construction density inherent to it, which you cannot deny as an architectural fact, but which you can mitigate by architectural means and make it more human-friendly. Therefore, each block is perceived as a housing module that is accessible to the human perception, i.e. one of the self-sufficient residential buildings, which cannot be placed next to one another because of the area constraints, but which can still be grouped together by being placed on top of one another. In terms of visual perception, such a solution allowed the architects to avoid creating an effect of some oppressive monolith mass, while from a practical standpoint it yields yet another curious bonus – thanks to the shift of the blocks in respect to one another, there appears enough room for spacious terraces that give some extra advantages to a number of apartments.

Similar bonuses, by the way, will go to the residents of the apartments that open up to the roofs of the low-rise blocks, and also by the owners of the premises on the second floor of the complex – these come with terraces with an area of about 150 square meters, overlooking the inner yard and separated by large green zones. “This is yet another way to show that even in a highly urbanized environment you can create a quite comfortable space beyond the limits of your apartment, and a custom-designed place, too” – comments Anton Bondarenko.

For each of the blocks, the architects chose an individual type of windows. At the same time, all of the façades are organized by a rigorous brick framework, whose rhythm stays unchanged all along the entire square, only on the topmost level, where the cells cover also the mechanical room, they turned out slightly more elongated. However, within this framework, in each of the modules, the window apertures are arranged in a different way: while in the low-rise sections the windows stand without significant spaces between them, in the high-rise blocks they can be arranged in groups, like, for example, three windows of equal height or one narrow window and one wide one, and so on. The spaces between the uncommonly high apertures – because of the fact that the height of one story in these buildings is more than average, the windows sometimes being as much as 2.3 meters tall – are covered by hanging composite panels of two shades of gray: it is darker beneath the windows in order to accentuate the shape of the window aperture, and a more neutral shade is used on the panels placed between the window panes, these latter only serving as a background. Incidentally, this is the rare instance when the corrections of the building materials (which took place after the project was approved) did the building a good turn – originally it was planned that the piers would only be filled with stucco.

The decoration of the buildings uses six types of brick, the general principle being from darker chocolate brown in the lower blocks to light-beige in the upper ones. The material, which is produced by the company Hagemeister, is notable for the gradient of shades within the limits of a single brick; the brickwork isn’t plainly smooth either – some of the bricks step forward in ledges, while in the decoration of the low-rise sections, the vertical brickwork is mixed with the horizontal type. As a result, the façades turned out to be very textured-looking, visually complex and vibrant – yet another architectural technique that goes a long way to “dilute” the volumes.

Basically, no two stories of Vander Park are exactly alike. De Architekten Cie proposed 73 types of apartments with an area ranging from 23 to 230 square meters. Such unprecedented complexity of apartment typology required from the Russian partners some serious work on searching unconventional interesting solutions in this area. To begin with, they were faced with the necessity to relocate the wet zones, which, according to the Russian rules and regulations, are to be placed strictly on top of one another, while in the Dutch project they would freely wander all over the place. In addition, it was not without corrections having to do with insolation issues – for example, under the four-meter cantilevered structures, which were formed as a result of shifting the housing modules – it would be more appropriate to place the spacious apartments in order to let more sunshine in. Accordingly, the apartments with an access to the terraces were to be big ones – a studio combined with a 150-meter terrace would have hardly been of significant value on the Russian market.

And, of course, there were construction difficulties. APEX developed a whole number of unique engineering solutions specifically for this project. For example, the architects proposed to install slanted pylons that relieve the load from the cantilevered structures at the transition from one block to another, without “eating up” the square footage of the apartments. Yet another unconventional technique is the mechanical room situated immediately above the podium less than 1.8 meters tall that includes all of the utility lines that would have otherwise occupied some considerable room in the entrance halls and premises for rent on the first floor. The mechanical rooms are also there on the top floors – thanks to this solution, the roof has no elevator units sticking out of it.

The team of APEX also worked in close cooperation with the Dutch company West 8, which developed the landscaping project. The yard of Vander Park, in accordance with the concept proposed by de Architekten Cie, is only open to the residents of the complex. The people get inside through an electronic control system, the buildings having no end-to-end lobbies, it only being possible to enter the hallways from the yard. “Our Dutch colleagues think that a person must not lock himself up within the four walls of his apartment, that he needs more space for walking and talking to his neighbors, meaning, we must ensure total security for children and adults inside the yard” – Anton Bondarenko comments. Together with the landscape experts from West 8, the architects selected the plants that are authentic to our northern latitudes; they also designed a special sort of foundation that would support the heavy gazebos proposed by West 8. Functionally, the yard is divided into three thematic zones – for outdoor activities, for peaceful recreation, and the so-called “transition” zone, in which the main flows of the visitors and residents of the complex meet. The playgrounds are divided by the age brackets – under 5 years of age, 5 to 10 years old, and for children 10 years or older – which will also help distribute the flows and also ensure the safety of the children – the playground for toddlers is placed in the zone of peaceful recreation. In spite of the fact that the yard rests on the roof of the podium, the project still provided for planting large trees, even if at the cost of losing a few parking places because of drilling special openings all the way down to the minus first floor.

The interiors of the lobbies and the public groups were completely done by the APEX architects. The sales office – a minimalist volume of glass and metal masked as wood – was also designed by them, just as the navigation systems on the residential floors and in the parking garage. “Today, Vander Park is our company’s signature project, its visiting card” – Anton Bondarenko confesses. And it’s not just a matter of this project being a really high-profile one – as one of the first large-scale projects of the company, it not only determined its key values and operating fundamentals but also went a long way to take the team to a whole new level by evicting the unique competences of its members working under tight schedules, in the conditions of rigorous cost/performance ratios, and the necessity to use unique and smart technological solutions.

22 March 2018

Written by:

Lilya Aronova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

Headlines now

The Mirror of Your Soul

We continue to publish projects from the competition for the design of the Russian Pavilion at EXPO in Osaka 2025. We are reminding you that the results of the competition have not been announced, and hardly will ever be. The pavilion designed by ASADOV Architects combines a forest log cabin, the image of a hyper transition, and sculptures made of glowing threads – it focuses primarily on the scenography of the exhibition, which the pavilion builds sequentially like a string of impressions, dedicating it to the paradoxes of the Russian soul.

Part of the Ideal

In 2025, another World Expo will take place in Osaka, Japan, in which Russia will not participate. However, a competition for the Russian pavilion was indeed held, with six projects participating. The results were never announced as Russia’s participation was canceled; the competition has no winners. Nevertheless, Expo pavilion projects are typically designed for a bold and interesting architectural statement, so we’ve gathered all the six projects and will be publishing articles about them in random order. The first one is the project by Vladimir Plotkin and Reserve Union, which is distinguished by the clarity of its stereometric shape, the boldness of its structure, and the multiplicity of possible interpretations.

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The Fortress by the River

ASADOV Architects have developed a concept for a new residential district in the center of Kemerovo. To combat the harsh climate and monotonous everyday life, the architects proposed a block type of development with dominant towers, good insolation, facades detailed at eye level, and event programming.

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In the Rhombus Grid

Construction has begun on the building of the OMK (United Metallurgical Company) Corporate University in Nizhny Novgorod’s town of Vyksa, designed by Ostozhenka Architects. The most interesting aspect of the project is how the architects immersed it in the context: “extracting” a diagonal motif from the planning grid of Vyksa, they aligned the building, the square, and the park to match it. A truly masterful work with urban planning context on several different levels of perception has long since become the signature technique of Ostozhenka.

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Generational Connection

Another modern estate, designed by Roman Leonidov, is located in the Moscow region and brings together three generations of one family under one roof. To fit on a narrow plot without depriving anyone of personal space, the architects opted for a zigzag plan. The main volume in the house structure is accentuated by mezzanines with a reverse-sloped roof and ceilings featuring exposed beams.

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Three Dimensions of the City

We began to delve into the project by Sergey Skuratov, the residential complex “Depo” in Minsk, located at Victory Square, and it fascinated us completely. The project has at least several dimensions to it: historical – at some point, the developer decided to discontinue further collaboration with Sergey Skuratov Architects, but the concept was approved, and its implementation continues, mostly in accordance with the proposed ideas. The spatial and urban planning dimension – the architects both argue with the city and play along with it, deciphering nuances, and finding axes. And, finally, the tactile dimension – the constructed buildings also have their own intriguing features. Thus, this article also has two parts: it dwells on what has been built and what was conceived

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New “Flight”

Architects from “Mezonproject” have developed a project for the reconstruction of the regional youth center “Polyot”(“Flight”) in the city of Oryol. The summer youth center, built back in the late 1970s, will now become year-round and acquire many additional functions.

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The Yauza Towers

In Moscow, there aren’t that many buildings or projects designed by Nikita Yavein and Studio 44. In this article, we present to you the concept of a large multifunctional complex on the Yauza River, located between two parks, featuring a promenade, a crossroads of two pedestrian streets, a highly developed public space, and an original architectural solution. This solution combines a sophisticated, asymmetric façade grid, reminiscent of a game of fifteen puzzle, and bold protrusions of the upper parts of the buildings, completely masking the technical floors and sculpting the complex’s silhouette.

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Architecture and Leisure Park

For the suburban hotel complex, which envisages various formats of leisure, the architectural company T+T Architects proposed several types of accommodation, ranging from the classic “standard” in a common building to a “cave in the hill” and a “house in a tree”. An additional challenge consisted in integrating a few classic-style residences already existing on this territory into the “architectural forest park”.

Overview

The U-House

The Jois complex combines height with terraces, bringing the most expensive apartments from penthouses down to the bottom floors. The powerful iconic image of the U-shaped building is the result of the creative search for a new standard of living in high-rise buildings by the architects of “Genpro”.

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Black and White

In this article, we specifically discuss the interiors of the ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh. Interior design is a crucial component of the overall concept in this case, and precision and meticulous execution were highly important for the architects. Julia Tryaskina, head of UNK interiors, shares some of the developments.

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The “Snake” Mountain

The competition project for the seaside resort complex “Serpentine” combines several typologies: apartments of different classes, villas, and hotel rooms. For each of these typologies, the KPLN architects employ one of the images that are drawn from the natural environment – a serpentine road, a mountain stream, and rolling waves.

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Opal from Anna Mons’ Ring

The project of a small business center located near Tupolev Plaza and Radio Street proclaims the necessity of modern architecture in a specific area of Moscow commonly known as “Nemetskaya Sloboda” or “German settlement”. It substantiates its thesis with the thoroughness of details, a multitude of proposed and rejected form variants, and even a detailed description of the surrounding area. The project is interesting indeed, and it is even more interesting to see what will come of it.

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Feed ’Em All

A “House of Russian Cuisine” was designed and built by KROST Group at VDNKh for the “Rossiya” exhibition in record-breaking time. The pavilion is masterfully constructed in terms of the standards of modern public catering industry multiplied by the bustling cultural program of the exhibition, and it interprets the stylistically diverse character of VDNKh just as successfully. At the same time, much of its interior design can be traced back to the prototypes of the 1960s – so much so that even scenes from iconic Soviet movies of those years persistently come to mind.

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The Ensemble at the Mosque

OSA prepared a master plan for a district in the southern part of Derbent. The main task of the master plan is to initiate the formation of a modern comfortable environment in this city. The organization of residential areas is subordinated to the city’s spiritual center: depending on the location relative to the cathedral mosque, the houses are distinguished by façade and plastique solutions. The program also includes a “hospitality center”, administrative buildings, an educational cluster, and even an air bridge.

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Pargolovo Protestantism

A Protestant church is being built in St. Petersburg by the project of SLOI architects. One of the main features of the building is a wooden roof with 25-meter spans, which, among other things, forms the interior of the prayer hall. Also, there are other interesting details – we are telling you more about them.

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The Shape of the Inconceivable

The ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh brings to mind a famous maxim of all architects and critics: “You’ve come up with it? Now build it!” You rarely see such a selfless immersion in implementation of the project, and the formidable structural and engineering tasks set by UNK architects to themselves are presented here as an integral and important part of the architectural idea. The challenge matches the obliging status of the place – after all, it is an “exhibition of achievements”, and the pavilion is dedicated to the nuclear energy industry. Let’s take a closer look: from the outside, from the inside, and from the underside too.

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Rays of the Desert

A school for 1750 students is going to be built in Dubai, designed by IND Architects. The architects took into account the local specifics, and proposed a radial layout and spaces, in which the children will be comfortable throughout the day.

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The Dairy Theme

The concept of an office of a cheese-making company, designed for the enclosed area of a dairy factory, at least partially refers to industrial architecture. Perhaps that is why this concept is very simple, which seems the appropriate thing to do here. The building is enlivened by literally a couple of “master strokes”: the turning of the corner accentuates the entrance, and the shade of glass responds to the theme of “milk rivers” from Russian fairy tales.

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The Road to the Temple

Under a grant from the Small Towns Competition, the main street and temple area of the village of Nikolo-Berezovka near Neftekamsk has been improved. A consortium of APRELarchitects and Novaya Zemlya is turning the village into an open-air museum and integrating ruined buildings into public life.

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Towers Leaning Towards the Sun

The three towers of the residential complex “Novodanilovskaya 8” are new and the tallest neighbors of the Danilovsky Manufactory, “Fort”, and “Plaza”, complementing a whole cluster of modern buildings designed by renowned masters. At the same time, the towers are unique for this setting – they are residential, they are the tallest ones here, and they are located on a challenging site. In this article, we explore how architects Andrey Romanov and Ekaterina Kuznetsova tackled this far-from-trivial task.

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In the spirit of ROSTA posters

The new Rostselmash tractor factory, conceptualized by ASADOV Architects, is currently being completed in Rostov-on-Don. References to the Soviet architecture of the 1920’s and 1960’s resonate with the mission and strategic importance of the enterprise, and are also in line with the client’s wish: to pay homage to Rostov’s constructivism.

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The Northern Thebaid

The central part of Ferapontovo village, adjacent to the famous monastery with frescoes by Dionisy, has been improved according to the project by APRELarchitects. Now the place offers basic services for tourists, as well as a place for the villagers’ leisure.

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Brilliant Production

The architects from London-based MOST Architecture have designed the space for the high-tech production of Charge Cars, a high-performance production facility for high-speed electric cars that are assembled in the shell of legendary Ford Mustangs. The founders of both the company and the car assembly startup are Russians who were educated in their home country.

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Three-Part Task: St. Petersburg’s Mytny Dvor

The so-called “Mytny Dvor” area lying just behind Moscow Railway Station – the market rows with a complex history – will be transformed into a premium residential complex by Studio 44. The project consists of three parts: the restoration of historical buildings, the reconstruction of the lost part of the historical contour, and new houses. All of them are harmonized with each other and with the city; axes and “beams of light” were found, cozy corners and scenic viewpoints were carefully thought out. We had a chat with the authors of the historical buildings’ restoration project, and we are telling you about all the different tasks that have been solved here.

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The Color of the City, or Reflections on the Slope of an Urban Settlement

In 2022, Ostozhenka Architects won a competition, and in 2023, they developed and received all the necessary approvals for a master plan for the development of Chernigovskaya Street for the developer GloraX. The project takes into account a 10-year history of previous developments; it was done in collaboration with architects from Nizhny Novgorod, and it continues to evolve now. We carefully examined it, talked to everyone, and learned a lot of interesting things.

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A Single-Industry Town

Kola MMC and Nornickel are building a residential neighborhood in Monchegorsk for their future employees. It is based on a project by an international team that won the 2021 competition. The project offers a number of solutions meant to combat the main “demons” of any northern city: wind, grayness and boredom.

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A New Age Portico

At the beginning of the year, Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport opened Terminal C. The large-scale and transparent entrance hall with luminous columns inside successfully combines laconism with a bright and photogenic WOW-effect. The terminal is both the new façade of the whole complex and the starting point of the planned reconstruction, upon completion of which Tolmachevo will become the largest regional airport in Russia. In this article, we are examining the building in the context of modernist prototypes of both Novosibirsk and Leningrad: like puzzle pieces, they come together to form their individual history, not devoid of curious nuances and details.

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A New Starting Point

We’ve been wanting to examine the RuArts Foundation space, designed by ATRIUM for quite a long time, and we finally got round to it. This building looks appropriate and impressive; it amazingly combines tradition – represented in our case by galleries – and innovation. In this article, we delve into details and study the building’s historical background as well.

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Molding Perspectives

Stepan Liphart introduces “schematic Art Deco” on the outskirts of Kazan – his houses are executed in green color, with a glassy “iced” finish on the facades. The main merits of the project lie in his meticulous arrangement of viewing angles – the architect is striving to create in a challenging environment the embryo of a city not only in terms of pedestrian accessibility but also in a sculptural sense. He works with silhouettes, proposing intriguing triangular terraces. The entire project is structured like a crystal, following two grids, orthogonal and diagonal. In this article, we are examining what worked, and what eventually didn’t.

​Building Blocks for Gulliver

Building Blocks for Gulliver