The Red Park

Wowhaus turned a park in the center of Moscow into a great space for recreation and outdoor activities where everyone will find a place for himself by following red guiding marks.

Written by:
Elena Petukhova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

03 May 2018

Object

The story of reorganizing the “Kransogvardeiskie Prudy” park is typical for the practice of Wowhaus, which has been into improving city spaces and recreational areas for about ten years now. There is meticulous work and there is deadline pressure, there is struggling with the harsh realities of the Russian construction industry and overcoming the challenges of the climatic cataclysms. However, this work also leaves plenty of room for creativity, which makes it all worth it.

Three Ponds of Memories

Located west of the Moscow City business center, this cluster of a few green areas is definitely not on the top of Moscow parks list. Nevertheless, the new trends have finally reached this place as well: the park “Krasnaya Presnya”, which the city inherited from the Studenets-Gagarins estate, has already been reformed and landscaped. Historically, the “Krasnogvardeiskie Prudy” park is one of its parts, even though today it looks more like a green boulevard – as a matter of fact, the street running along the western border of the park is called “Krasnogvardeiskiy Boulevard”.

The three ponds that once gave the name to the park, were dug out in the early XVIII century. The biggest one (called “Nizhny”, meaning “the lower”) is squeezed between the 1^st Krasnogvardeiskiy and the Shmitovsky drives. The two other ponds are located to the north of this one – their green zone, averaging 70 meters, stops at the Zvenigorod Highway. During the soviet time, the ponds were clad in concrete casing, which was rather convenient for the ducks and the anglers. The park was intended for the local use: it had neither amusement rides nor heritage sites in it that would draw crowds from the outside. One could compare it to a slightly hyperbolic yard that was spilling over its boundaries – it was a haunt of moms going for walks with go carts and toddlers, pensioners from the surrounding houses, and the local youngsters who would periodically raise a racket here.

Vox Populi

In 2015, the Department of Culture and the management of “Krasnaya Presnya” decided to include the “Kransogvardeiskie Ponds” into the sphere of influence of the new park policy and invited for developing the project Wowhaus architects, known for their ability to not only uncover the potential of various venues but also involve the future users to the creation of the program, using the methodology of social and cultural programming.

zooming — Reorganization of the Krasnogvardeiskie Ponds. View of the Moscow City through the Upper Pond © WOWHAUS

To collect and analyze the design information, the architects invited their steady partners in that field – KB23. The sociological survey proved the desire of the local residents to keep the intimate character of the park. “The poll data made us us reconsider some of our preliminary solutions – shares the chief architect of Wowhaus, Daria Ionova (Melnik), who curated the project of reconstructing the “Krasnogvardeiskie Ponds” – Parents and their little kids, and the senior citizens that usually go for walks here, were not so much in need of some spectacular amusement rides or other noisy activities as children’s playgrounds, sports fields, and places for quiet rest and recreation”.

The Red Entrance

As far as the starting point was concerned, the architects used the main entrance from the side of the Zvenigorod Highway: at this point, the width of the park reaches its minimum – about 62 meters, so, from the side of the highway this place looked just like a rather unkempt piece of parkland.

It was also necessary to accentuate the entrance, and the architects of Wowhaus flanked it with two black-and-red pavilions connected by an openwork pergola that encompasses a cluster of preserved trees. The resulting structure is strikingly different from the stylized decorative portals that have recently adorned the entrances to the numerous Moscow parks – these pavilions are not meant to imitate some sort of holiday, their function being much more honest and utilitarian: one can have here a cup of coffee, rent a scooter or buy a book to read in the park. They signify an entrance to a territory that was designed and built for people.

Five Parks Instead of Just One

The information about the life of the park, specifically, its terrain, ponds, and greenery, as well as the surrounding buildings, prompted an unconventional solution: the authors decided to refrain from the idea of working with this territory “from beginning to end” and fractured it into several fragments with different functions and different approaches to infrastructure and landscape design.

Children’s Paradise

The zone situated immediately behind the entrance is occupied by sports fields and family recreation venues; the architects preserved the natural character of the park as much as possible here. The gem of this zone is the already-famous “playground in the trees”, something like a cross between a fairy tale castle and a rope park. A few differently sized little houses connected by boardwalks and ladders are mounted on tree trunks and special columns. The project got into the spotlight of all the architectural and city media long before it was implemented, which comes as no surprise – this sci-fi playground was created with the input from the architects who had previously designed the children’s club “Koni na Balkone” (“Horses on the Balcony”), and these architects used their own experience in involving children in the creative process of designing the exciting game environment. There are no preset scenarios here, the children themselves deciding what games to play, and how. Some families specifically come from far away specially for this playground.

The next zone is the territory around the Upper Pond, also treated in the natural key, with a boardwalk. The third fragment – located between the Upper and the Middle ponds – is designed as a regular park with a central promenade, flowerbeds, a few pavilions, an amphitheater around the dance floor, and also a small square, the center of which, according to the architects’ proposal, is the local curiosity – the “October Days” monument.

The next zone, which spreads around the second pond, is designed in a romantic spirit: a few gazebos with benches, and a boat renting point.

...and Circuses

The last fifth fragment with the “Lower Pond”, separated from the mainland by the Shmitovsky Driveway and having no nearby houses, became the center of the noisy pastime, which, as the sociological survey showed, the other zones rejected. There is a floating stage in the middle of the huge pond, and its banks have been turned into an amphitheater for 150 spectators and a large flooring sun bed. On the City Day 2017, there was an orchestra playing on that stage; in the upcoming season, the program is promising to be more diverse.

In order to ensure a better connection between the two major parts of the park, the architects planned to remove the pedestrian stoplight on the Shmitovsky Drive but, regretfully, this plan was not to come to pass.

The Connecting Red Line

The entire length of the park is pierced by a “secret trail” – a pedestrian route with sightseeing platforms and “surprise” objects that the visitors run into as if by accident.

In addition, the authors of the project decided not to argue with history and converted the name of the park into an obvious color code. For “Krasnogvardeiskie Prudy” (“Red Guard Ponds”) that are part of the “Krasnaya Presnya” (“Red Presnya”) park, they proposed to use the red color. It is complemented by gray and beige-ochre color of wood.

Red Greenery and Other Curious Dendrology

In addition to the objects and guiding arrow signs, the red color is also present in vegetation here: the dendrologists have put together a collection of plants with red leaves or branches – or at least the kind that turns red in autumn.

The reconstruction of the park required a major revision of its greenery. There were a lot of trees in the park but not all of them were healthy; over the long years of “wild” growth, many cultured trees and shrubs died, junk underwood grew up, and the flowerbeds practically disappeared. Because of the strong winds of the winters of 2016-2017, many trees fell down – in a word, there arose a necessity for planting new trees: these include the now-popular kinds of trees, shrubs and perennials that grow well in the city.

The flowerbeds were individually developed for each of the segments of the park, with regard to its function and style – regular or, conversely, landscaping kind. At some places, the architects would choose to use simple forest plants, at some places – more flashy-looking but still fuss-free garden flowers and herbs. The boundaries of the zones are highlighted – and at the same time smoothed out – with a mix of herbs.

Realization: Express and Improvised

The project was finished in the middle of 2016 but the construction work in the park did not begin until October. The management of the park was to organize a tender to choose the contractor, and, as it often happens, the process took quite a long time – until the advent of the unexpectedly early winter. Practically the whole work was suspended until the next year. The only thing that could be done was preparing the foundations for the pavilions, but then again, some changes were introduced because a different technology was used.

As a result, from April to October 2017, the construction was done by express and improvisation method; some of the solutions had to be simplified in order to meet the construction schedule.

Before the start of the landscaping work, the park launched the process of reconstructing and clearing the ponds that included reinforcing their banks with gabions. Due to the fact that the ponds are in the books of Mosvodostok (the Moscow water disposal service), and not the park itself, their reconstruction was handled by another contractor – the result of his efforts was strikingly different from the solutions proposed in the project, and the architects had to make revisions to the structure of the boardwalks and amphitheaters to put things in order.

Just Add Water

The not-so-long list of project losses has one position in it that stands out with its objectively insurmountable character, though temporary, as the authors of the project hope. The ponds did survive the years of dilapidation, with losses in terms of purity but still with water. After the reconstruction, the ponds grew shallow – which was the reason the architects had to abandon the idea of a boat renting point on the Middle Pond, and the twin-hull boat renting point at the Lower Pond had to be turned into a changing room for the sunbed. But then again, the architects hope that this situation is only temporary and the ponds will get filled with water soon.

Luckily, almost all the other solutions got realized to a letter, just as the architects were able to achieve the integrity of the landscape and architectural inclusions, so characteristic of Wowhaus projects. Some of the solutions even turned out to be more effective and efficient than the authors anticipated.

Bench Reversal

In the conditions of time and budget constraints, the architects had to combine new minor forms with author creations. One of the most popular ones is the “high back bench”.

The beauty of descriptive names is in their self-explanatory vividness. The size of the back of the bench is outstanding indeed but what is more important is the fact that it is the key to solving the longstanding problem of all parks: the necessity to choose between the comfort of sitting and the opportunity to admire the surrounding scenery. Usually, benches are placed along the trails, facing the promenade – and the person who sits down on them automatically finds himself with his back to all the beauty of the park, through which the trail runs. The solution that Wowhaus proposed is revolutionary in its radical simplicity: they turned the bench with its back to the passageway, and, in order to make sure that the person who is sitting on it does not get a creepy feeling because of what is going on behind his back, covered the rear with a high back. The idea went straight home. Once they were installed, these benches became an instant hit with lovebirds and introverts.

A Park Study

Yet another successful solution is the format of the “bank pavilions”. Because of the steep banks of the middle pond, you could not place regular benches alongside it, while building an amphitheater here would be prohibitively expensive. A compromise was found in small “balcony” or “veranda” gazebos, which were placed above the water and connected to the bridge by a boardwalk. Such boxes can comfortably host a company of four to six people. Being formally detached from the outside world will let one feel more comfortable but, being of the open-air type, the verandas are vandal-proof.

And, while a couple of years back Wowhaus came up with an urban open-air “living room”, now the list of innovations proposed by this company has been augmented with an urban “open-air” study.

03 May 2018

Headlines now

Object

The Romance of a Saint Petersburg Courtyard

Studio 44’s approach to the redevelopment of the Liviz winery site appears to be an important precedent for Saint Petersburg: the architects are adapting not only designated heritage buildings but also other more-than-a-century old structures, revealing their distinctive character and giving them new public or residential uses. New architecture is interwoven with the old, creating a range of clearly defined or deliberately complex urban spaces. Blocks of different typologies are complemented by a pedestrian promenade that makes the environment much more permeable and lively. And all of this is framed by a sense of romance and nostalgia for the historic city.

Object

The Voice of the Amur

MV-PROJECT has won a competition for the façades of the Khabarovsk Regional Academic Musical Theater. The architects took a bold approach, proposing a striking wave-like envelope inspired by the waters of the Amur, along with landscaped rooftop terraces. The concept won an absolute majority of the public vote. We take a closer look at the proposal, its feasibility, and its rich imagery, which invites associations with the work of Ivan Aivazovsky and Katsushika Hokusai.

Object

A Theater for Figure Skaters, or Cherchez La Femme

Ice arenas are typologically close to industrial buildings: enormous windowless halls with minimal architectural embellishment. In designing Navka Arena, Yuliy Borisov and the UNK architects did not try to fight the utilitarian nature of the structure. Instead, they concentrated all of its expressive elements in one place – the central façade. A parabolic canopy, a monumental sculpture of a figure skater, and her shadow rendered in perforated metal transform an ordinary sports “box” into an architectural statement about ice, movement, and theater.

Object

The Soft Forms of a New Enlightenment

The school that will rise amid the new high-rise neighborhoods of Set and Veer can fairly be called a landmark of the future district. The educational environment was designed by IMAGO, a firm specializing in learning spaces, while the façade concept was selected through a competition. The winner, GAFA, proposed a regular grid of three-dimensional modules that creates an intriguing effect of “soft” architecture. The imagery of this solution appeals to children of different ages and suits the stature of the educational complex, which will be handed over to the highly rated School No. 1329 upon completion.

Object

Projection of a Spiral, Projection of a Wave

Architects from Mezonsproekt have designed a high-rise residential complex of four towers near the intersection of Novaya Riga Highway and the Moskva River. Its landmark status is motivated both by the proximity of Rublyovo-Arkhangelskoye and its SberCity development, and by the theme of two intersecting flows: water and traffic. The architects have organized the façade pattern around the supergraphic image of a pixelated spiral, intended to animate – and perhaps even transform – the perception of the buildings’ prismatic volumes.

The Ever-Changing Mist

T+T Architects has developed a concept for a premium business center featuring “living” façades that change their configuration depending on weather conditions, time of day, and the occupants’ needs, transforming the building into an urban-scale installation. The idea of endless variability continues inside, with interiors designed to accommodate different scenarios of use. Some of the engineering solutions proposed for the project are being introduced to the Russian commercial real estate market for the first time.

Review

A Small Book of Farewell

The book dedicated to Valery Kanyashin, published by his colleagues at Ostozhenka Architects, is remarkably small. It fits comfortably in the palm of your hand, more like sketchbook than an actual architectural monograph. Combined with its tiny print run, the result is an intentionally unglamorous, decidedly non-representational publication – one that is made “for friends”. Yet the way it weaves together projects, texts, photographs, and drawings is remarkably subtle. Perhaps this is precisely how one comes to understand a person, at least a little, by tracing the course of their creative life.

Object

Win-Win

For Perm, the opening of the new home for its Art Gallery – guardian of the famous collection of Perm wooden sculpture – marks the end of a 35-year search for a building worthy of a collection that had long outgrown the city cathedral that had served as its only home. Sergey Tchoban considers the project one of the most important of his career in Russia and emphasizes that it deliberately avoids “iconic” architecture in favor of contextual appropriateness. We traveled to Perm to explore both the building and its extensive new exhibition, and found that, much like Tchoban’s other museum projects, it is conceived in a distinctly contemporary way: the old and the new do not merely coexist but reinforce one another through contrast, sharpening the visitor’s perception of the museum.

Object

A Score for 12th Line

“Amo”, a residential complex designed by Stepan Liphart on Vasilyevsky Island, brings together three architectural ideas: the cour d’honneur, a piazzetta-like courtyard, and imagery borrowed from Renaissance architecture. Together, these elements make a contemporary apartment complex feel more humane, extending the theme of individuality in residential design. The effect is achieved through a carefully calibrated vocabulary of moderately standardized components: recessed façade panels enriched with sgraffito ornament, a disciplined hierarchy of cornices and moldings, and a series of bespoke decorative details. The development combines residential and hotel sections that frame the restored wooden mansion of the Brömme brothers.

Object

Riverfront Façade

The Premium residential complex, designed by KPLN, has been built in the town of Pushkino, just outside Moscow, on the banks of the Serebryanka River. Its two towers reinforce the scale of the high-rise development that emerged here in the 2000s, while introducing a bolder architectural form that reads more effectively from a distance, along with a system of contrasts and design strategies responding to the site’s waterfront setting. One of the project’s distinctive features is a series of metal discs that conceal air-conditioning units while serving as an additional decorative layer.

Object

A Construction Set for Adult Life

In the project by Atrium, the new building for Moscow’s School No. 2107, designed to accommodate 1,100 students, is above all a carefully organized system of learning and recreational spaces. On the one hand, it is complex and highly articulated; on the other, it remains intuitive, safe, and conducive to personal growth. In a sense, it serves as a model of life in the city – a place where one must communicate, make decisions, plan ahead, and find a balance between work and leisure. All of these scenarios are reflected, to varying degrees, in the building’s architecture.

Object

Axis of Rotation

One of the installations in the Masters exhibition at Arch Moscow featured a futuristic yet entirely feasible project by Vladimir Plotkin and TPO Reserve – a tower that could be assembled from prefabricated factory-made modules. The concept even incorporates the possibility of slow rotation (!). Using the same module, one could create a residential block, a giant cantilevered “arrow”, or virtually any other configuration you could possibly think of. Let us take a closer look at the module itself.

A New Magazine and a New Ranking

The magazine Expert.Urban has only just appeared, apparently timed to coincide with Arch Moscow. It is published with the support of VEB.RF and Strelka KB. We have not yet had time to read it cover to cover, but the impression so far is that it consists of about eighty percent interviews. It also features a distinctly “Strelka-style” initiative: a ranking of the “Best Architect of Moscow in the 21st Century”. So, who came out on top? Sergey Skuratov. Yuri Grigoryan took second place, and Sergei Tchoban came third.

Interview

Oleg Shapiro: “We design life as a whole, in all of its diversity”

Wowhaus has long since outgrown its association with “urban improvement” projects alone. One of its newer directions is neo-industrialization. Another is large-scale master planning. Yet work on Gorky Park is once again underway – only now on a more systematic and far-reaching level. In this interview, we simultaneously revisit Rem Koolhaas, Strelka, and the history of attention to the “urban environment”, while also exploring what exactly Wowhaus is working on today and how the company operates – with its nine divisions and approximately 160 employees.

Object

Red Card for Copyright

The development concept for the territory of Shinnik Stadium in Yaroslavl, prepared by PI ARENA, took second place in an open call competition. The architects proposed a unified structure combining a football arena, a hotel, and the headquarters of PSB Bank, with carefully considered usage scenarios. However, the competition was organized in such a way that the team ultimately chose to forgo the prize money in order to retain their copyright.

News

CinemaHologram

Not long ago, the Moscow authorities approved the project for a new House of Cinema complex by Kleinewelt Architekten. The original 1968 building could not be preserved – yet the architects managed to save its stained-glass panels, metal reliefs, and even the volumetric parameters of the structure, which will continue to house the Union of Cinematographers and cinema halls. The project’s main focal point, however, will be a residential tower. We examine its sculptural qualities and its allusions within the Moscow context.

Contest Results

Form as Method: TPO Reserve

At the core of the concept developed by Vladimir Plotkin and TPO Reserve lies an unconventional morphology that addresses functional challenges beyond purely formal concerns. Above all, however, it serves expressiveness and creates a rare kind of spatial and emotional experience, as becomes evident when examining the project’s key solutions. We studied it in detail, and it was all worth it. Our interpretation is that what drives this project is neither style nor even metaphor, but rather a method.

Object

Mound of Memory

The competition proposal for a memorial complex on the Pulkovo Heights by Studio 44 will not be realized, yet it deserves attention as an intriguing example of how architecture can symbolize traumatic events and thereby contribute to their processing and integration into human experience. The architects also succeed in combining memorial and recreational functions without slipping either into excessive dramatization or oversimplification. The project develops ideas explored in two earlier competition entries that likewise remained unbuilt – the Museum of the Siege of Leningrad and the Tuchkov Buyan park. It also recalls the mound-like hill that Alexander Nikolsky embodied in the form of the now-lost stadium on Krestovsky Island.

Object

Home Base

Working on the new building for Letovo Junior School – opened to students in autumn 2025 in the MSU Valley – the architects of UNK, following the client’s vision, subordinated both façades and interiors to the theme of “home”. Multiple variations of pitched roofs, a city skyline traced across glass balustrades, wooden textures, and a whole series of micro-spaces for retreat within public areas are all at the disposal of primary and middle school students. We take a closer look at the new school building – and at how it interprets current trends in educational environments.

Object

Doubles Match

The architecture of the Tennis Palace built in Luzhniki Olympic Complex, designed by Arena Design Institute, was shaped by three factors: the proximity of the brutalist Druzhba Arena, the closeness of the Moskva River and the metro bridge overpass, as well as the specifics of the function – tennis courts require large spans, abundant light, yet at the same time protection from direct sunlight. The architects divided the building into several blocks, playing on contrast, which is further emphasized by the façades developed in collaboration with TPO Reserve and Vladimir Plotkin.

Object

Microdynamics of Macroprocesses

Given the proximity of the multifunctional complex SOLOS to Sokolniki Park and to a major transport hub, Kleinewelt Architekten embedded in the design of the two high-rise towers a sense of dynamism more characteristic of natural phenomena than of man-made objects. Without the authors’ diagrams, this logic is not easy to decipher, although the eye immediately detects a pattern and tries to grasp it. It seems to us that one tower contains the impulse of a bud about to open, while the other evokes the movement of a lithospheric plate. Let us try to unravel it together.

Report

The Space of Post-Cubism

Sergei Tchoban and Alexandra Sheiner, of Studio CHART, created for the exhibition of “post-cubist” sculpture by Beatrice Sandomirskaya – a talented and even “mainstream” artist, yet almost unknown even to art historians – a space akin to her sculptural language: solidly built, confidently stereometric, and subtly expressive. It curves, emphasizing the mass of the sculpture, envelops the viewer, and guides them from one perspective to another, from a generic “shrine” to a “Madonna”.

Object

The Value of Open Space

For the site near the Barrikadnaya Metro Station, Sergey Skuratov developed five projects between 2020 and 2025. Two of them were ones that won the client’s invitation-only competitions. The fifth was recently selected by the Mayor of Moscow for implementation. The project is vivid and sculptural, expressive, eye-catching, and engaging – very much in line with the spirit of our time. And yet, this project is mid-rise rather than tall. In its northwestern part, near the metro and Druzhinnikovskaya Street, it shapes a comfortable urban environment. On the opposite side, it opens up, allowing sunlight into the courtyard and creating a spatial pause within the dense city fabric. How it is organized, what geometric principles underlie it, and why it takes this form – all this is explored in our article.

Coming From the Cold

The ArchBukhta Festival remains one of the few events in Russia where participants go through the entire process of creating an architectural object – from concept to construction. And they do so on the shores of Lake Baikal, in dedication to it. This year, GAFA took part and shared its experience: a local legend, a team-specific design code, friendship, as well as ice skating and endurance in freezing temperatures all contributed to gaining something more than just an award.

Object

Symphony of Water and Brick

The Alter residential complex, designed by Stepan Liphart and built on a bend of the Okhta River, is an example of a “drawn house”: the number of original architectural details is virtually immeasurable. As a result, ribs, projections, and recesses create a picturesque silhouette even without a significant variation in height. Both composition and material respond to the proximity of the river and to the red-brick factory building dating back to the early 20th century. The project was also significantly shaped by recommendations from the city’s chief architect. More details in our article.

Object

The Penguin House

The building with a curved façade on Brestskaya Street is one of the manifestos of Russian neomodernism of the early 2000s, a sculpture – this is how Anatoly Belov interprets it, speaking of “breaking from the modernist canon and the contextual approach”. We do not fully agree with the author, but his perspective is an interesting one.

Object

Wave and Vertical

The premium residential complex designed by GAFA for a site in the Khoroshevsky District responds to multiple constraints – the arc of a planned roadway, the water protection zone of the Khodynka River, and insolation requirements – through inventive massing. The composition is built on the interplay of two spatial layers: an elongated perimeter block and three towers concealed behind it generate the silhouette and key viewpoints, while also adding semantic depth reinforced by the façade solutions. Another defining feature is a large private courtyard, complemented by a citywide linear park.

Object

Office on Trubnaya

We continue publishing projects by Valery Kanyashin. A building once described, a quarter century ago, as an example of “quiet modernism” has remained just that in some people’s memory. According to Anatoly Belov, its main quality is its unobtrusiveness. The architects from Ostozhenka say the leading role here is played by context and landscape – the change in elevation. Yet is it really so inconspicuous?

Object

The First International

With this publication, we begin a series of texts dedicated to works by the late Valery Kanyashin, one of the founders of Ostozhenka Architects. As it happens, the projects he was involved in largely illustrate our understanding of the firm and its history. The first project in this series is the International Moscow Bank on Prechistenskaya Embankment.

in memoriam

In Memory of Valery Kanyashin

On Friday, February 27, architect Valery Kanyashin passed away – co-founder of Ostozhenka Architects and the author of many significant buildings in Moscow. We publish a text by Anatoly Belov in memory of Valery Kanyashin.

​The Red Park

Wowhaus turned a park in the center of Moscow into a great space for recreation and outdoor activities where everyone will find a place for himself by following red guiding marks.

The Red Park