По-русски

​A Change of Image

The OSA Group created a new version of high-rise towers in order to restart Ekaterinburg’s unfinished construction, at the same time trying to make the super-dense housing environment as comfortable as possible.

Alyona Kuznetsova

Written by:
Alyona Kuznetsova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

12 December 2018
Object
mainImg

The three towers resting on a single podium are essentially a new version of the ambitious residential complex “First Nikolaevsky”, which is under construction in the north of Ekaterinburg. The OSA architects got into the project when the first construction stage was completed that consisted of two elongated buildings 14 and 25 stories high. According to the original design, these two were to be complemented by two skyscrapers with spires in the spirit of the Stalin empire style and two “candles” each one hundred meters tall. However, the developer, NP "Uralenergostroykompleks", went bankrupt. The construction was continued by the company Prinzip and their partners, the design office “R1”. The new developers decided to change the concept and turned to OSA, since Prinzip already had an experience of working with this architectural firm on the Malevich residential complex. The marketing management renamed “First Nikolayevsky” 2.0 into “Tatlin” by association with the Tower named after Third International. After the publication of the concept on the city forums, some people began to write that the complex “turned from an ugly duckling into a swan”, while the opponents of such super-dense development remained unconvinced and called the new project “another anthill”.

The architects were facing a difficult task: to keep up the number of apartments, their minimum required floor space, not to go beyond the height mark of 100 m (despite the fact that the height of the previous “Stalin towers” was just a little under 150–200 m), and also to avoid window-to-window views. The architects supplemented this list with yet another self-imposed requirement – to make absolutely sure that the super-dense housing environment becomes comfortable for the residents of the complex.

Top view © OSA Group
"Nikolaevsky" residential complex © OSA Group


As for the compositional options, there were several of them. A grid plan consisting of buildings 35 stories high would have yielded a large courtyard with plenty of “air” between the buildings. The strong point of “semi-gallery” towers were beautiful-looking facades and the highest technical and economic performance indicators. However, the customer opted for the “XXL format” towers with the maximum numbers of apartments per floor. There are wide gaps between the towers, so the complex does not look like “the Great Wall of China”, while its silhouette still remains recognizable.

Version 1. A unique city block © OSA Group


Version 3. A unique city block © OSA Group


Version 2. Unique towers © OSA Group


The towers are built at the intersection of Gottwald and Cherepanov streets. Trapezoid in plan, they “open up” to the outskirts – warehouses, railways and the Zavokzalny microdistrict. But most of the windows one way or another overlook the central parts of the city – the Iset River and the City Pond will be seen from many of them.

Due to the habitual traffic jams, getting to the center either by car or on foot is about twenty minutes. After the houses are put into operation, the traffic is likely to become even heavier. From this point of view, the concept of the podium, which unites the towers, is very attractive. In addition to the usual retail businesses, cafés and a fitness center, the podium will also accommodate for social and business spaces: there will be a meeting room, a co-working room, and a lecture hall for master classes and seminars. Some of the residents will not have to go to work in the city center during the rush hours, and perhaps the whole pedestrian and traffic flow will be redistributed – some people will be coming in the opposite direction to work in the Tatlin towers.

Plan of the first floor © OSA Group


On the outside, the towers are unlike one another: each has its own axis, plan and facade. The developer emphasizes this individuality in the decoration of public spaces: certain façade materials will dominate in each tower – gold, platinum or bronze. But the principle of organizing space is the same in all of them. The quintessence of all the techniques is the middle tower, in which the response to the “gallery” option is visible, since its powerful “wings” slightly diverge, like lithospheric plates. It is also worth noting that the windows in the depth of this “cleavage” belong to the staircase and elevator platforms, and the side ends are cut by narrow bathroom windows.

"Nikolaevsky" residential complex © OSA Group


In the heart of the trapezoid there are staircase and elevator sections and utility lines, along the perimeter there are apartments, there being 18 of them on each floor. In order to make sure that the residents will not wait too long for the elevator, the architects divided the corridors into four segments that lead to two staircase and elevator halls.

Building 3.2 © OSA Group


Each tower has three entrances: two main entrances that overlook the street or the courtyard garden, and an auxiliary one for bulky loads from the side of the in-block passage. That is, if the residents do have to load and unload furniture or decoration materials, they do not use the yard for that (which is meant for recreation and communication) but use the loading platform. Such deconfliction of flows can be traced in other OCA projects, but here the architects made it as explicit and even as declarative as possible.

Simplified master plan + 1st floor © OSA Group


On the ground floor there is also a lobby, which unites all of the three entrances, a place for wheelchairs and bicycles, a restroom, and a special room where you can wash your dog’s paws after a walk. If you have a go-cart, you just walk out into the vehicle-free yard, without any thresholds or any other obstacles. Three-level underground parking can accommodate 1350 cars, the entrance to it is located in the courtyard.

"Nikolaevsky" residential complex © OSA Group


In the long run, the towers slightly overstepped the 100-meter mark, at the request of customers, OSA enlarged them from 33 floors to 35. The distance between them is 40-45 meters, so even if the windows do look at the wall of the neighboring tower, they still capture some air and sky. This allowed the developer, for example, to sell the 28-square-meter studios as “coming with a sunset view”. The floor space of single, double, and three-room apartments ranges from 40 to 100 square meters.

"Nikolaevsky" residential complex © OSA Group
 

The walls and intermediate floors dissect the facades into powerful blocks, simple and clear: in the side ends the strokes are oriented vertically, on longer planes – horizontally. In the “dense” places there are “serifs” made at the height from 28 to 35 floors, which also helps to avoid monotony.

Standard plan of floors 289-35 © OSA Group


None


Architect Vasily Krapivin says: “As in many other complexes, we tried to keep the façade from playing the main part – what we wanted to do was repeat and strengthen the proportions and the silhouette. The facade fabric is simple, geometric and it works when viewed in perspective. From the center of the city and on the distant panoramas, the complex draws a silhouette that is not trivial for our city, and from close ranges it makes a dynamic sculptural composition: some towers stand out, and some hide back. We also made the most of the colors – the red tint of the central tower spreads all over the podium and goes to one of the neighboring towers, uniting all the buildings into a single complex”.

The towers will be built one by one; the first one is to be put into operation in 2020.

12 December 2018

Alyona Kuznetsova

Written by:

Alyona Kuznetsova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov
Headlines now
The Chinese Symphony
The construction of the Chinese center “Huaming Park” has been a long story that came to fruition relatively recently. The building is adjacent to a traditional Chinese garden, but it is very modern, laconic and technological, and the simple-in-form, yet spectacular, white lamellae promise to someday be incorporated as a media facade. This complex is also truly multifunctional: it contains different types of living spaces, offices, a large fitness center, conference halls and restaurants – all wrapped in one volume. You can comfortably hold international forums in it, having everything you may possibly need at your fingertips, and going outside only to take a walk. In this article, we are examining this complex in detail.
Ensemble of Individualities
Construction of the first phase of the INDY Towers multifunctional complex on Kuusinen Street, designed by Ostozhenka, has started. The project opens new angles of similarity between the column and the skyscraper, and we examine the nuances and parallels.
Black and Red
Kazakov Grand Loft received its name for a reason: responding to the client’s brief and proceeding from the historical industrial architecture of its immediate surroundings, Valery Kanyashin and Ostozhenka architects proposed a new version of a modern house designed in the fashionable “loft” style. What makes this building different is the fact that the bricks here are dark gray, and the facades of the romantic “fortress” towers blossom with magnificent glazing of the windows in the upper part. The main highlight of the complex, however, is the multiple open air terraces situated on different levels.
Icy Hospitality
Mezonproject has won the national architectural and town planning competition for designing a hotel and a water recreation center in the city of Irkutsk. The architects chose hummocks of Baikal ice as a visual image.
The Mastery of Counterpoint
In the sculpture of Classical Greece, counterpoint was first invented: the ability to position the human body as if it were about to take a step, imbuing it with a hint of the energy of future movement, and with hidden dynamics. For architecture, especially in the 20th century and now, this is also one of the main techniques, and the ATRIUM architects implement it diligently, consistently – and always slightly differently. The new residential complex “Richard” is a good example of such exploration, based on the understanding of contrasts in the urban environment, which was fused into the semblance of a living being.
Countryside Avant-Garde
The project of the museum of Aleksey Gastev, the ideologist of scientific organization of work, located in his hometown of Suzdal, is inscribed in multiple contexts: the contest of a small town, the context of avant-garde design, the context of “lean production”, and the context of the creative quest of Nikolai Lyzlov’s minimalist architecture – and it seems to us that this project even reveals a distant memory of the fact that Aleksey Gastev learned his craft in France.
On the Hills
In the project by Studio 44, the “distributed” IT campus of Nizhny Novgorod is based on well-balanced contracts. Sometimes it is hovering, sometimes undulating, sometimes towering over a rock. For every task, the architects found appropriate form and logic: the hotels are based on a square module, the academic buildings are based on a “flying” one, and so on. Modernist prototypes, specifically, Convent Sainte-Marie de La Tourette, stand next to references to the antique Forum and the tower of a medieval university – as well as next to contextual allusions that help inscribe the buildings of the future campus into the landscape of the city hills with their dominants, high slopes, breathtaking river views, the historical city center, and the Nizhny Novgorod University.
The Magic Carpet
The anniversary exhibition of Totan Kuzembaev’s drawings named “Event Horizons” shows both very old drawings made by the architect in the formative 1980’s, and now extracted from the Museum of Architecture, as well as quite a few pictures from the “Weightlessness” series that Totan Kuzembaev drew specifically for this exhibition in 2023. It seemed to us that the architect represented reality from the point of view of someone levitating in space, and sometimes even upside down, like a magic carpet with multiple layers.
​A Copper Step
Block 5, designed by ASADOV architects as part of the “Ostrov” (“Island”) housing complex, is at the same time grand-scale, conspicuous thanks to its central location – and contextual. It does not “outshout” the solutions used in the neighboring buildings, but rather gives a very balanced implementation of the design code: combining brick and metal in light and dark shades and large copper surfaces, orthogonal geometry on the outside and flexible lines in the courtyard.
The Light for the Island
For the first time around, we are examining a lighting project designed for a housing complex; but then again, the authors of the nighttime lighting of the Ostrov housing complex, UNK lighting, proudly admit that this project is not just the largest in their portfolio, but also the largest in this country. They describe their approach as a European one, its chief principles being smoothness of transitions, comfort to the eye, and the concentration of most of the light at the “bottom” level – meaning, it “works” first of all for pedestrians.
Spots of Light
A new housing complex in Tyumen designed by Aukett Swanke is a very eye-pleasing example of mid-rise construction: using simple means of architectural expression, such as stucco, pitched roofs, and height changes, the architects achieve a “human-friendly” environment, which becomes a significant addition to the nearby park and forest.
Ledges and Swirls
The housing complex “Novaya Zarya” (“New Dawn”) designed by ASADOV Architects will become one of the examples of integrated land development in Vladivostok. The residential area will be characterized by various typologies of its housing sections, and a multitude of functions – in addition to the social infrastructure, the complex will include pedestrian promenades, shopping malls, office buildings, and recreational facilities. The complex is “inscribed” in a relief with a whopping 40-meter height difference, and overlooks the Amur Bay.
Agglomeration on an Island
Recently, an approval came for the master plan of the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk agglomeration, which was developed by a consortium headed by the Genplan Institute of Moscow. The document provides for the creation of 12 clusters, the totality of which will give the region a qualitative leap in development and make the island more self-sufficient, more accessible, and less dependent on the mainland. We are inviting you to examine the details.
Ivan Grekov: “A client that wants to make a building that is “about architecture” is...
In this article, we are talking to Ivan Grekov, the leader of the architectural company KAMEN (translates as “stone”), the author of many high-profile projects that have been built in Moscow in the recent years, about the history of his company, about different approaches to form making, about different meanings of volume and facade, and about “layers” in working with the environment – at the example of two projects by Osnova Group. These are the MIRAPOLIS complex on the Mira Avenue in Rostokino, whose construction began at the end of last year, and the multifunctional complex in the 2nd Silikatny Proezd on the Zvenigorodsky Highway; recently, it received all the required approvals.
Grasping and Formulating
The special project “Tezisy” (“Abstracts”), showcased at Arch Moscow exhibition in Moscow’s Gostiny Dvor, brought together eight young “rock stars of architecture”, the headliner being Vladislav Kirpichev, founder of the EDAS school. In this article, we share our impressions of the installations and the perspectives of the new generation of architects.
The White Tulip
Currently, there are two relevant projects for the Great Cathedral Mosque in Kazan, which was transferred to a land site in Admiralteiskaya Sloboda in February. One of them, designed by TsLP, was recently showcased at Arch Moscow. In this article, we are covering another project, which was proposed during the same period for the same land site. Its author is Aleksey Ginzburg, the winner of the 2022 competition, but now the project is completely different. Today, it is a sculptural “flower” dome symbolizing a white tulip.
ATRIUM’s Metaverse
The architectural company ATRIUM opened a gallery of its own in a metaverse. Inside, one can examine the company’s approach and main achievements, as well as get some emotional experience. The gallery is already hosting cyberspace business meetings and corporate events.
​From Darkness to Light
Responding to a lengthy list of limitations and a lengthy – by the standards of a small building – list of functions, Vladimir Plotkin turned the project of the Novodevichy Monastery into a light, yet dynamic statement of modern interpretation of historical context, or, perhaps, even interpretation of light and darkness.
Modernism in Avant-Garde
The contest proposal that Studio 44 made for the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet Theater is bright in all senses, and in many ways even provocative – just like a modern theater performance should be. Being in context with modern culture, it even shocks you in some respects. At first, you are amazed at the red color that is present all around, and then you gradually make sense of the picturesque congregation of volumes that share a multitude of functions. And it’s only later that you realize that this conglomerate conceals a modernist building, most of which the architects save intact.
The Black Mountain
The project of reconstructing the Krasnoyarsk Opera and Ballet theater developed by Wowhaus, which won the competition, proposed a total demolition and new construction, as well as considerable expansion (up to 8 floors) – and transformable multifunctional spaces. The new project, however, does retain the recognizable elements and the image of the old theater. As for the main spectator hall, it is turned – figuratively speaking, of course – into a semblance of a black volcano.
Garage-Garage
Recently, Moscow saw the presentation of a project by Yuri Grigoryan, devoted to turning the truck garage on Novoryazanskaya Street, designed by Konstantin Melnikov, into the Museum of Moscow Transport. The project involves restoring the monument of architecture, adding a new underground floor and a new entrance, as well as a whole park. The implementation is already underway.
Houses by the Lakeside
Approvals came for the project of a housing complex that DNK ag designed in Kazan. The complex is low-rise; its sections are designed as separate volumes united by a common podium. Everything is very much like DNK: delicate and sometimes even lyrical, especially where the yard meets the lakeshore.
Exemplary Adaptation
In Novosibirsk, the construction of a school has been completed, whose project is standing every chance to set a new standard for the nation’s educational institutions. SVESMI Architects and Brusnika company started by developing the brief that would answer the modern teaching practices, and then they proposed the optimum plan, versatile classrooms, and reserved, yet expressive, image in the spirit of this Amsterdam alliance.
Terra Incognita
An 800-room hotel complex, designed by Ginzburg Architects, offers the seaside city of Anapa a fragment of well-organized urban environment that keeps up the cultural spirit of the place. The architects break away from traditional white facades, turning to the antique and even archaic periods of the history of this land, and drawing inspiration in the color of red clay and simple, yet lightweight, shapes.
In Plumage Colors
Working on the facades of a mid-rise residential area in Odintsovsky district, GENPRO architects “adjusted” a number of features of the volumetric composition, which they received without the right to make any changes to, by purely “decorative” means, such as ornamental brickwork, including glazed bricks and the rhythm of the windows. Interestingly, the starting point in the search for the color code was the plumage of birds that are found in the Moscow region.
Julius Borisov: “The “Island” housing complex is a unique project – we took it on with...
One of the largest housing projects of today’s Moscow – the “Ostrov” (“Island”) housing complex built by Donstroy – is now being actively built in the Mnevniky Floodplain. They are planning to build about 1.5M square meters of housing on an area of almost 40 hectares. We are beginning to examine this project– first of all, we are talking to Julius Borisov, the head of the architectural company UNK, which works with most of the residential blocks in this grand-scale project, as well as with the landscaping part; the company even proposed a single design code for the entire territory.
A Balanced Solution
The residential complex “Balance” on Moscow’s Ryazansky Prospekt is one of the large-scale, and relatively economical (again, by Moscow standards) housing projects. Its first phase has already been built and landscaped; the work on the others is in progress. Nevertheless, it has an integral internal logic, which is based on the balance of functions, height, and even image and space composition. The proposed solutions are recognizable and laconic, so that each of them was reduced by the authors to a graphic “logo”. To see everything, you have to flip through the pages and look through to the end.
Horror Vacui
In the city of Omsk, ASADOV architects took on a very challenging task: they are developing a concept of a public and residential complex, which involves reconstructing the city’s first thermal power station standing right next to Omsk’s first fortress. This territory has already seen a lot of projects designed for it, and the residential function of this land site has been the subject of heated debate. In this article, we are examining the project in question, aimed at developing a mid-scale city fabric suited for the historical center. We also examine the above-mentioned debate. Seriously, will this project save this place or will it bring it to ruin?
A Multi-Faced Grotto
This building, seemingly small, unremarkable, semi-ruined, and not even very ancient – the Grotto in the Bauman Garden – was restored by the “People’s Architect” architectural company with all the care applicable to a heritage monument. They preserved the romantic appeal of the ruins, added multimedia content, and explored the cascading fountain, which, as it turned out, was completely preserved. Brace yourself for a long story!