Fire and Ice: Architecture of Contradictions

The Hotel complex designed by TOTEMENT / PAPER for Kamchatka, reinterprets the nature and the culture of the peninsula, at the same time challenging the cataclysms of the earthquake endangered zone, using the modern technologies to create pure, open, and beautiful architecture.

Written by:
Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

26 December 2018

Object

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky – the main and basically the only center of the peninsula, whose remoteness has long since become proverbial, and whose nature attracts fans of exotic tourism from Europe and Asia – hitherto did not have a modern hotel either for tourists or for business partners of the Kamchatka companies, or even for high-ranking statesmen. Such a hotel – memorable architecture, up-to-date services, two restaurants (one of them commanding beautiful views), 4 stars – is now being built by the project of TOTEMENT on the bank of the Kultuchnoe Lake in the center of the city.

The hotel got a land site of an irregular shape, stretching along the bank of the lake, a road, and – on the opposite side – a steep slope that as much as cancelled all the views from the north windows. On top of the hill, there is a couple of standard five-story houses, rather old and shabby. The south side, on the other hand, commands a view of the hills and the lake, landscaping a fragment of whose bank is also a part of the hotel project. The place is complex but not without some certain advantages. In addition to the hotel, it was planned from the very start to place here an office center, a fitness-and-spa center, and a conference hall, whose capacity in the course of work grew up to an impressive figure of 450 seats.

zooming — Kamchatka Hotel © TOTEMENT/PAPER

The complexity of the land site and the wide range of functions became the reason for a long search for the right concept: the architects kept moving their volumes around, coming up with various shapes and floor plans. However, it must be recognized that the necessity to pack so many functions on such a small site lying on a slope of the mountain into a volumetric figure so much like origami is a task that can best be handled by TOTEMENT / PAPER with their passion for challenging goals that prompt contrastive, sophisticated but thought-out and self-consistent solutions, just as with their love for tectonic solid geometry and the culture of the Far East. These challenges became for them a chance for a detailed research and painstaking work.

When it turned out that the land site lying to the west of the main one – provided it was cleared from engineering lines – could also be added to the main “trapeze” of the construction blueprint, an opposition of two towers formed: a 15-story hotel tower in the eastern part, and an 11-story office tower in the eastern part. This opposition at once took on an image character: the hotel tower, streamlined and charcoal black, with a glittering drop of the backlit red marquee on top – a veritable volcano with a cloud of smoke on top of it just before the beginning of the eruption. The office tower is made of glass, with facets of broad planes and prominent corners as opposed to the rounded corners of the hotel. The glass is covered with a wealth of white triangles meant to mask the bands of the intermediate floors and partially to protect it from the direct sunlight but first of all to make the volume more integral and more “icy” – a semblance of an icy mountain slightly melted on the corner which is turned southeast in the direction of the Petrovskaya Mount, like a spot of pure glass.

The first thing that comes to mind is the “fire and ice” metaphor, and the authors basically agree with that. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the towers took the extreme left and right positions, the space between them occupied by a glass podium that not only included a few entrance areas, a lobby, a fitness center and a conference hall but also became the space of visual interpretation and the conceptual tension between the two poles. While we have a conditional “fire” in the east and “ice” in the west, between them there is a space that is essentially earth with all of its beauties and controversies.

The fitness-and-spa center is inscribed into the bottom floors of the office block like a volumetric puzzle figure. It has seven pools in it, including a large one with courses of the sportive length of 25 meters, a padding pool for the toddlers and a spa bath; also, there are four small ones, more like large bathtubs, which are part of the Korean bath meant to cater for the visitors from this neighboring country; such baths are quite common here in the Far East, and they enjoy great popularity.

The western wall of the swimming pool is completely white and is dissected with large-stroke graphic ornaments, which, first of all, are based on основан на petroglyphs and the traditional Kamchatka decor, and, second, was designed by the authors as a semblance of broken-ice pattern at the foot of the ice mountain. Routed out to the façade, this “shaman” ornamental wall raises its “head” and starts looking like some kind of a jagged dragon that scans the surroundings with his asymmetric eyes.

The conference hall is located more to the east and resembles another totem animal: Levon Airapetov and Valeria Preobrazhenskaya call it a “teddy bear”, not without tenderness. It indeed does look like a bear: a six-angle, yet still streamlined, body of the hall in the second tier, and four large legs of an also streamlined and complex configuration – the legs are volumetric, there are supports hidden within their walls, and inside they will have meeting rooms or maybe cafes. All the volumes – the “legs” and “body” alike – are covered with corrugated metal panels of a copper color, which makes our imaginary bear look like a shaman statuette cut from a figured piece of wood, some kind of northern birch tree. On the inside, the ceiling of the hall is flat, but, in order to provide for a support-free structure, there is a lot of girders above it – their enclosed space also contains the ventilation equipment. On the outside, the space of the girders stands out above the roof of the podium like a flattened dome that looks like the back of the bear or maybe the top of an extinct volcano.

Around the conference hall “spins” the space of the bottom floors: the architects even tried to calculate the scenarios of the visitors’ behavior during the conference break. The starting space is the foyer. There are three main entrances in the building, the foyer uniting two of them: one, which leads to the hotel lobby, and the second one, the central, between the fitness center and the conference hall. In addition, the height difference of the land site is over five meters, and the entrance, which is on the hotel side, leads us by a broad staircase directly to the second tier, to the conference hall entrance, while the central entrance leads to the first floor. The space beneath the supports of the hall is lowered still a little more in order to eliminate the feeling of an oppressive ceiling – from three sides, the descents lead to a rather cozy and interesting space, surrounded by the rounded sides of the “bear’s legs” – the meeting rooms – while overhead we see a lot of bent plates, as the metallic hide were cut crosswise; this motif is continued on the ceiling of the first tier, while at one point this called structure flows down to the floor in a “stalactite” fashion, forming an exotic column.

Closer to the side of the main façade and the central entrance, the foyer is double-height; further on, it is divided into two tiers by a balcony. The floor and ceiling of the second tier are more sedate, black and white, and geometric. The two types of patterns – the flowing and languid, akin to a volcano with its wisps of ashes and streams of lava, and the icy and jagged – finally meet, the lava flowing below, the ice piling up on top of it – which is basically the case from time to time on Kamchatka.

The fourth tier of the hotel hosts a restaurant that commands a view of the podium’s roof; its supports of parabolic outlines, masking the T-shaped supports are a metaphor of the boats that the Kamchatka fishermen would dry standing them up on end on the shore. The wavy ceiling symbolizes the water.

The Sky Bar on the top floor is covered by a water-drop-shaped curved metallic awning, which is meant to reflect its red floor, forming a semblance of a cloud of smoke above a smoldering volcano. The metallic pillars in this instance are a metaphor of cataclysm, just like the “cracks” of the lamps in the ceiling. But then again, the corrugated geometric “shaman” patterns on the walls stress the “controllability” of the cataclysm, as if saying: yes, we are on top of the volcano but, paradoxically, we are safe here.

It is obvious enough that the richness of the form and content is combined here with the degree of detailed treatment, which at some points gets close to the point of “total design”. We will stress it again at this point that the project is more than just a concept proposal – TOTEMENT prepared all the working documentation, selected all the decoration materials, mostly from the geographically close Chinese manufacturers.

A single chapter of the story must be written about the work with the regulations of the seismically dangerous zone. “If you are to comply with all of the regulations, you will only be able to build a very small box of hideous proportions, and with tiny windows” – Valeria Preobrazhenskaya confesses. On the territory of the hotel, the architects were required to provide for a possibility of a 9 баллов earthquake, and immediately across the road – up to 10 points. In these circumstances, the architects made all the stability calculations together with the Central Research Institute of Construction Structures, the only institute that seriously explores this topic in this country; they used shielded and seismic supports – simplistically speaking, this technique consists in equipping the numerous basement highs with shock absorbers of rubber and steel, which made it possible to reduce the 9-point limit to an 8-point. The architects also developed and got the required approvals for several special conditions; they also invited to work, in particular, the same fire safety specialists who worked in Zaryadye Park. All of this is a brief summary of some absolutely titanic efforts, which resulted in large stained glass windows of the podium, floor windows in the offices and some of the hotel rooms, an incredible amount of cantilevered structures designed for this place, although quite restrained, since everything was inscribed in real calculations, and passed all necessary approvals.

Some editors-in-chief of well-known industry magazines are in the habit of saying: “Anyone can come up with a cool-looking thing – but can you actually build it?” Speaking on this particular subject, we will say that incredible efforts were invested not only in designing this complex, sophisticated and meaningful form but also in implementing it, starting with complex engineering calculations and ending the detailed layout of all the façade panels in order to make sure that they come together to form a beautiful ornament. As far as I know, the work took about two years, and was done with detailed analysis of every detail. The client considered the design of the hotel rooms on a 1:1 model, comparing it to the proposal by a Korean company. Ultimately, the TOTEMENT proposal was chosen. Today, the framework of the building has been fully cast in concrete.

26 December 2018

Headlines now

Object

Domus Aurea

In this issue, we examine the “Tessinsky-1” house, designed by Sergey Skuratov and completed in 2023. Located in the middle of the Serebryanicheskaya Embankment district, at the intersection of its main streets, this house assumes a sort of “nodal” role: it not only responds to everything around it and preserves many memories of the former EMA factory within itself, but it weaves all this into a newly directed pattern, reconciling bright “gold” and dark-colored brick, largely with the help of the new, modern-yet-archaic Columba brick, which, come to think about it, is the most precious element here.

Periscope by the Bay

The jury awarded the second place in the competition for a public and cultural center in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to the companies GORA (“Mountain”) and M4. In the consortium’s proposal, the building resembles a sperm whale with a calf swimming next to it or a periscope, whose lenses capture the most spectacular views from the surrounding landscape.

Contest Results

From Arcs to Dolmens

While working on the competition project for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, ASADOV Architects prioritized the value of the natural and urban environment, aiming to preserve the balance of the location while minimizing the resemblance of the volume that they designed to a “traditional building”. The task was challenging, and the architects created three versions, one of which having been developed after the competition, where their main proposal took third place. However, the point of interest here is not the competition result but the continuity of creative thinking.

Object

Hide and Seek

The ID Moskovskiy house, designed by Stepan Liphart in St. Petersburg, in the courtyards near Moskovskiy Avenue beyond the Obvodny Canal and recently completed, is notable for several reasons. Firstly, it has been realized with considerable accuracy, which is particularly significant as this is the first building where the architect was responsible not only for the facades but also for the layouts, allowing for better integration between the two. On the other hand, this building is interesting as an example of the “germination” of new architecture in the city: it draws on the best examples from the neighborhood and becomes an improved and developed sum of ideas found by the architect in the surrounding context.

The Big Twelve

Yesterday, the winners of the Moscow Mayor’s Architecture Award were announced and honored. Let’s take a look at what was awarded and, in some cases, even critique this esteemed award. After all, there is always room for improvement, right?

Object

Above the Golden Horn

The residential complex “Philosophy” designed by T+T architects in Vladivostok, is one of the new projects in the “Golubinaya Pad” area, changing its development philosophy (pun intended) from single houses to a comprehensive approach. The buildings are organized along public streets, varying in height and format, with one house even executed in gallery typology, featuring a cantilever leaning on an art object.

Report

Nuanced Alternative

How can you rhyme a square and space? Easily! But to do so, you need to rhyme everything you can possibly think of: weave everything together, like in a tensegrity structure, and find your own optics too. The new exhibition at GES-2 does just that, offering its visitor a new perspective on the history of art spanning 150 years, infused with the hope for endless multiplicity of worlds and art histories. Read on to see how this is achieved and how the exhibition design by Evgeny Ace contributes to it.

Object

Blinds for Ice

An ice arena has been constructed in Domodedovo based on a project by Yuri Vissarionov Architects. To prevent the long façade, a technical requirement for winter sports facilities, from appearing monotonous, the architects proposed the use of suspended structures with multidirectional slats. This design protects the ice from direct sunlight while giving the wall texture and detail.

Contest Results

Frozen Magma

A competition for the creation of a public and cultural center was held in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Three architectural companies made it to the final, and we consider it important to share about the work of each. Let’s start with the winner – the consortium led by Wowhaus.

Report

Campus within a Day

In this article, we talk about what the participants of Genplan Institute of Moscow’s hackathon were doing at the MosComArchitecture booth at the “ArchMoscow” exhibition. We also discuss who won the prize and why, and what can be done with the territory of a small university on the outskirts of Moscow.

Overview

Vertical Civilization

Genpro considered the development of the vertical city concept and made it the theme of their pavilion at the “ArchMoscow” exhibition.

Interview

Marina Yegorova: “We think in terms of hectares, not square meters”

The career path of architect Marina Yegorova is quite impressive: MARHI, SPEECH, MosComArchitectura, the Genplan Institute of Moscow, and then her own architectural company. Its name Empate, which refers to the words “to draw” in Portuguese and “to empathize” in English, should not be misleading with its softness, as the firm freely works on different scales, including Integrated Territorial Development projects. We talked with Marina about various topics: urban planning experience, female leadership style, and even the love of architects for yachting.

Interview

Andrey Chuikov: “Optimum balance is achieved through economics”

The Yekaterinburg-based architectural company CNTR is in its mature stage: crystallization of principles, systematization, and standardization helped it make a qualitative leap, enhance competencies, and secure large contracts without sacrificing the aesthetic component. The head of the company, Andrey Chuikov, told us about building a business model and the bonuses that additional education in financial management provides for an architect.

Object

The Fulcrum

Ostozhenka Architects have designed two astonishing towers practically on the edge of a slope above the Oka River in Nizhny Novgorod. These towers stand on 10-meter-tall weathered steel “legs”, with each floor offering panoramic views of the river and the city; all public spaces, including corridors, receive plenty of natural light. Here, we see a multitude of solutions that are unconventional for the residential routine of our day and age. Meanwhile, although these towers hark back to the typological explorations of the seventies, they are completely reinvented in a contemporary key. We admire Veren Group as the client – this is exactly how a “unique product” should be made – and we tell you exactly how our towers are arranged.

Object

Crystal is Watching You

Right now, Museum Night has kicked off at the Museum of Architecture, featuring a fresh new addition – the “Crystal of Perception”, an installation by Sergey Kuznetsov, Ivan Grekov, and the KROST company, set up in the courtyard. It shimmers with light, it sings, it reacts to the approach of people, and who knows what else it can do.

Object

The Secret Briton

The house is called “Little France”. Its composition follows the classical St. Petersburg style, with a palace-like courtyard. The decor is on the brink of Egyptian lotuses, neo-Greek acroteria, and classic 1930s “gears”; the recessed piers are Gothic, while the silhouette of the central part of the house is British. It’s quite interesting to examine all these details, attempting to understand which architectural direction they belong to. At the same time, however, the house fits like a glove in the context of the 20th line of St. Petersburg’s Vasilievsky Island; its elongated wings hold up the façade quite well.

The Wrap-Up

The competition project proposed by Treivas for the first 2021 competition for the Russian pavilion at EXPO 2025 concludes our series of publications on pavilion projects that will not be implemented. This particular proposal stands out for its detailed explanations and the idea of ecological responsibility: both the facades and the exhibition inside were intended to utilize recycled materials.

Birds and Streams

For the competition to design the Omsk airport, DNK ag formed a consortium, inviting VOX architects and Sila Sveta. Their project focuses on intersections, journeys, and flights – both of people and birds – as Omsk is known as a “transfer point” for bird migrations. The educational component is also carefully considered, and the building itself is filled with light, which seems to deconstruct the copper circle of the central entrance portal, spreading it into fantastic hyper-spatial “slices”.

Faraday Grid

The project of the Omsk airport by ASADOV Architects is another concept among the 14 finalists of a recent competition. It is called “The Bridge” and is inspired by both the West Siberian Exhibition of 1911 and the Trans-Siberian Railway bridge over the Irtysh River, built in 1896. On one hand, it carries a steampunk vibe, while on the other, there’s almost a sense of nostalgia for the heyday of 1913. However, the concept offers two variants, the second one devoid of nostalgia but featuring a parabola.

Review

Midway upon the Journey of Our Life

Recently, Tatlin Publishing House released a book entitled “Architect Sergey Oreshkin. Selected Projects”. This book is not just a traditional book of the architectural company’s achievements, but rather a monograph of a more personal nature. The book includes 43 buildings as well as a section with architectural drawings. In this article, we reflect on the book as a way to take stock of an architect’s accomplishments.

Inverted Fortress

This year, there has been no shortage of intriguing architectural ideas around the Omsk airport. The project developed by the architectural company KPLN appeals to Omsk’s history as a wooden fortress that it was back in the day, but transforms the concept of a fortress beyond recognition: it “shaves off” the conical ends of “wooden logs”, then enlarges them, and then flips them over. The result is a hypostyle – a forest of conical columns on point supports, with skylights on top.

send.project

Transformation of Annenkirche

For Annenkirche (St. Anna Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg), Sergey Kuznetsov and the Kamen bureau have prepared a project that relies on the principles of the Venice Charter: the building is not restored to a specific date, historical layers are preserved, and modern elements do not mimic the authentic ones. Let’s delve into the details of these solutions.

The Paradox of the Temporary

The concept of the Russian pavilion for EXPO 2025 in Osaka, proposed by the Wowhaus architects, is the last of the six projects we gathered from the 2022 competition. It is again worth noting that the results of this competition were not finalized due to the cancellation of Russia’s participation in World Expo 2025. It should be mentioned that Wowhaus created three versions for this competition, but only one is being presented, and it can’t be said that this version is thoroughly developed – rather, it is done in the spirit of a “student assignment”. Nevertheless, the project is interesting in its paradoxical nature: the architects emphasized the temporary character of the pavilion, and in its bubble-like forms sought to reflect the paradoxes of space and time.

The Forum of Time

The competition project for the Russian Pavilion at EXPO 2025 in Osaka designed by Aleksey Orlov and Arena Project Institute consists of cones and conical funnels connected into a non-trivial composition, where one can feel the hand of architects who have worked extensively with stadiums and other sports facilities. It’s very interesting to delve into its logic, structurally built on the theme of clocks, hourglasses and even sundials. Additionally, the architects have turned the exhibition pavilion into a series of interconnected amphitheaters, which is also highly relevant for world exhibitions. We are reminding you that the competition results were never announced.

Mirrors Everywhere

The project by Sergey Nebotov, Anastasia Gritskova, and the architectural company “Novoe” was created for the Russian pavilion at EXPO 2025, but within the framework of another competition, which, as we learned, took place even earlier, in 2021. At that time, the competition theme was “digital twins”, and there was minimal time for work, so the project, according to the architect himself, was more of a “student assignment”. Nevertheless, this project is interesting for its plan bordering on similarity with Baroque projects and the emblem of the exhibition, as well as its diverse and comprehensive reflectiveness.

Report

The Steppe Is Full of Beauty and Freedom

The goal of the exhibition “Dikoe Pole” (“Wild Field”) at the State Historical Museum was to move away from the archaeological listing of valuable items and to create an image of the steppe and nomads that was multidirectional and emotional – in other words, artistic. To achieve this goal, it was important to include works of contemporary art. One such work is the scenography of the exhibition space developed by CHART studio.

The Snowstorm Fish

The next project from the unfinished competition for the Russian Pavilion at EXPO 2025, which will be held in Osaka, Japan, is by Dashi Namdakov and Parsec Architects. The pavilion describes itself as an “architectural/sculptural” one, with its shape clearly reminiscent of abstract sculpture of the 1970s. It complements its program with a meditative hall named “Mendeleev’s Dreams”, and offers its visitors to slide from its roof at the end of the tour.

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.

Object

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.

​Fire and Ice: Architecture of Contradictions

The Hotel complex designed by TOTEMENT / PAPER for Kamchatka, reinterprets the nature and the culture of the peninsula, at the same time challenging the cataclysms of the earthquake endangered zone, using the modern technologies to create pure, open, and beautiful architecture.

Fire and Ice: Architecture of Contradictions