In this issue, we are covering the results of the competition for the architectural and town planning concept of “Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe”, which was once supposed to be turned into a “city of millionaires”. The competition took place in the fall of 2018, with three teams winning: Archea Associatii, Nikken Sekkei, and Zaha Hadid Architects, each one in collaboration with their respective Russian partner – ABD architects, UNK project, and TPO Pride Architects.
Written by: Julia Tarabarina Translated by: Anton Mizonov
12 September 2019
Contest Results
Last year in October, an international competition took place for the concept of developing one of the largest territories of Moscow’s west: a 460-hectare chunk of land, 4 million square meters of housing, and some 66 500 residents – Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe in the Zakharkovskaya Poima. The competition was held from May 22 till October 3; the results were announced on the 22nd of October.
Historical Background
This piece of land has been in the developers’ focus of attention for quite a long time: since 2004, word went round about the “city of millionaires” that was designed for 20 thousand people, and designed in the spirit of historicism by John Thompson. In 2007, the project was included in the “Accessible Housing” program, its population increasing up to 40 thousand; many reputed Russian architectural companies were invited: Pavel Andreev, Aleksey Vorontsov, Sergey Kiselev, “Ostozhenka”, and others (read the whole story at ec-a.ru).
In 2011, the development project of the Zakharkovskaya Poima was transferred into sole ownership of Sberbank; right about that time plans were announced for building here the International Financial Center. In 2012, Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe was officially proclaimed a part of New Moscow. In 2013-2014, they conducted a competition for the project of IFC, which was won by Team Moscow – Astoc / HPP, headed by the German company Astoc GmbH & Co. KG, and a contract was drawn up about the modification of the project together with Genplan Institute of Moscow.
In 2015, the expected technical and economic performance of the project was adopted, and public hearings conducted; in 2016, they adopted the site plan that was developed by Genplan Institute of Moscow. Compared to the period of 2004-2009, the area of the project expanded from 430 up to 460 hectares. In the end of 2017, they presented the “Smart City” concept, which “for certain reasons” came to replace the idea of IFC. The Smart City project is led by AO “Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe”, which is part of PAO Sberbank.
The territory of Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe on Google Maps:
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Smart City and its parameters
The “Smart City” concept presupposes high-technology solutions, in which an important part is played by a single technological platform that serves to unite the city people; environmental concerns are also taken into account. It’s easy to see that this concept is very resonant with the idea of “city of innovation”, Skolkovo, situated ten kilometers south of Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe.
The company’s website describes this city as one that is meant to ensure efficient work, comfortable life, as well as active and meditative recreation. There are plans for building some 800 square meters of offices (possibly, a lot of them will be the headquarters of Sberbank), and three times as much (2.6 million square meters) of housing stock, most of it, more than 90% of the total amount, situated in multi-apartment buildings, prevalent being the elite business class, 53%, followed by comfort class, 37%, and finally, a little less than 10%, the low-rise housing – the latter will occupy the area closer to the border with the Arkhangelskoe Estate, where height restrictions apply. In accordance with the standards, there are plans for building 8 schools, 15 kindergartens, 2 health care centers, one fire station, and one police station; 64 890 square meters of hotels, 196 840 square meters of retail, as well as a 132 000-square-meter shopping mall.
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The borders of the zones of capital construction facilities
Copyright: Site Plan of the “Roblevo-Arkhangelskoe” territory
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The functional plan of the territory
Copyright: Site Plan of the “Roblevo-Arkhangelskoe” territory
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The borders of the zones of engineering lines
Copyright: Site Plan of the “Roblevo-Arkhangelskoe” territory
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Area demarcation
Copyright: Site Plan of the “Roblevo-Arkhangelskoe” territory
The parklands must occupy about a third of the entire area, plus 7 kilometers of the green waterfront of the Moskva River, and a 30-hectare lake. Vehicle-free yards, and 30 kilometers of bicycle roads. The Arkhangelskoe Estate heritage site is 2 kilometers away from here on a straight line; 4 kilometers away on a straight line are the buildings of the government of the Moscow Region, designed by Mikhail Khazanov. These are quite likely to be seen from at least half of the windows.
A new “Rublevo-Arkhangelskaya” metro line will be also build here, 19 kilometers long; its construction will be financed jointly by Sberbank, and it will run from “Shelepikha” station, linking the “Smart City” to the “Moscow City” business cluster. The “Arkhangelskaya” station will be the last but one in it; it will be located between the lake and the river, next to the center of the area. There will be also an “Ilinskoe” station, the terminal one for the time being.
The Smart City project is due to be implemented in four stages, the construction beginning in 2021 and ending in 2030.
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According to the chairman of the judging panel of the competition, Stanislav Kuznetsov, the participants and the experts were to “grope for something that would stay unique not just for years, but for decades to come <...> We must use the world’s best practices and the most advanced ideas to make this city not only technology-based but shaping up the people’s lifestyle as well”.
Thus, the competing companies proceeded from the site plan, developed on the basis of the project that won in 2014 and was approved in 2016. They worked with pre-approved demarcation, redlines, borders of capital facilities construction, and the announced Smart City concept – the original “givens” defined quite a lot of things. In the central part, closer to the north, east of the lake shore, the site plan includes the office buildings with residential houses surrounding them, like they would around the “city” in its own right, very much like the old townships that were built around a Kremlin or a monastery. Therefore, the composition with a high-rise office center was pre-defined for all of the contestants. Meanwhile, one should assume that on an area of 461 hectares any preset parameters would still leave enough room for the architects’ creative freedom.
According to the task of the competition 2018, its participants were to “develop the vision of the project, activity scenarios, the functional content program, and the principles of forming the unique attractiveness of the urban environment and living in this area, as well as present their “smart” ideas”. The contestants themselves chose what was going to be the first stage of construction, and came up with the sketches for building on this territory with detailed elaboration of architectural and planning solutions for all the main types of buildings in the first stage.
Totally, the competition involved seven architectural teams, each with a foreign leader and a Russian local partner. Four collaborations did not reach the finals:
MADMA (Maxwan) / Netherlands
Mecanoo / Netherlands
AREP / France
Aecom / USA
The project was one by three consortiums:
The Italian Archea Associati in collaboration with the Russian ABD architects,
The Japanese Nikken Sekkei in collaboration with the Russian UNK project,
The British Zaha Hadid Architects in consortium with TPO Pride Architects
The three finalists are named in an alphabetical order, not in the order of priority. It is expected that they will be working together; possibly, the best ideas will be combined and improved. As AO “Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe” emphasizes, the end project will not be identical to any of the three winning proposals. In addition, the organizers say, there are also plans for inviting to work on this project “the top architectural companies from different countries for developing headquarters of the office residents, new housing standards, comfortable public spaces, and high-profile cultural projects”.
A brief review of the concepts has been posted on the company’s website, the project by Zaha Hadid Architects getting a slightly more detailed coverage at Archdaily. We asked the organizers for a little bit more detailed information.
Incidentally, we will note here that the Russian architectural market is witnessing the appearance of a few steady collaborations: Nikken Sekkei and UNK project, just as Zaha Hadid Architects and TPO Pride Architects, were involved in the competition for the best pilot venues for Moscow renovation.
“A City for Every Generation”
Archea Associati / ABD architects
Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe, architectural and town planning concept. The competition winning project
The central office part looks noticeably similar to the Moscow City: the arc-shaped glass façades are reminiscent of the Federation Tower, while the smooth chamfers of their tops look very much like Sergey Kiselev’s Mirax Plaza. The silhouette of the central towers is pyramid-like, while on the plan they are placed along the contour of the triangular plaza before the eastern lake shore.
Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe, architectural and town planning concept. The competition winning project
“In its concept of the new city, the team of Archea Associati, in consortium with ABD Architects, paid special attention to modern technologies, diversity of architectural forms, landscape design, and sophisticated automobile and pedestrian traffic schemes” – the press release says. The organizers also note the proposed by the authors “original multilevel solutions for all-season public spaces” – one of them, with an operated green roof and a “television” cantilevered structure that overlooks the lake, is situated on the plaza. The strong sides of the project also include “interesting locations for business residents” and full-fledged infrastructure in each district of the city, making the housing areas independent of the central part.
Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe, architectural and town planning concept. The competition winning project
The slogan of the project – Linked City – has many meanings: in addition to the Russian translation, proposed by the authors, which can be also interpreted as “interacting city”, the English name brings obvious associations with IT terminology, including the proverbial hyperlink. Meaning – it is linked in the sense of being interactive on different levels – a rather futuristic concept. In their proposal, the authors developed the two already mentioned key concepts of a “smart city” – environment and smart technologies. The large amount of public spaces must ensure the development of social interaction and foster a creative environment. The futuristic shapes of the office towers have been defined by the pattern of the prevailing winds and look as if they were “washed” by the steams of air. The flexible glass façades are dissected by thin ribs; the ledgy roof will have large operated terraces commanding the lake views.
Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe, architectural and town planning concept. The competition winning project
“The team of NikkenSekkei, in consortium with UNK project, has built its concept on the combination of advanced technologies applied for designing the engineering systems, creating a smart system of managing and developing the connections within communities, at the same time preserving the unique natural resource of this land and creating new green spaces” – the organizers explain.
Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe, architectural and town planning concept. The competition winning project
Zaha Hadid Architects traditionally placed their bets on nonlinear volumes. The glass façades are dissected by an “exoskeleton” of dense contours, in whose 3D outline one can see an arrested flight of the gymnast’s ribbon. On the other side, the houses, oval on the plan, bear a mark of retrofuturism with a nod to the 1960’s, which can be traced back to the multidimensional name of “Satellite City”, in which one can see the allusions to the romance of space exploration, and to the Soviet “science towns”, whose splendid galaxy is about to be augmented by the innovation town of Skolkovo and the currently designed Smart City.
Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe, architectural and town planning concept. The competition winning project
The Zaha Hadid project provides for a few “nuclei”, each of which features its own specialty of extra public spaces: “art residence” (the cultural nucleus), the laboratory of urban solutions (intellectual nucleus), all-year-round public spaces (space nucleus). According to the judging panel, this concept is different than the other projects by this “star” architectural firm because it is not about “pure architecture”, and proceeds from people’s needs.
Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe, architectural and town planning concept. The competition winning project
Living in the Architecture of One’s Own Making
Do architects design houses for themselves? You bet! In this article, we are examining a new book by TATLIN publishing house. This book – unprecedented for Russia – features 52 private homes designed and built by contemporary architects for themselves. It includes houses that are famous, even iconic, as well as lesser-known ones; large and small, stylish and eccentric. To some extent, the book reflects the history of Russian architecture over the past 30 years.
A City Block Isoline
Another competition project for a residential complex on the banks of the Volga in Nizhny Novgorod has been prepared by Studio 44. A team of architects led by Ivan Kozhin concluded that using a regular block layout in such a location would be inappropriate and developed a “custom design” approach: a chain of parceled multi-section buildings stretching along the entire embankment. Let’s explore the features and advantages of this unconventional method.
Competition: The Price of Creativity?
Any day now, we’re expecting the results of a competition held by the “Samolet” development group for a plot in Kommunarka. In the meantime, we share the impressions of Editor-in-Chief Julia Tarabarina, who managed to conduct a public talk. Though technically focused on the interaction between developers and architects, the public talk turned into a discussion about the pros and cons of architectural competitions.
Terraced Design
The “River Park” residential complex has confidently and securely shaped the Nagatinsky Backwater shoreline. Featuring a public embankment, elevated courtyards connected by pedestrian bridges, and brick façades, the development invites exploration of its nuanced response to the surrounding context, as well as hints of the architects’ megalithic design thinking.
A Kremlin’s Core and Meteorite Fragments
We continue our coverage of the competition projects for the residential district that the development company GloraX plans to build along the embankment of the Rowing Channel in Nizhny Novgorod. ASADOV Architects approached the concept through a deep dive into local identity, using storytelling to pinpoint a central idea for the design: the master plan and composition are imagined as if a meteorite had struck a “proto-Kremlin”. Sounds weird? Find more details below!
The Volga Regatta
GloraX plans to develop a residential complex spanning 14 hectares along the Volga River in Nizhny Novgorod. The winning design in a closed-door competition, created by GORA Architects, features housing typologies ranging from townhouses to terraced high-rise slabs, a balance of functions, diverse ways of engaging with the water, and even a dedicated island (no less!) for the city residents.
A New Track
We took a thorough look at D_Station, a railcar repair depot dating back to 1906, recently reconstructed while preserving its century-old industrial structure, upon the project by Sergey Trukhanov and T+T Architects. Though work on the interiors – set to house restaurants and public spaces – is still underway, the building’s exterior already offers plenty to see. Visitors can explore the blend of old and new brickwork, appreciate the architect’s unique interpretation of ruin aesthetics, and enjoy the newly built pedestrian route that connects the Citydel Business Center’s arches to Kazakova Street.
Four Different Surveys
The “Explore the City” competition, organized this year by the Genplan Institute of Moscow, stands out as a pretty unconventional one for the architectural field but aligns perfectly well with the character of urban planning work. The winning project analyzed contemporary residential complexes, combining urban planning insights with a realtor’s perspective to propose a hybrid approach. Other entries explored public centers, motivations for car ownership, and housing vacancy rates. A fifth participant withdrew. Here’s a closer look at the four completed works.
Scheduled Evolution
ASADOV Architects unveiled the EvyCenter pavilion, a microcultural hub for fostering personal growth, organizing workshops, and doing gymnastics. Additionally, this pavilion serves as a prototype for a scalable country house, drawing inspiration from the “Loskutok” project, and constructed from CLT panels in a factory. This marks the beginning of a developer project initiated by the architectural firm (sic!), which is seeking partners to expand both small Evy settlements and even larger Evy cities, which are, according to Andrey Asadov, aimed at fostering the “evolutionary” development of the people who will inhabit them.
The Golden Crown
The concept for a dental clinic in Yekaterinburg, developed by CNTR Studio, revolves around the idea of a “mouth full of gold”: pristine white porcelain stoneware walls are complemented by matte brass details. To avoid an overly literal interpretation, the architects focused on the building’s proportions, skillfully navigating between sunlight requirements and fire safety regulations.
Flexibility and Integration
Not long ago, we covered the project for the fourth phase of the ÁLIA residential complex, designed by APEX. Now, we’ve been shown different fence concepts they developed to enclose the complex’s private courtyards, incorporating a variety of public functions. We believe that the sheer fact that the complex’s architects were involved in such a detail as fencing speaks volumes.
A Step Forward
The HIDE residential complex represents a major milestone for ADM architects and their leaders Andrey Romanov and Ekaterina Kuznetsova in their quest for a fresh high-rise aesthetic – one that is flexible and layered, capable of bringing vibrancy to mass and silhouette while shaping form. Over recent years, this approach has become ADM’s “signature style”, with the golden HIDE tower playing a pivotal role in its evolution. Here, we delve into the project’s story, explore the details of the complex’s design, and uncover its core essence.
Gold in the Sands
A new office for a transcontinental company specializing in resource extraction and processing has opened in Dubai. Designed by T+T Architects, masters of creating spaces that are contemporary, diverse, flexible, and original, this project exemplifies their expertise. On the executive floor, a massive brass-clad partition dominates, while layered textures of compressed earth create a contextually resonant backdrop.
Layers and Levels of Flight
This project goes way back – Reserve Union won this architectural competition at the end of 2011, and the building was completed in 2018, so it’s practically “archival”. However, despite being relatively unknown, the building can hardly be considered “dated” and remains a prime example of architectural expression, particularly in the headquarters genre. And it’s especially fitting for an aviation company office. In some ways, it resembles the Aeroflot headquarters at Sheremetyevo but with its own unique identity, following the signature style of Vladimir Plotkin. In this article, we take an in-depth look at the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) headquarters in the Moscow agglomeration town of Zhukovsky, supplemented by recent photographs from Alexey Naroditsky – a shoot that became only recently possible due to the fact that improvements were finally made in the surrounding area.
Light and Shadow
In this article, we delve into the architectural design of the “Chaika” house by DNK ag architects, which was recently completed in 2023 as part of the collection of signature designs at ZILArt. As is well-known, all the buildings in this complex follow a design code, yet each one is distinct. This particular building stands out not only for its whiteness and minimalism but also for the refined use of a limited number of techniques that, together, create what can confidently be called synergy.
Casus Novae
A master plan was developed for a large residential area with a name of “DNS City”, but now that its implementation began, the plan has been arbitrarily reformatted and replaced with something that, while similar on the surface, is actually quite different. This is not the first time such a thing happens, but it’s always frustrating. With permission from the author, we are sharing Maria Elkina’s post.
Treasure Hunting
The GAFA bureau, in collaboration with Tegola and Arkhitail, organized an expedition to the island of Kilpola in Karelia as part of Moskomarkhitektura’s “Open City” festival. There, amidst moss and rocks, the students sought answers to questions like: what is the sacred, where does it dwell, and what sustains it? Assisting the participants in this quest were landscape engineer Evgeny Levin, artist Nicholas Roerich, a moose, and the lack of cellular connection. Here’s how the story unfolded.
Depths of the Earth, Streams of Water
In the Malaya Okhta district, the Akzent building, designed by Stepan Liphart, was constructed. It follows a classic tripartite structure, yet it’s what you might call “hand-drawn”: each façade is unique in its form and details, some of which aren’t immediately noticeable. In this article, we explore the context and, together with the architect, delve into how the form was developed.
Fir Tree Dynamics
The “Airports of Region” holding is planning to build an airport in Karachay-Cherkessia, aiming to make the Arkhyz and Dombay resorts more accessible to travelers. The project that won in an invitation-only competition, submitted by Sergey Nikeshkin’s KPLN, blends natural imagery inspired by the shape of a conifer seed, open-air waiting spaces, majestic large trees, and a green roof elevated on needle-like columns. The result is both nature-inspired and WOW.
A Brick Shell
In the process of designing a clubhouse situated among pine trees in a prestigious suburban area near Moscow, the architectural firm “A.Len” did the façade design part. The combination of different types of brick and masonry correlates with the volumetric and plastique solutions, further enhanced by the inclusion of wood-painted fragments and metal “glazing”.
Word Forms
ATRIUM architects love ambitious challenges, and for the firm’s thirtieth anniversary, they boldly play a game of words with an exhibition that dives deep into a self-created vocabulary. They immerse their projects – especially art installations – into this glossary, as if plunging into a current of their own. You feel as if you’re flowing through the veins of pure art, immersed in a universe of vertical cities, educational spaces – of which the architects are true masters – and the cultural codes of various locations. But what truly captivates is the bold statement that Vera Butko and Anton Nadtochy make, both through their work and this exhibition: architecture, above all, is art – the art of working with form and space.
Flexibility and Acuteness of Modernity
Luxurious, fluid, large “kokoshniks” and spiral barrel columns, as if made from colorful chewing gum: there seem to be no other mansion like this in Moscow, designed in the “Neo-Russian-Modern” style. And the “Teremok” on Malaya Kaluzhskaya, previously somewhat obscure, has “come alive with new colors” and gained visibility after its restoration for the office of the “architectural ecosystem” as the architects love to call themselves. It’s evident that Julius Borisov and the architects at UNK put their hearts into finding this new office and bringing it up to date. Let’s delve into the paradoxes of this mansion’s history and its plasticity. Spoiler: two versions of modernity meet here, both balancing on the razor’s edge of “what’s current”.
Yuri Vissarionov: “A modular house does not belong to the land”
It belongs to space, or to the air... It turns out that 3D printing is more effective when combined with a modular approach: the house is built in a workshop and then adapted to the site, including on uneven terrain. Yuri Vissarionov shares his latest experience in designing tourist complexes, both in central Russia and in the south. These include houseboats, homes printed from lightweight concrete using a 3D printer, and, of course, frame houses.
Moscow’s First
“The quality of education largely depends on the quality of the educational environment”. This principle of the last decade has been realized by Sergey Skuratov in the project for the First Moscow Gymnasium on Rostovskaya Embankment in the Khamovniki district. The building seamlessly integrates into the complex urban landscape, responding both to the pedestrian flow of the city and the quiet alleyways. It skillfully takes advantage of the height differences and aligns with modern trends in educational space design. Let’s take a closer look.
Looking at the Water
The site of Villa Sonata stretches from the road to the water’s edge, offering its own shoreline, pier, and a picturesque river panorama. To reveal these sweeping views, Roman Leonidov “cut” the façade diagonally parallel to the river, thus getting two main axes for the house and, consequently, “two heads”. The internal core – two double-height spaces, a living room and a conservatory, with a “bridge” above them – makes the house both “transparent” and filled with light.
The White Wing
Well, it’s not exactly white. It’s more of a beige, white-stone structure that plays with the color of limestone – smoother surfaces are lighter, while rougher ones are darker. This wing unites various elements: it absorbs and interprets the surrounding themes. It responds to everything, yet maintains a cohesive expression – a challenging task! – while also incorporating recognizable features of its own, such as the dynamic cuts at the bottom, top, and middle.
Urban Dunes
The XSA Ramps team designed and built a three-part sports hub for a park in Rostov-on-Don, welcoming people of all ages and fitness levels. The skate plaza, pump track, and playground are all meticulously crafted with details that attract a diverse range of visitors. The technical execution of the shapes and slopes transforms this space into a kind of sculptural composition.
Proportional Growth
The project for the fourth phase of the ÁLIA residential area has been announced. The buildings are situated on an elongated plot – almost a “ray” that shoots out from the center of the area towards the river. Their layout reflects both a response to Moscow’s architectural preferences over the past 15 years, shifting “from blocks to towers”, and an interpretation of the neighboring business park designed by SOM. Additionally, the best apartments here are not located at the very top but closer to the middle, forming a glowing “waistline”.
The “Staircase” Building
In designing the “Details” residential complex in New Moscow, Rais Baishev spiced up the now-popular Moscow theme of a “courtyard” building with an idea drawn from the surrealist drawings by Maurits Escher. He envisioned the stepped silhouettes and descending slopes as a metaphysical mega-staircase, creating a key void within the courtyard that gave the project an internal “spine”. This concept is felt both in the building’s silhouette and on its façades.
Projection of the Quarter
No one doubted that the building that Vladimir Plotkin designed as part of the “Garden Quarters” would be the most modernist of all. And it turned out just that way: while adhering to the common design code, the building successfully combines brick and white stone, rhythmically responding to the neighboring building designed by Ostozhenka, yet tactfully and persistently making a few statements of its own. This includes the projection of the ideal urban development composition “14–9–6”, which can be found right next door, mathematical calculations, including those for various types of terraces (and perhaps the only reminder of the Soviet past of the Kauchuk rubber factory!), and the white “cross-stitch” pattern of the façade grid.
