Just a Mirror for the Sun

This project by Sergey Skuratov – the second stage of the high-end residential complex NV/9, located at the crossing of the Nikolovorobinsky and Tessinsky Alleys, considered and approved by Moscow Architectural Council – is situated amidst a dynamically developing context. This old-town district boasts a very central location, yet it is by no means a “quiet” place, like the Old Arbat, for example. Everywhere you look you will see construction work going on, or some new little detail, sometimes barely noticeable at first. If one is to go down the Yauza River eastwards, nearing the Garden Ring, he will see the orange-and-glass business center Silver City; to the west, from the side of the Yauza Gate, the housing complex TITUL is being built. However, the real “star” is situated right in the middle between them, and this is Art House, also designed by Sergey Skuratov. A house that ten years ago introduced in Moscow the fashion for hand-molded brick. Two laconic dark buildings are covered with bricks like they would be covered with skin, from top to bottom, from the roof to the pavement; this house is definitely the first thing that meets the eye like a work of art amidst the city bustle. Thus, the name of Art House is more than justified.

zooming — Art House residential complex

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

Speaking of art, it appeared here presented by Gary Tatintsian Gallery, designed in 2013 by Sergey Tchoban; the entrance is from the river side, down the stairs, into the space separated by the “archaeological” slope, which Sergey Skuratov deliberately set up here, interpreting his newly-designed project as an “ancient monument”. Then the Art House became the springboard for a massive urbanist project named “Artkvartal” (“Art Quarter”): in order to promote the idea, in 2014 they opened on the top floor of Art House – temporarily, twice in two months – the club called Door 19. In 2015, on the neighboring land site, further to the north and higher up the Nikolovorobinsky Alley – again, temporarily – opened yet another club, EMA, which got its name from the former Soviet factory of “electric medical apparatuses”. After the club was closed, in the northern part of EMA started the construction of the first stage of the housing complex NV/9, which basically stands for “Nikolovorobinsky, 9”, which was developed by State Development in collaboration with another development company, INSIGMA. Today, the construction is all but completed, and the scaffolding has been removed. The authors of the project are Irene Rimashevskaya and the architectural company “Arkhkvartal”. The buildings stand on a slope with a height drop of about 8 meters; on the alley side, the building tactfully hangs over the two-story brick façade – a fantasy inspired by the “quilling mill” built here in 1877.

The Nikolovorobinsky project by Sergey Skuratov is the second stage of NV/9, built by INSIGMA. Its land site is the part of that same factory – it stretches along the Tessinsky Alley and stops at a crossroads that essentially is the center of the neighborhood that borders on the Serebryanicheskaya Embankment. It is also situated the closest to Art House, a building with a reputation, as well as an integral and meaningful image. Therefore, Sergey Skuratov, according to his own words, interpreted his new project designed for the Tessinsky Alley rather as a background for Art House.

Yet another difficulty is that the land site is full of buildings constructed at different times. In the second half of the XIX century, still before the EMA factory was built, this territory included the quilling mill. The project provides for preserving the street facades of two of the mill’s buildings, even though they do not have a protected status: the facade of the 2nd office building on the Nikolovorobinsky Alley (1883, architect Vasily Barkov), and three bottom floors of the most conspicuous building standing at the crossroads (1895, architect Sergey Kalugin, later on the coauthor of Boris Freidenberg in the building of the Petrovsky Passage). Its corners were originally built as romantic towers, whose battlements, however, avoided the fate of being lost in later buildups.

The eastern unit on the Tessinsky Alley chiefly refers to the 1960’s, just like the constructions in the yard do. Last time around, they were reconstructed in 2008-2012 for the recent owner, one of the divisions of the Rosset state corporation; all of the later-built constructions will be torn down.

The two buildings on the Tessinsky alley will give way to a single volume of about the same scale, while the deconstruction of the inner structures will help clear the yard space. Its gently sloping surface will be leveled up to the elevation of the sidewalk of the Tessinsky Alley, providing a barrier-free access to the yard at the joint of the new and old facades through a “lobby” arch.

In the yard, we are welcomed by a small manmade water reservoir – a memory of the Serebryanichesky Ponds. Right of the “pond”, there is a large wide-branching tree, one of the signature techniques of Sergey Skuratov’s. There is also a lawn on the left. The pedestrian trail running between the residential buildings connects entrances and sections.

Due to the fact that the height difference between the land sites of the first and second stages is about 5 meters, the south border of the yard is preserved by a retainer wall with staircases and ramps. Such prominent and conspicuous terraces, generally a common feature for the Vorontsovo Pole, are not devoid of a spatial intrigue: the yard ends up being totally isolated and completely private.

The construction of the house itself is also quite sophisticated. There are four housing sections standing along the Tessinsky Alley. There is 1.5 meter of technical space between the apartments of the bottom floors and the underground parking garage, which makes it possible to raise the floors above the sidewalk and muffle the car noise coming from the garage. The apartments have from one to four bedrooms, the living rooms look out the sunny south facade on the Tessinsky Alley, the bedrooms – to the northern yard side. The small apartments only look south.

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The master plan. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Location plan. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Plan of the 1st floor. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Plan of the 2nd floor. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Section 3-3. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

The penthouses on the top floors, the seventh and eighth, 7.1 meter tall, are defined by the architects as “apartments with attics” that occupy no more than a third of each of the apartments. These double-level apartments provide for a possibility to install a fireplace and have a patio on the roof of the house: the terraces are surrounded by walls from all sides, which make them akin to the little yards of Italian apartments. The most luxurious apartment of all is situated at the west end of the building – it has four bedrooms and a double patio. The double-level apartments also occupy one and a half of the top floors on the Nikolovorobinsky Alley; its two bottom floors are occupied by a fitness center.

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The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Plan of the 3rd floor. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Plan of the 4th floor. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Plan of the 5th floor. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Plan of the 6th floor. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Plan of the 7th floor. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Plan of the 8th floor. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Plan of the 8th-floor attic. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Plan of the roof. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Section 4-4. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Section 5-5. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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Section 7-7. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

The plastique of the buildings is based on a combination of three materials: brick, new and old, and bronze.

The preserved historical facades, cleared from the stucco, will yield the dark-red “factory” brick of classic proportions. The plinth-shaped brick forms a pattern of thin stripes of the “palatine” Roman kind, bringing up associations with the Patrician palace (and here we are remembering the “pond” in the yard, which is quite fit to play the role of the impluvium; for a “premium-class” house, the analogy is quite appropriate).

The brick, which varies its shades from brownish gray to almost black, is meant to set up a dialogue with Art House, which will be particularly noticeable when one goes down the Nikolovorobinsky Alley or approaches the house from the Tessinsky Alley, where NV/9 demonstrates its laconic surfaces, completely covered in brick. The same design of dark brick is applied to the retaining walls in the yard.

The south facade on the Tessinsky Alley presents a rather sophisticated picture, full of nuances. In its lower section, the new volume gets a horizontal risalit that continues the line of the preserved house, designed by Sergey Kalugin. In the point where the old and the new facades meet, as well as above the niche of the main entrance, the wall makes a smooth inward bend, forming a “fold” in the vein of the architectural curtains by Giulio Romano, thus accentuating the entrance. Meanwhile, the risalit stays stubbornly and firmly in its place; it is marked with an Indentation pattern of prominent brick strokes. A similar stroking pattern forms graphic shadows of the pilasters in the second (also new) tier of the facade of the western side – not on the whole facade but only where the piers between the windows coincide with the ones that are in the old facade. Due to the fact that the rhythm of the upper floor is slightly broader, they do not always coincide. The curving plastique and the brick strokes look at their absolutely best in the midday light that accentuates any ledges most vividly, particularly on a sunny day.

As we can see, the south facade is telling an interesting story, painting a picture of a city that grows upwards in several layers. Together with the laconic “fortress” wall of Art House, standing across the Alley, the resulting effect is akin to that of Tallinn or even Istanbul – where the newly-made structures meet the old ramparts. And, although this place never in fact had proper fortress walls – it had baths, gardens, and ponds – this does not really matter: first, something new had to appear, and, second, this effect is unobtrusive, this is not a pseudo-gothic castle, which are, sadly, quite abundant in Moscow, and not a stylization – rather, this is a story that can give the place a new aura and taste, developing the theme of imaginary history, proposed by Skuratov in Art House.

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The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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The developent drawing of the facades on the Tessinsky Alley. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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The developent drawing of the facades on the Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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The facade plan on grid lines. The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

The third material is the copper and zinc alloy, the polished architectural bronze. It gives a shiny golden hue, and, if we compared the plinth-shaped brick with the ruins of the palatine palaces, bronze can remind us about the patrician mirror. This association is a fleeting one, though.

A bronze grille is framing the windows of the buildup of the west facade; bronze is also extensively used in the west facade of the minor building overlooking the yard, as well as in its roof.

The meaning of this golden hue can be understood in a whole number of ways: from echoing the golden domes of the Serebryaniki Trinity Church to the premium “golden” status of the expensive high-end building.

However, probably, the real reason for bronze appearing in the Sergey Skuratov project is because of the sun. Let’s just imagine for one brief moment how the golden facade of the minor building will reflect the rising sun, casting reflections into the yard and filling it with light. And then – how the chamfers of the west facade will catch the reflections of the setting sun in the west. Even now, if we are to look in the evening at the crossroads from the west side, the windows of the Sadko business center, the former building of the Institute of Nitrogen Industry, a 16-story slab, built in 1976, will show us a promo version, a teaser of the effect that the windows and window frames of the new house will produce at sunsets. During that moment, one wants to remember not only about the bronze Roman mirror but also about the bronze window frames of the 1970’s, also echoed by the newly-designed house.

The frames are not identical – they are equipped with chamfers: all of them are situated on one side, gazing southwest. They catch the glints of the summer sunsets, and, in addition, their width gradually increases from left to right, as the possibility to catch the sun rays decreases. The bronze stripes before the entrance are fitted into the “fold” of the facade in a similar “gradient” fashion.

The bronze also covers the joint of the chamfer before the lobby: it has a chance to catch the morning sunlight and “ricochet” it to the curve on the opposite side, or, the other way around, serve as a mirror in the evening. As we can see, the whole house is “fine-tuned” to the sun – it catches it with all the zeal of a resident of cloudy Moscow, where every sunbeam is worth its weight in gold.

The brick also supports the reflections theme: the risalit from the side of the red historical facade gets a stretching gradient of terra cotta insets – the overall “plinth” mass occasionally bursts out with a golden glitter.

In a word, just like on an Ars Nova picture, there are plenty of subtleties here, and none of them is excessive. This house is much “warmer” than Art House; it is more “Moscow”, which is more motivated by the inclusions of the preserved facades and the obliging neighbors – two bold statements must not contradict each other, and Sergey Skuratov was completely right speaking about the background function of the new house. It has a different purpose: the project catches the “quilted blanket” effect inherent to this place – and the house, engaged in a peer-to-peer dialogue with its neighbors, imbibes the effect of this compound city with its rich history – and we are grateful for that.

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The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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The reconstruction project in the Bolshoy Nikolovorobinsky Alley. The building is converted into a housing complex.

Copyright: © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

16 June 2020

Written by:
Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

Headlines now

Object

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.

Object

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.

View

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.

Report

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.

Object

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.

Object

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.

Object

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”.

Report

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.

Object

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”.

Interview

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.

Object

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.

Object

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.

Object

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.

Object

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.

Object

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”.

Object

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.

Object

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.

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.

send.project

The Chimney of Nikola-Lenivets

In this issue, we are examining the “Obelisk House” designed by KATARSIS and built for the Arkhstoyanie 2023 festival. However, it was only finished later on, and this is why we are examining it now. It seems to us that after the “Obelisk House” appeared in Nikola-Lenivets, a dialogue and a few inner connections appeared between the temporary structures built here. These houses no longer look like “accidental neighbors”, more of which below.

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.

​Just a Mirror for the Sun

Just a Mirror for the Sun