По-русски

​A Comfortable City in Itself

The project that we are about to cover is seemingly impossible amidst human anthills, chaotically interspersed with old semi-neglected dachas. Meanwhile, the housing complex built on the Comcity business part does offer a comfortable environment of decent city: not excessively high-rise and moderately private as a version of the perfect modern urbanist solution.

Julia Tarabarina

Written by:
Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

28 July 2020
Object
mainImg
The land site of the housing complex “Homecity”, whose name is a derivative from the “mother name” of “Comcity”, is situated on the territory that belongs to the same owner as the business center, whose glass wings can be seen shortly after you drive out of Moscow down the Kiev Highway, on the right. Comcity here owns the territory that stretches in an elongated trapeze that widens as it distances the highway. If you inscribe it into a triangle in your mind’s eye, the sharp “nose” will be somewhere on the highway. In the narrow part of the site – the one that is closer to the highway – as early as in 2014, the first building of the Comcity business park was constructed, designed by the Czech architectural company Cigler Marani. Two years later, the owners of the complex turned to Sergey Kiselev and Partners with a request to inspect the territory for a possibility of adding a certain amount of housing function to the dominating office one, with a view of improving the site plan. Sergey Kiselev proposed a few options for developing the north side of the territory.

“HOMECITY” housing complex
Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


The site plan was changed, even if ever so slightly, the offices still prevalent. As a result, the territory is divided into 4 development stages: the first, Alpha, is an operating building; the second, Bravo, is also an office one, it is being designed directly behind Alpha by Sergey Kiselev and Partners, then goes “Charlie” site, also an office one, yet lacking a project now and for the time being used as a parking lot, and the line is completed by the one-of-a-kind “Delta” (aka “Homecity”) housing complex for about 2000 residents and 1513 apartments. It is expected that people working in the offices will be able to afford business class apartments here, and live in peace and quiet right next to their workplaces, which, as is popularly known, is one of the central ideas of the postindustrial city, in which functions are mixed, and distances are shortened.

“HOMECITY” housing complex. Location plan
Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


The housing complex consists of five U-shaped blocks, five sections in each, with a single-level underground parking garage underneath the entire construction blueprint and underneath the yard as well. The blocks are placed alongside a pedestrian promenade that serves as the axis of this territory, the yards of the blocks being open to one another and forming, together with the promenade, the public space of the complex. The height of the buildings descends in steps towards the promenade: 9 stories on the outside, 6 on the inside. It looks like the ideal that was announced in 2017 in the pilot projects of Moscow renovation, yet never was implemented.

“HOMECITY” housing complex
Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


More: in addition to the height restrictions having to do with the proximity of the Vnukovo Airport, the city development plan for land presupposed a comparatively small amount of housing square meters, and the developer did not want to violate the restrictions. Thus, the architects were facing the task of not exceeding the volume – which resulted in a multitude of arches in the bottom floors, making the space transparent on the pedestrian level. Such transparency is yet another signature technique of theirs, in the spirit of postindustrial urbanism, because it makes life easier, and enriches the facets of its perception. The arches are situated in places with poor insolation, unfit for making apartments in them.

“HOMECITY” housing complex. Master plan
Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


Also, in the first floors, and partially even on the underground level, the architects designed public and commercial facilities, which ensure the urban “multi-functionality” of the complex: cafes, shops, various services, a drugstore, a bank office, a fitness center, and so on. The list is rather long, but it may change as the complex develops. The height of the underground floors is 4.5 meters. To light the premises in the underground tier, the architects designed areaways, long and wide, running along the rear facades of buildings 1 and 2. The areaways are crossed by pedestrian bridges leading up to the first floor. This way, the technical solution not only makes the complex truly multifunctional but also ensures diversity of perception of this highly developed urban space that will be gradually forming here.

“HOMECITY” housing complex. Plan of the -1st floor. The areaways are seen on the plans of Buildings 1 and 2
Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


“HOMECITY” housing complex. Plan of the 1st floor
Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


This way, the number of apartments in the bottom floors is significantly smaller, but what apartments are there got cute little gardens and street entrances of their own – another popular modern technique that Sergey Kiselev and Partners already tested in the premium class award-winning “Literator” (“Man of Letters”) housing complex, situated in Moscow’s most prestigious area of Khamovniki. Sitting on the terrace, one will be able to watch their children play through a green hedge.

The volumes of the buildings look pretty similar, and are designed in a very laconic way: the regular grid of windows with differences marked by the color of the fiber cement slab inserts that make the piers look narrower, visually widening the windows. The recessions provided for air conditioning units are decorated by striped grates. No balconies are present here. On top, the facades get the “attic” strip that unobtrusively decorated the mechanical floor – its ledges are invisible from the ground.

“HOMECITY” housing complex
Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


The outer facades – the ones that face outwards and the ones, with which the buildings face each other – are designed like dark “skin” from Klinker tiles, almost black, of a graphite hue with light scorch marks. The piers between the windows are not just made narrower – in most of the cases they have equal width and height, forming a smooth thin grid. The direction of their lines is highlighted by the tile pattern, vertical or horizontal, which turns the piers into a semblance of pleat work – Aleksey Medvedev likens this technique to half-timber technology because it helps to highlight the structure of the facade: the pattern manifests it in a very reserved way, like different knitting patterns in a monochrome sweater.

“HOMECITY” housing complex
Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


“HOMECITY” housing complex
Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


The houses face the promenade not only with their 6-story blocks but also with their cantilevered structures that hang above the roads forming canopies decorated with tiles, including from the downside.

“HOMECITY” housing complex
Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


The project of the housing complex, from the architectural concept to construction supervision, is done by Sergey Kiselev and Partners – this is sure how it is meant to be, but nowadays, regretfully, this is rarely the case, so let’s note the occasion.

The task of landscaping the inner promenade and the yards, at a joint solution by Sergey Kiselev and Partners and the developer, was done by a guest company MLA+, with which the architects has already collaborated, and now they again did a lot of joint work. This is yet another example of cooperation giving way to tough competition. An interesting fact: originally, the Dutch architects proposed a “changing of the seasons” concepts: shifting of impressions in different parts of the complex, but the client insisted on uniformity, the main theme ultimately being asymmetric spots, lush maple trees, and hosts of cereal plants. Using white pebbles on playgrounds was also the client’s idea.

“HOMECITY” housing complex
Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


The range of apartments is rather balanced and chiefly consists of single and two-room floor plans, the former accounting for more than a half, the latter for more than a third. However, there are also three and four-room apartments.

  • zooming
    1 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    2 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    3 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    4 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    5 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    6 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    7 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    8 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    9 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    10 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    11 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    12 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    13 / 13
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


One of the main advantages of the complex is high-quality decoration of public spaces, laconic and dominated by vertical “grates” of light-colored wood.

  • zooming
    1 / 3
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    2 / 3
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    3 / 3
    “HOMECITY” housing complex
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


A junior school for 350 students and a kindergarten for 150 children are situated at the west end of the territory; these will be publicly funded, and the architects had to get a lot of approvals from the Department of Education, tightly packing all of the solutions within the state regulations and a rather constrained area. This is why the building plans are rectangular and not circular or sprawling, like with the most advanced schools of today. Meanwhile, the architects were able to squeeze all the necessary functions into the school building, the school library on the top floor being lit by a skylight.

The facades of the school building, just as the facades of the kindergarten, combine fiber cement of a light, almost white, hue and inserts the color of ochre for the school and three warm hues – red, yellow, and orange – for the kindergarten. These highlights echo the inserts on the facades of the residential buildings.

The school – a “temple of knowledge”, however small in this case – is marked by a recessed balcony with a portico of four slender columns, white against the black backdrop of the inner wall. The lightweight portico with a thin bridge above instead of an attic is reminiscent of Le Corbusier experiments, and about the seventies with their laconically minimalist attitude towards classical motifs.

  • zooming
    1 / 4
    “HOMECITY” housing complex. Plan of the 2nd floor
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    2 / 4
    “HOMECITY” housing complex. Plan of the 9th floor
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    3 / 4
    “HOMECITY” housing complex Section view
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners
  • zooming
    4 / 4
    “HOMECITY” housing complex Section view
    Copyright: © Sergey Kiselev and partners


The place is 1.5 kilometers away from the Moscow Ring Road, but it is just a 10 or 15 minutes’ walk away from the recently opened Rumyantsevo metro station. The surrounding scenery is more than diverse: 17-story houses in the distance, and a village of the “dacha” type on the other side with stone fences; there is the Govorovsky Forest on the other side, which is a continuation of the Troparevsky Park beyond the Moscow border – one will be easily able to go for a walk in the forest because it steps up right to the eastern border of the complex. From the south side, as we remember, office buildings are situated. In spite of its diversity, the surrounding scenery is pretty balanced: a forest, a business park, and a dacha settlement. The highway is about 900 meters away, and here it is a lot quieter than, for example, on some Moscow’s busy thoroughfare. Homecity stands here like in the eye of the storm – a quiet haven that faces its own internal promenade, an element of the regular and comfortable city, which was formed here due to circumstances, and by the grace of the developers and the architects – in a comparatively unexpected place, at the beginning of the Kiev Highway.

28 July 2020

Julia Tarabarina

Written by:

Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov
Headlines now
New “Flight”
Architects from “Mezonproject” have developed a project for the reconstruction of the regional youth center “Polyot”(“Flight”) in the city of Oryol. The summer youth center, built back in the late 1970s, will now become year-round and acquire many additional functions.
The Yauza Towers
In Moscow, there aren’t that many buildings or projects designed by Nikita Yavein and Studio 44. In this article, we present to you the concept of a large multifunctional complex on the Yauza River, located between two parks, featuring a promenade, a crossroads of two pedestrian streets, a highly developed public space, and an original architectural solution. This solution combines a sophisticated, asymmetric façade grid, reminiscent of a game of fifteen puzzle, and bold protrusions of the upper parts of the buildings, completely masking the technical floors and sculpting the complex’s silhouette.
Architecture and Leisure Park
For the suburban hotel complex, which envisages various formats of leisure, the architectural company T+T Architects proposed several types of accommodation, ranging from the classic “standard” in a common building to a “cave in the hill” and a “house in a tree”. An additional challenge consisted in integrating a few classic-style residences already existing on this territory into the “architectural forest park”.
The U-House
The Jois complex combines height with terraces, bringing the most expensive apartments from penthouses down to the bottom floors. The powerful iconic image of the U-shaped building is the result of the creative search for a new standard of living in high-rise buildings by the architects of “Genpro”.
Black and White
In this article, we specifically discuss the interiors of the ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh. Interior design is a crucial component of the overall concept in this case, and precision and meticulous execution were highly important for the architects. Julia Tryaskina, head of UNK interiors, shares some of the developments.
The “Snake” Mountain
The competition project for the seaside resort complex “Serpentine” combines several typologies: apartments of different classes, villas, and hotel rooms. For each of these typologies, the KPLN architects employ one of the images that are drawn from the natural environment – a serpentine road, a mountain stream, and rolling waves.
Opal from Anna Mons’ Ring
The project of a small business center located near Tupolev Plaza and Radio Street proclaims the necessity of modern architecture in a specific area of Moscow commonly known as “Nemetskaya Sloboda” or “German settlement”. It substantiates its thesis with the thoroughness of details, a multitude of proposed and rejected form variants, and even a detailed description of the surrounding area. The project is interesting indeed, and it is even more interesting to see what will come of it.
Feed ’Em All
A “House of Russian Cuisine” was designed and built by KROST Group at VDNKh for the “Rossiya” exhibition in record-breaking time. The pavilion is masterfully constructed in terms of the standards of modern public catering industry multiplied by the bustling cultural program of the exhibition, and it interprets the stylistically diverse character of VDNKh just as successfully. At the same time, much of its interior design can be traced back to the prototypes of the 1960s – so much so that even scenes from iconic Soviet movies of those years persistently come to mind.
The Ensemble at the Mosque
OSA prepared a master plan for a district in the southern part of Derbent. The main task of the master plan is to initiate the formation of a modern comfortable environment in this city. The organization of residential areas is subordinated to the city’s spiritual center: depending on the location relative to the cathedral mosque, the houses are distinguished by façade and plastique solutions. The program also includes a “hospitality center”, administrative buildings, an educational cluster, and even an air bridge.
Pargolovo Protestantism
A Protestant church is being built in St. Petersburg by the project of SLOI architects. One of the main features of the building is a wooden roof with 25-meter spans, which, among other things, forms the interior of the prayer hall. Also, there are other interesting details – we are telling you more about them.
The Shape of the Inconceivable
The ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh brings to mind a famous maxim of all architects and critics: “You’ve come up with it? Now build it!” You rarely see such a selfless immersion in implementation of the project, and the formidable structural and engineering tasks set by UNK architects to themselves are presented here as an integral and important part of the architectural idea. The challenge matches the obliging status of the place – after all, it is an “exhibition of achievements”, and the pavilion is dedicated to the nuclear energy industry. Let’s take a closer look: from the outside, from the inside, and from the underside too.
​Rays of the Desert
A school for 1750 students is going to be built in Dubai, designed by IND Architects. The architects took into account the local specifics, and proposed a radial layout and spaces, in which the children will be comfortable throughout the day.
The Dairy Theme
The concept of an office of a cheese-making company, designed for the enclosed area of a dairy factory, at least partially refers to industrial architecture. Perhaps that is why this concept is very simple, which seems the appropriate thing to do here. The building is enlivened by literally a couple of “master strokes”: the turning of the corner accentuates the entrance, and the shade of glass responds to the theme of “milk rivers” from Russian fairy tales.
The Road to the Temple
Under a grant from the Small Towns Competition, the main street and temple area of the village of Nikolo-Berezovka near Neftekamsk has been improved. A consortium of APRELarchitects and Novaya Zemlya is turning the village into an open-air museum and integrating ruined buildings into public life.
​Towers Leaning Towards the Sun
The three towers of the residential complex “Novodanilovskaya 8” are new and the tallest neighbors of the Danilovsky Manufactory, “Fort”, and “Plaza”, complementing a whole cluster of modern buildings designed by renowned masters. At the same time, the towers are unique for this setting – they are residential, they are the tallest ones here, and they are located on a challenging site. In this article, we explore how architects Andrey Romanov and Ekaterina Kuznetsova tackled this far-from-trivial task.
In the spirit of ROSTA posters
The new Rostselmash tractor factory, conceptualized by ASADOV Architects, is currently being completed in Rostov-on-Don. References to the Soviet architecture of the 1920’s and 1960’s resonate with the mission and strategic importance of the enterprise, and are also in line with the client’s wish: to pay homage to Rostov’s constructivism.
The Northern Thebaid
The central part of Ferapontovo village, adjacent to the famous monastery with frescoes by Dionisy, has been improved according to the project by APRELarchitects. Now the place offers basic services for tourists, as well as a place for the villagers’ leisure.
Brilliant Production
The architects from London-based MOST Architecture have designed the space for the high-tech production of Charge Cars, a high-performance production facility for high-speed electric cars that are assembled in the shell of legendary Ford Mustangs. The founders of both the company and the car assembly startup are Russians who were educated in their home country.
Three-Part Task: St. Petersburg’s Mytny Dvor
The so-called “Mytny Dvor” area lying just behind Moscow Railway Station – the market rows with a complex history – will be transformed into a premium residential complex by Studio 44. The project consists of three parts: the restoration of historical buildings, the reconstruction of the lost part of the historical contour, and new houses. All of them are harmonized with each other and with the city; axes and “beams of light” were found, cozy corners and scenic viewpoints were carefully thought out. We had a chat with the authors of the historical buildings’ restoration project, and we are telling you about all the different tasks that have been solved here.
The Color of the City, or Reflections on the Slope of an Urban Settlement
In 2022, Ostozhenka Architects won a competition, and in 2023, they developed and received all the necessary approvals for a master plan for the development of Chernigovskaya Street for the developer GloraX. The project takes into account a 10-year history of previous developments; it was done in collaboration with architects from Nizhny Novgorod, and it continues to evolve now. We carefully examined it, talked to everyone, and learned a lot of interesting things.
A Single-Industry Town
Kola MMC and Nornickel are building a residential neighborhood in Monchegorsk for their future employees. It is based on a project by an international team that won the 2021 competition. The project offers a number of solutions meant to combat the main “demons” of any northern city: wind, grayness and boredom.
A New Age Portico
At the beginning of the year, Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport opened Terminal C. The large-scale and transparent entrance hall with luminous columns inside successfully combines laconism with a bright and photogenic WOW-effect. The terminal is both the new façade of the whole complex and the starting point of the planned reconstruction, upon completion of which Tolmachevo will become the largest regional airport in Russia. In this article, we are examining the building in the context of modernist prototypes of both Novosibirsk and Leningrad: like puzzle pieces, they come together to form their individual history, not devoid of curious nuances and details.
A New Starting Point
We’ve been wanting to examine the RuArts Foundation space, designed by ATRIUM for quite a long time, and we finally got round to it. This building looks appropriate and impressive; it amazingly combines tradition – represented in our case by galleries – and innovation. In this article, we delve into details and study the building’s historical background as well.
Molding Perspectives
Stepan Liphart introduces “schematic Art Deco” on the outskirts of Kazan – his houses are executed in green color, with a glassy “iced” finish on the facades. The main merits of the project lie in his meticulous arrangement of viewing angles – the architect is striving to create in a challenging environment the embryo of a city not only in terms of pedestrian accessibility but also in a sculptural sense. He works with silhouettes, proposing intriguing triangular terraces. The entire project is structured like a crystal, following two grids, orthogonal and diagonal. In this article, we are examining what worked, and what eventually didn’t.
An Educational Experiment for the North
City-Arch continues to work on the projects that can be termed as “experimental public preschools”: private kindergartens and schools can envy such facilities in many respects. This time around, the project is done for the city of Gubkinsky, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. A diverse educational and play environment, including a winter garden, awaits future students, while the teachers will have abundant opportunities to implement new practices.
Alexandra Kuzmina: “Working is easy when the rules are the same for everyone”
The subject matter of Moscow Region’s booth and presentations at Zodchestvo Festival was the concept of “Integrated Land Development”, and for a good reason: this task is very challenging, very relevant, and Moscow Region has already accumulated quite a formidable experience in this regard. In this article, we are speaking to the main architect of the region: about master plans and who makes them, about where you obtain resources for creating a comfortable environment, about her favorite projects, about why there are so few good architects, and what we should do with the bad ones.
The Cemetery: Inside and Outside
The workshop organized by the Genplan Institute of Moscow scored one of the two first places at the “Open City” festival. Its subject is reorganization of municipal cemeteries. Two action plans were proposed, diametrically opposite: one for the downtown and one for the suburbs.
Our Everything
Who is Alexey Shchusev? In the last couple of weeks, since the architect’s 150th birthday, different individuals have answered this question differently. The most detailed, illustrated, and elegantly presented response is an exhibition held in two buildings of the Museum of Architecture on Vozdvizhenka. Four curators, a year and a half of work performed by the entire museum, and exhibition design by Sergey Tchoban and Alexandra Sheiner – in this article, we take you on a tour of the exhibition and show what’s what in it.
For Mental Reboot
At the architectural competition held in 2023 in Novosibirsk, the project by GORA Architects – a pedestrian bridge leading to the town of Bor – was awarded the “Golden Capital” prize. In this country, more than a hundred pedestrian bridges are constructed each year. What makes the Bor bridge different?
Gold Embroidery
A five-story housing complex designed by Stepan Liphart in Kazan, responds to the stylistically diverse context with its form, both integral and agile, and as for the vicinity of the “Ekiyat” movie theater, the complex responds to it with a semblance of theater curtain folds, and active plastique of its balconies, that bear some resemblance to theater boxes. Even if excessively pompous a little bit, the complex does look fresh and modern. One will have a hard time finding Art Deco elements in it, even though the spirit of the 1930s, run through the filter of neo-modernism, is still clearly felt, just as a twist of the Occident.