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Creative Experiments

In this issue, we feature five projects by ARENA project institute prepared for international competitions: from an opera house and library to a heritage site and artificial island.

09 February 2022
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In Russia, ARENA project institute does mostly large-scale projects: its portfolio includes dozens of sport facilities, corporate headquarters, and grand-scale complexes of various functions – from shopping malls to museums. Nevertheless, the institute regularly takes part in international competitions, including concept and “paper” ones. According to the company leaders, this experience “activates and mobilizes creativity”, which, of course, makes a positive difference for all operation processes.

The five projects featured in this article are a selection of the most interesting works from the company’s point of view. Not all of them became prize-winners, but all of them are interesting for the authors in terms of new ideas and approaches: the hope for the possibility of high-quality execution allowed them to be freer and bolder.
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Castle-Resort

where:Italy, Roccamandolfi
date — 2021 /
function:Landscape /
studio:
Arena
http://piarena.ru/
Italy’s Roссamondolfi is a picturesque little town standing on a mountain slope with sweeping views and ruins of a medieval castle. The competition for the project of a hotel complex was organized with a view to attract more tourists in this area.

The organizers wanted the contestants not just to propose their versions of housing that would fit in with the surroundings but also provided ample opportunities for studying the history of this area and its nature- the town is surrounded by pastures, pine forests, rocks and waterfalls, through which numerous trails pass. The height of the new buildings was not to exceed 5 meters; cutting down trees was not allowed.

In its concept, ARENA project institute turns the ascent to the fortress into navigating a flower labyrinth. Its walls are formed by local perennial plants that will change the color of the slope depending on the season. The structure of the labyrinth reminds of a medieval town, in which you can also easily get lost. At the edges of the garden, the architects propose to install laconic wooden “cabins” with panoramic windows commanding the mountain and valley views, and sunbathing roofs. Also, according to the concept, Roссamondolfi will get a platform for various events – historical reconstruction or scientific conferences, a cafe, and an expo pavilion.
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Nodeul Dream Island

where:South Korea, Seoul
date — 2021 /
function:Culture / Concert hall
studio:
Arena
http://piarena.ru/
architect:Aleksey OrlovDina Sattarova
Nodeul is an artificial island on the Hangang River in the central part of Seoul. At one point, this place hosted tennis courts, then there were plans for building an opera house here, but eventually it was decided to turn this island into a more democratic venue for summer open air festivals complemented by a park.

The ARENA architects proposed a multilevel structure, in which intertwined spaces smoothly merge into one another: the ramps from the bridge lead to hanging promenades, wavy bicycle and pedestrian trails descend to the waterfront and observation decks, and the amphitheater of a parametric shape is inseparable from the river and park views. The entire island is perceived as one large art object, each fragment of which offers new impressions to the visitors. Even utilitarian elements – the road tarmac, for example – looks like a dance floor; on the “backside” of the bridge, there is a lighting installation; its concrete supports are covered by a pattern from a book of optical illusions. The layers are read not only in structure but in meanings as well: the renders demonstrate both the “vibe” of a Soviet square with a monument in its center, the Utopia Island, and a K-Pop stage.
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The visitor center of the Kemeri national park

where:Latvia, Jurmala
date — 2018 /
function:Landscape / Park Pavilion
studio:
Arena
http://piarena.ru/
 
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Plaza de la Villa Library

where:Spain, Madrid
date — 12.2020 /
function:Education / Library
studio:
Arena
http://piarena.ru/
architect:Aleksey Orlov
The land site in the center of Madrid, proposed for the competition, upon which a library would be built, is located at the Plaza de la Villa, between the Royal Palace and Plaza Mayor. This place was constructed in the 16-17th centuries, when Spain was under the rule of the Habsburg Dynasty. The library was to become a new landmark and a “bridge” between the old and the new Madrid, and its halls with catalogs and exhibitions a part of the public space accessible to tourists and city people.

The main volume of the library is situated on the underground level; it surfaces in a wave-shaped roof that enshrouds the entire plaza, without obscuring the views of the historical construction and offering new ways to spend time. Access to the monument to Alvaro de Bazan, installed on the square, is preserved, and in addition, the admiral is returned to his native element – the statue becomes the center of a depression on the relief of the roof, which allows you to create a small pond around it. The roof “levitates” at the level of one meter above the square without touching it, which allows passers-by to see everything that is going on inside, at the same time providing natural lighting. Where the “canvas” of the roof rises higher, there are entrances to the library.

The ground floor space is occupied by a newsroom, which can be adapted for various events, a book depository, administrative offices, and recreation rooms. The newsroom is connected to the entrance level by a staircase with an amphitheater, under which the technological premises of the cafe and toilets are located. There is an elevator for people with limited mobility. Light wood and stone in the decoration help to diffuse natural light.

The project took third place in the competition.
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The building of the “Opera by the Sea” in Tallinn

where:Estonia, Tallinn
date11.2020 — /
function:Culture / Concert hall
studio:
Arena
http://piarena.ru/
architect:Aleksey Orlov
This competition was a paper one. The land site is located between the cruise port and the culture-and-sports complex Gorholl, which recently became famous all over the world, appearing in Christopher Nolan’s film “Argument” as the Kiev opera. The cape is a large underdeveloped territory overgrown with bushes – it is surprising that it hasn’t been yet turned into a park at least.

An Opera House is a typology that still allows for designing an iconic building. The ARENA architects proposed a sophisticated parametric shell that creates different images when viewed from different sides. When viewed from the shore the building looks like a giant tent, the shape of which echoes the silhouette of the fortress towers in the historical part of Tallinn. From the sea side, the “curtain” of the roof opens hospitably, and those arriving on ferries see a complex interior space formed by spiral staircases and the bowl of the amphitheater located on the middle level of the building. From the side of the port and the Gorholl, the opera looks like a sculpture consisting of undulating volumes and dynamic lines. Smooth bionic shapes contrast with the rigid mesh and brutalist volumes of the Gorholl.

The entire first floor, where the shops, restaurants, and cafes are located, open on the inside with the help of stained glass windows, becoming the continuation of the landscaped embankment. An observation deck and an amphitheater with a stage are arranged on the operated roof. The theater includes a foyer, an auditorium, a stage box, a small hall, artistic and rehearsal rooms. 

The project received an honorable mention. The list of people’s sympathies is also interesting – you can see it on the page of the competition.
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09 February 2022

Headlines now
Daring Brilliance
In this article, we are exploring “New Vision”, the first school built in the past 25 years in Moscow’s Khamovniki. The building has three main features: it is designed in accordance with the universal principles of modern education, fostering learning through interaction and more; second, the façades combine structural molded glass and metallic glazed ceramics – expensive and technologically advanced materials. Third, this is the school of Garden Quarters, the latest addition to Moscow’s iconic Khamovniki district. Both a costly and, in its way, audacious acquisition, it carries a youthful boldness in its statement. Let’s explore how the school is designed and where the contrasts lie.
A Twist of the Core
A clever and concise sculptural solution – rotating each floor by N degrees – has created an ensemble of “dancing” towers: similar yet different, simple yet complex. The designers meticulously refined a single structural node and spent considerable effort on the column construction – after that, “everything else was easy”. The architects also rotated the core walls on each floor to maximize the efficiency of the office spaces.
The Sculpting of Spring Forest Matter
We’ve been observing this building for a couple of years now: seemingly simple, perhaps even unassuming, it fits in remarkably well with the micro-district context shaped by the Moscow MCD road junctions. This building sticks in the memory of everyone who drives along the highway, even occasionally. In our opinion, Sergey Nikeshkin, by blending popular architectural techniques and approaches of the 2010s, managed to turn a seemingly simple structure into a statement “on the theme of a house as such”. Let’s figure out how this happened.
Water and Wind Whet the Stone
The Arisha Terraces residential complex, designed by Asadov Architects, will be built in a district of Dubai dedicated to film and television production. To create shaded spaces and an intriguing silhouette, the architects opted for a funnel-shaped composition and nature-inspired forms of erosion and weathering. The roofs, podium, and underground spaces extend leisure opportunities within the boundaries of a man-made “oasis”.
Elevation 5642
The Genplan Institute of Moscow has developed a comprehensive development project for three ski resorts in the Caucasus, which have been designated as special economic zones of the tourism and recreation type. The first of these zones is Elbrus. The project includes the construction of new ski runs, cable cars, and hotels, as well as the modernization of stations and improvements to the Azau tourist meadow. To expand the audience and enhance year-round appeal, a network of eco-trails is also being developed. In this article, we provide a detailed breakdown of each stage.
The IT Town
Taking the example of the first completed phase of the “U” district, we examine how the new neighborhood in Innopolis will be organized. T+T Architects and HADAA formed a well-balanced and ingenious master plan with different types of housing, a green artery, a system of squares, and a park in the town’s central part.
The Heart Lies Within
The second-phase building of the Evgeny Primakov School already won multiple awards while still in the design stage. Now that it’s completed, some unfinished nuances remain – most notably, the exposed ceiling structures, which ideally should have been concealed. However, given the priority placed on the building’s volumetric composition, this does not seem critical. What matters more is the “Wow!” effect created by the space itself.
Magnetic Forces
“Krylatskaya 33” is the first large-scale residential complex to appear amidst the 1980s “micro-districts” that harmoniously coexist with the forests, the river, the slopes, and the sports infrastructure. Despite its imposing scale, the architects of Ostozhenka managed to turn the complex into something that can be best described as a “graceful dominant”. First, they designed the complex with consideration for the style and height of the surrounding micro-districts. Second, by introducing a pause in its tallest section, they created compositional tension – right along the urban planning axis of the area.
Orion’s Belt
The Stone Khodynka 2 office complex, designed by Kleinewelt Architekten for the company Stone, is built with an ergonomic layout following “healthy building” principles: natural light, ventilation, and all the necessary features for an efficient office environment. On the outside, it resembles – like many contemporary buildings – an iPhone: sleek, glowing, glass-and-metal, edges elegantly rounded. Yet, it responds sensitively to the Khodynka context, where the main theme is the contrast between vertical and horizontal lines. The key intrigue lies in the design of the “stylobate” as a suspended passage, leaving the space beneath it open for free pedestrian movement.
Grigory Revzin: “It Was a Bold Statement Made on the Sly. Something Won”
In this article, we discuss the debates surrounding the circus competition and the demolition of the CMEA building with the most renowned architectural critic of our time. A paradox emerges in the process: while nostalgia for the Brezhnev era seems to be in vogue in Russia, a landmark building – the “axis” of the Warsaw Pact – has been sentenced to demolition. Isn’t that strange? We also find out that wow-architecture has made a comeback as a post-COVID trend. However, to make a truly powerful statement, professionals still remain indispensable.
Exposed Concrete
One of the stages of improving a small square in the town of Lermontov was the construction of a skatepark. Entrusting this part of the project to the XSA team, the city gained a 250-meter trick track whose features resemble those of land art objects – unparalleled in Russia in both scale and design. Here’s a look at how the experimental snake run in the foothills of the Caucasus was built.
One Step Closer To the Dream
The challenges of getting all the mandatory approvals, an insufficient budget, and construction site difficulties did not prevent ASADOV Bureau from achieving its main goal in the realization of the school project in the town of Troitsk – taking another step away from outdated notions of educational spaces toward creating a fundamentally new academic environment.
Chalet on the Rock
An Accor hotel in Arkhyz, designed by A.Len, will be situated at the gateway to the resort’s main tourist hubs. The architects reinterpreted the widely popular chalet style while adding an unexpected twist – an unfinished structure preserved on the site. The design team transformed this remnant into an exciting space featuring an open-air pool and a restaurant with panoramic views of the region’s highest mountain ridges.
Sergey Skuratov: “By and large, the project has been realized in line with the original ideas”
In this issue, we talk to the chief architect of Garden Quarters, looking back at the history and key moments of a project that took 18 years to develop and has now finally been completed. What interests us most are the transformations that the project underwent during construction, and the way the “necessary void” of public space was formed, which turned this remarkable complex into a fragment of a whole new type of urban fabric – not just at the horizontal “street” level but in its vertical structure as well.
A Unique Representative
The recently concluded year 2024 can be considered the year of completion for the “Garden Quarters” residential complex in Moscow’s Khamovniki. This project is well-known and, in many ways, iconic. Rarely does one manage to preserve such a number of original ideas, achieving in the end a kind of urban planning Gesamtkunstwerk. Here is a subjective view from an architecture journalist, with an interview with Sergey Skuratov soon to follow.
Field of Life
The new project by the architectural company PNKB (an acronym for “Design, Research, and Advisory Bureau”), led by Sergey Gnedovsky and Anton Lyubimkin, for the Kulikovo Field Museum is dedicated to the field as a concept in its own right. The field has long been a focus of the museum’s thorough and successful research. Accordingly, the exterior of the new museum building is gentler than that of its predecessor, which was also designed by PNKB and dedicated specifically to the historic battle. Inside, however, the building confidently guides the visitor from a luminous atrium along a spiral path to the field – interpreted here as a field of life.
A Paper Clip above the River
In this article, we talk with Vitaly Lutz from the Genplan Institute of Moscow about the design and unique features of the pedestrian bridge that now links the two banks of the Yauza River in the new cluster of Bauman Moscow State Technical University (MSTU). The bridge’s form and functionality – particularly the inclusion of an amphitheater suspended over the river – were conceived during the planning phase of the territory’s development. Typically, this approach is not standard practice, but the architects advocate for it, referring to this intermediate project phase as the “pre-AGR” stage (AGR stands for Architectural and Urban Planning Approval). Such a practice, they argue, helps define key parameters of future projects and bridge the gap between urban planning and architectural design.
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.
Life Plans
The master plan for the residential district “Prityazheniye” (“Gravity”) in Naberezhnye Chelny was developed by the architectural company A.Len, taking into account the specific urban planning context and partially implemented solutions of the first phase. However, the master plan prioritized its own values: a green framework, a system of focal points, a hierarchy of spaces, and pedestrian priority. After this, the question of what residents will do in their neighborhood simply doesn’t arise.
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.