The Comb of Strelna

The judging panel of the Zodchestvo festival awarded the housing complex Veren Village, designed and built by Ostozhenka in Strelna, the highest possible award – the Crystal Daedalus. As we already said, one of the interesting facts is that three years ago the project was already honored by another high prize – the Tatlin award. Generally speaking, every year lots of awards are given at the festival, but there are only two main prizes: one for an implemented building and one for a project. The Veren Village won both. For all we know, this is the first case of such full recognition. We decided to take advantage of the news break to examine the project in detail.

zooming — Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka

The first thing about the complex is that it is a low-rise one. The reason for that is a 10-meter height restriction that has to do with the neighboring federal heritage site, the Konstantinovsky Palace. Literally across the road, you can already build up to 15 meters, but here it is only 10, which yields no more than three stories.

However, “low rise” in this case is just a starting characteristic. One must admit that we have a stereotype of low-rise housing as something unassuming and inexpensive, whose main advantages are low construction density, low height… that’s about it. Here it is not the case, and we will explain to you why.

Rais Baishev, «Ostozhenka Bureau»

We were lucky to get into a zone where human regulations apply. Restrictions are a very positive thing, thanks to them there is an “architecture below the trees.” I must say that you don’t get a chance to work with low-rise buildings very often. For us, this has been the first implemented low-rise complex in years. Therefore, the task seemed particularly interesting.

On the one hand, we took it as an opportunity to reflect on a comfortable urban environment for a person – so much has been said about it lately. On the other hand, the format allowed us to apply some unconventional solutions.

It’s not that this project is mega-experimental and totally groundbreaking. The set of modern solutions here is as predictable as recognizable: hand-molded brick of different tones and black folded metal, terraces and fireplaces, shops and cafes, an open-air amphitheater, a fitness center with a swimming pool, landscaped yards and river banks; the yards, of course, are vehicle-free. All these are habitual components of a “correct” modern housing complex, packed with things attractive for the future residents. What matters here are seemingly insignificant tiny details. These are pretty numerous, and we don’t even know where to start. Let’s start from the inside.

The architects focused on the structure of communication units in each of the sections. First, this has to do with the fact that there are only three floors, and it was possible to light the staircases by day through skylights. Second, the client wanted each landing to have no more than five apartments, and the architects responded to this challenge by a very unconventional staircase design: on either side of the elevator vertical. The elevators also open on both sides, which means that the residents will meet a limited circle of neighbors. This solution is rare, not to say unique by the standards of these latitudes; it can be traced to the avant-garde urge to optimize as much as possible the organization of inner spaces.

The skylights produce a very fresh impression: walking upstairs, we literally ascend to light. In the biggest halls, the left and right staircases are separated by a “rain” of suspensions that zones the space and partially serves as an art object.

The white slender staircases framed by black metal grilles sometimes diverge to the sides and sometimes form a baroque “sweep” running forward and up to the third floor. The space takes on an intriguing multilayered quality, and the staircase, from a purely utilitarian element, grows to a means of organizing the impression and emotion components. Its stripped casing rhymes with the texture of the walls; my personal favorite, however, were the white marbles before the first staircase – you instantly feel like letting your kids have fun in them.

Summing this part up, you can say that this technique is indeed groundbreaking because the staircases are no longer placed next to glass walls, but are moved deeper into the building, which saves up a lot of natural light for the apartments.

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The entrance group. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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The entrance group. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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The entrance group. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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The entrance group. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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The entrance group. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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The entrance group. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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The entrance group. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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The entrance group. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka

Just as important is the structure of the complex in its entirety. The main idea is that it develops in a gradient fashion: from straight, closed-door, and predominantly “urban” building in the north – to the open “natural” contour in the south, where the territory borders on the flooded creek named Strelka. Rais Baishev defines this version of the composition as a “comb”. The difference from a real comb is that the rows of its “prongs” – the residential buildings that stretch meridian-wise from north to south – are shifted three times in a checkered pattern, which allows the architects to maintain the balance between the openness and closeness of the space. The houses form little parks of the yards, yet do not close then, leaving plenty of “airy” passages. Speaking of air – one must note it is really fresh here.

The north longitudinal building is drawn by the ruler. On this side, one can see the tracks of an old, once “dacha”, tram, which you can ride down here from St. Petersburg. Parallel to the tracks, Veren Village formed a new street – of an urban type, with premises for cafes and shops: a tram, a street, and shop windows are a truly “urban” combination.

The retail is grouped at the outer border of the north building, which can generally be defined as the only one possessing a stylobate here: its “backbone” is composed of a single tier of the underground parking garage. The garage is sunk a few steps into the ground; it has a tall ceiling and an elegant black space, the slender flat supports almost do not oust it.

Rhythmically, at regular intervals, the housing sections are inserted into the long “beam” of the stylobate. Between them, there are yards on the roof of the parking garage – patios of sorts, accessed by the apartments on the 2nd floor. From the outer street in the north, they are covered by a wall of the maintenance buildings of the stores and the car park; from the south side, the side ends of the next row of residential houses step up – but they do not obscure the whole of the patio outlines, just as the north sections do not obscure the whole of the side ends of the large “park” yards.

The inner contour of the stylobate has a row of storage boxes for the residents.

The entrances to the north row of the houses are situated here as well – they all are interpreted as recessed balconies with colonnades, about five meters deep – and you can easily hide underneath them from rain, snow, and sun, and this is one more kind of space, semi-open, backlit at night.

Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka

We will note that such galleries, which can be typologically traced to antique porticos and the yards of monasteries and palazzos, are a favorite technique with Ostozhenka in general and with Rais Baishev in particular, and it is always present, in this or that form, in many housing complexes designed by them, big and small. It is there in different forms, sometimes as an asymmetric inclusion, sometimes as a fragment before the entrance, sometimes on the outside, but more often on the inside, enriching the yard space.

In this specific case, the solution is rather regular, “antique”, and it can be regarded as something in the middle between a house portico and a “torn” city gallery. The latter is felt particularly acutely where the colonnade of the eastern section forms a mini-plaza at the entrance with an amphitheater at the hypotenuse of a triangular lawn with a large fir tree in the middle that will come in handy on Christmas. There is something from the De Chirico metaphysics about this plaza.

Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka

Thus, the northern “stylobate” building really forms the “urban” narrative, yet in two different ways: on the outside facade it is done by the shop windows, and in the inner facades it is done by the pylons.

What comes next is defined by Rais Baishev as “gradual dissolution”. For example, in the second row of houses, more elongated and multi-sectional, the entrances are marked not by colonnades but by ledges underneath cantilevered risalits.

Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka

There is an inner street running across the strings of housing sections – its bend is drawn as “arithmetic average” between the straight line of the northern building and the contour of the creek bank: the street makes a slight turn, thus forming viewing angles very much like those that intrigue us in small European towns.

At the same time, the architects make an accent on the “slice” narrative: while the inner facades of the north sections look complete and even “grand” to a certain degree, at least thanks to the symmetry of the risalits, then the strings of sections standing along the street look as if they were sliced – the houses stand with their silhouettes turned to the observer, which look like firewalls (for example, on Moscow’s Borovitskaya Square you can see a house with a similar firewall with chamfered corners, currently, the firewall displays the portrait of Kutuzov).

The south row of the houses stands with a “saw” of triangular prongs pointed towards the river, thus giving the side-end apartment blocks as many river views as possible. The terraces, of course, are also there.

There is a public “trail” running along the river; the axis of each “boulevard” yard is continued in a wooden pier hovering above the water.

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Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka

The architectural “fabric” of the residential houses gradually changes – it “dissolves” from a city street towards the pond banks, following the same logic as the town-planning one. The northern row of the houses is arranged in a stiff, to the point of brutal, row: the silhouette of the outer street resembles large battlements; the metallic mansards of the third floors, overhanging in large cantilevers, also have a “prong-like” quality about them. One can even think that they reflect the planning “comb” on a volumetric scale – the plastique here, on the north side, looks serious to the point of harshness.

The rows of sections that go deeper into the block, are characterized by a greater amount of asymmetry, complexity, and seemingly unpredictable alternation of ledges and depressions, three colors of brick, and glass recessed balconies framed with black metal. Another thing that is asymmetric is the metallic frames of the bay windows where they appear on the facade chamfers along the inner street. Thus, while the northern volume is all about symmetry and rhythmic repetition, all the other houses in the inner yard of the complex look as if they were “swinging” a little – they are less tense, and this is another plastique (and emotional) nuance.

All these picturesque subtleties that do not even meet the eye at first are carefully thought-out and calculated.

Elena Kopylova, the Chief Architect of Veren Village, Ostozhenka

This is one of our favorite projects, and we worked on it carefully, in several stages: therefore, there are three lists in the author’s team. We asked a lot of questions, and we did a lot of meticulous drawing.

The variety of impressions was one of our tasks. We carefully alternated the shades of brick – at first it was planned that the brick would be brighter – red, white and black – but then we settled on more restrained natural shades and man-made texture. For example, if one yard is closed with a light-beige house, then the other is red, terracotta, the next is dark, and so on. On the facades of the extended sections, the colors also alternate.

A lot of attention has been paid to landscaping: we have different playgrounds in all yards – and different trees. Trees do not repeat themselves, so you can say “maple yard”, “pine yard”, “birch yard”, and so on.

The trees here are indeed different, even though they are still to grow up to a full size. But then again, the landscape design is also carefully drawn and is aesthetically pleasing. The landscaping project, incidentally, is characterized by the absence of winding trails, while the trails that cross at a right angle are pretty numerous.

The playgrounds are also different, which provides an opportunity to walk between the yards because the residents have full access. But the “Elephant” slide in the yard with chestnut trees is above all praise…

I want to share two more details. The first one is the balconies and terraces – something like transition spaces that complement the apartment as such. These are unexpectedly numerous, of all kinds. Nowadays, front gardens are popular for ground-floor apartments, but as a rule, if they are made, then only fragmentary, and not everywhere. In Veren Village, however, the front gardens have turned into terraces slightly raised above the courtyard level, that is, apartment residents will not need to cut their grass or plant flowers. But such terraces are virtually everywhere where you can get out of the first floor. Their wooden fences are interspersed with gabions, they frame courtyards, significantly affecting the perception of space. The apartments on the second floors, which overlook the patio on the roof of the stylobate, also have such private terraces.

Next on the list: the glass verticals of the “Finnish balconies” are pushed a meter and a half forward; the stop against the grilles of the open balconies, large on the second floor and tiny on the third.

Any of the apartments provides access to this or that place, and at the same time the glass verticals – sometimes the reach down to the ground and sometimes don’t, sometimes they are marked by a sidewall, and sometimes aren’t – form, acting together with the “cantilever” risalits, active facades: their matter almost completely consists of ledges and depressions, as if it were constantly preparing “to make the next step”.

Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka

The fact that a balcony is a dramatic means of plastique expression is something that the architects have long since understood. But it seems that this is the first time that they were used to their full potential.

The mansards, however, are a different matter. They are known to be loved by developers, but not so much by architects, due to their resemblance to Haussmannien Biedermeier. Another commonly known fact is that for the last ten years it has been a common practice to decorate the bottom floors of low-rise houses with bricks, and the upper ones with folded metal, predominantly black, or, as the only variation, copper green. Those architects that are not afraid of the Biedermeier style, or even purposefully aim at its effect, make the mansard shape quite regular: at the bottom there is a steep, almost vertical slope, at the top there is a sloping gable roof, like in Paris. Others decorate the attic part vertically, like a wall, only it is made of metal.

In this instance, the architects proposed a third option, based upon three prerequisites: 1. One of the conditions stipulated in the brief was gable roofs; 2. The third floors command better views. They also have fireplaces in them, and they are generally better, so it would make sense to make them larger; 3. Ostozhenka does not really like gable roofs.

The combination of these circumstances yielded the following result. The third floors in some sections, particularly in the north, are designed as cantilevered structures. They are metallic black, with an austere outline, and look like curious fungi on the respectable bodies of the brick buildings. The “mansard” windows are also shifted forward: in the north building they are moved in the direction of the common cantilever, and in the other houses they are moved forward together with the ledges of the glass volumes; in all other places, their surface is on a level with the facades. In all of the cases, the level differences between the gable roofs abs the cantilevers of the “mansard windows” are very dramatic, they yield the same “volumetric comb”, and they are completely alien to the Haussmannien “cuteness”. It seems to me that a somewhat new, sculptural and brutal approach to the attic floors has been found here, and it is based not so much on historical prototypes, but on a more rigid imagery that is provided by the folded metal.

In addition, the metal behaves differently, following the same idea of gradual dissolution: in the north, it overhangs in cantilevers; in the central part, it sometimes creeps on the facades in spots, and sometimes shows through in the form of bay windows; in the south near the creek it steps back in the form of balconies.

And, finally, the land site of a skewed shape, formed by the bend of the creek in combination with a chiefly orthogonal plan of the residential blocks, is occupied by a fitness center with a swimming pool, a gym, a stadium on the roof, and children’s sports clubs. It is expected that it will be opened not just for the local residents. Its building definitely takes on the role of a “unique landmark” – it is strikingly different from all the housing blocks. These are fractured by balconies and risalits; two thirds of them are clad in hand-molded bricks of natural tones – the volume of the fitness center is formed by broad planned standing at angles, and is subjugated to vertical lamellae. Rais Baishev once called it a “Stealth House”.

The main thing here is the integral sculptural form. It is contrastive to the residential houses, it highlights them, accentuating the difference of the function and the content of the environment, both impression-wise and typologically. You at once feel that the space is not rural but highly urban, if such an object can be present in it.

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The fitness center. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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The fitness center. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka
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The facade of the fitness center. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: © Ostozhenka
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The fitness center. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Naroditsky / provided by Ostozhenka

The Corten facades were a solution proposed not by the architects but by the developer. Initially, it was planned that the surface of the fitness center would imitate wood and echo both wooden little fences of the terraces and the facade inserts. Eventually, the fences remained but the Corten cladding was agreed. The wooden inserts of the facades, however – again, at the developer’s decision – were replaced by cement with a textured wood effect. The authors like this solution less than the originally planned composite panels – but in my opinion this solution is also OK, it even slightly resembles the reliefs of Soviet modernism.

Making a recap, we will repeat: at first sight, Veren Village may seem like “another low-rise housing project”, executed in accordance with the rules of the modern urbanism – in a conveniently quiet place, with the right set of functions and creature comforts, such as terraces, fireplaces, two-floor apartments, a river, piers, shops and cafes, and even a tram route; everything is within a walking distance. Meanwhile, in this project one can see a model example for developing the environment “from urban to suburban” – unobtrusive, transitional, but not as loud and large as we can see in most of the modern housing complexes. One of the problems with the modern suburban development lies in its extreme contrast, when instead of a rural scenery you suddenly see high-density blocks consisting of 14, or even 22-story houses, like crates dropped in a field. This problem was discussed still in Soviet time, when the edges of cities were built with standard prefab houses – but it is still relevant today. Veren Village provides an example of the opposite approach because this is an attempt to think through, draw and implement an example of a “smooth” merger between the village and the city.

This task has one very interesting consequence. The functional content, the landscaping, and other urbanist ideals have become so commonplace in recent times that you don’t even feel like mentioning them – we will just say that all of them have been implemented here. What is interesting is how this architectural task was solved in these, rather favorable, conditions. And it seems to me that, having set themselves the goal of creating a “gradient”, a kind of Gaussian transition between the urban and natural environment, the architects simultaneously formed a kind of fusion of the ideals of modernism and environmental historicism, relatively speaking, a garden city and a provincial Northern Italian town with its mix of Gothic and Renaissance. And what else can you expect from Ostozhenka, which began its career from researching the principles of parceling the historical city of the 19th century and gave us so many examples of pure modern form?

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Facade. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: © Ostozhenka
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Facade. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: © Ostozhenka
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Facade. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: © Ostozhenka
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Facade. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: © Ostozhenka
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The facade nodes. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: © Ostozhenka
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The facade nodes. Veren Village housing complex

Copyright: © Ostozhenka

28 October 2022

Written by:
Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

Headlines now

Review

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.

Object

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.

Object

Reconciliation

The restoration of the Salt Warehouse for the Zvenigorod Museum, on the one hand, was quite accurately implemented according to the design of the People’s Architect, and, on the other hand, it was not without some extra research and adjustments, which, in this case, was quite beneficial for the project. The architects discovered the original paint color, details of the facades, and studied the history of rebuilds of this building. As a result, the imposing character of the empire building, the oldest one in the city, and the differences of later additions were accurately revealed. Most importantly, however, the city got a new cultural and public space, which is already “working” in full swing.

From Moscow to Khabarovsk

This year, the works submitted by the students of the Genplan Institute of Moscow included a proposal for revitalizing Moscow’s “Pravda” complex with its structures designed by Ilia Golosov, landscaping an East Siberian town, located a 12-hour drive away from the nearest big city, and three versions of turning a derelict “pioneer camp” into an educational hub, similar to “Sirius”. Two sites out of three have an interested client, so chances are that the students’ works will be ultimately implemented.

Interview

Harmonization of Intentions

We met and talked with the chief architect of Genplan Institute of Moscow Grigory Mustafin and the chief architect of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Maxim Efanov – about how the master plan of the city is formed. The key to success: gathering data, digital simulation, working with the city people, thinking infrastructure, and presentation.

Object

Cité for Naro-Fominsk

The new neighborhood on an island in the center of Naro-Fominsk continues the ideas of developing the territory of the silk-weaving factory, around which the city actually formed. The authors skillfully mix different formats of mid-rise development and make the most of the island location, offering a variety of formats of interaction with water, available to all citizens. No wonder that the project is considered exemplary and worthy of duplication in the region. It is also an example of rare synergy between the client and the architects.

Object

A Tower and a Manor House

The concept of a high-density residential district replacing a set of outdated privately owned houses in Yekaterinburg preserves the street grid and, in some cases, even the scale of construction. OSA Architects combine towers with townhouses and other types of housing, orienting the silhouette composition towards a pedestrian boulevard. Through non-linear routes and spatial diversity, the residents will see their neighborhood in a new way every day.

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The Warm Stone

The housing complex in Zelenogorsk is interpreted by Mayak architects as a scatter of stones. The unconventional outline of houses with a pentagon plan not only helped to form the image part of the project, but also facilitated the architects’ work with the density of construction and insolation of the apartments.

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For All Times

The modular technology combined with the building material of glued wood allows the architectural company Rhizome to create quick-mount hotels (no less!) that are highly rated by the architectural community: last week, the new hotel “Vremena Goda. Igora” scored three awards. Below, we are examining the project in detail.

Review

The Other Way Around

Few awards instead of many, the award ceremony conducted on the first day instead of last, projections instead of sketch boards, trees inside and art objects outside – the renewal of the Architecton festival seemingly took the sure-fire path of turning all the professional traditions upside down – or at least those that happened to be within the scope of the organizers’ attention. There’s certainly a lot to pick on, but the exhibition does feel fresh and improvisational. It looks that pretty soon these guys will set trends for Moscow as well. We shared with you about some elements of the festival in our Telegram channel, and now we are examining the whole thing.

ArchiWOOD-14: Building Bridges

This season, the festival’s jury decided not to award a grand prize: judging by the fact that the shortlist included several projects that had not reached the award in previous years, and the “best house” was pronounced to be an undoubtedly beautiful but mass-produced model, the “harvest” of wooden buildings in 2023 was not too abundant. However, there were many unusual typologies among the finalists, and restoration and revitalization projects received their share of recognition. Let’s take a look at all the finalists.

Object

The Chinese Symphony

The construction of the Chinese center “Huaming Park” has been a long story that came to fruition relatively recently. The building is adjacent to a traditional Chinese garden, but it is very modern, laconic and technological, and the simple-in-form, yet spectacular, white lamellae promise to someday be incorporated as a media facade. This complex is also truly multifunctional: it contains different types of living spaces, offices, a large fitness center, conference halls and restaurants – all wrapped in one volume. You can comfortably hold international forums in it, having everything you may possibly need at your fingertips, and going outside only to take a walk. In this article, we are examining this complex in detail.

Object

Ensemble of Individualities

Construction of the first phase of the INDY Towers multifunctional complex on Kuusinen Street, designed by Ostozhenka, has started. The project opens new angles of similarity between the column and the skyscraper, and we examine the nuances and parallels.

Object

Black and Red

Kazakov Grand Loft received its name for a reason: responding to the client’s brief and proceeding from the historical industrial architecture of its immediate surroundings, Valery Kanyashin and Ostozhenka architects proposed a new version of a modern house designed in the fashionable “loft” style. What makes this building different is the fact that the bricks here are dark gray, and the facades of the romantic “fortress” towers blossom with magnificent glazing of the windows in the upper part. The main highlight of the complex, however, is the multiple open air terraces situated on different levels.

Object

Icy Hospitality

Mezonproject has won the national architectural and town planning competition for designing a hotel and a water recreation center in the city of Irkutsk. The architects chose hummocks of Baikal ice as a visual image.

Object

The Mastery of Counterpoint

In the sculpture of Classical Greece, counterpoint was first invented: the ability to position the human body as if it were about to take a step, imbuing it with a hint of the energy of future movement, and with hidden dynamics. For architecture, especially in the 20th century and now, this is also one of the main techniques, and the ATRIUM architects implement it diligently, consistently – and always slightly differently. The new residential complex “Richard” is a good example of such exploration, based on the understanding of contrasts in the urban environment, which was fused into the semblance of a living being.

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Countryside Avant-Garde

The project of the museum of Aleksey Gastev, the ideologist of scientific organization of work, located in his hometown of Suzdal, is inscribed in multiple contexts: the contest of a small town, the context of avant-garde design, the context of “lean production”, and the context of the creative quest of Nikolai Lyzlov’s minimalist architecture – and it seems to us that this project even reveals a distant memory of the fact that Aleksey Gastev learned his craft in France.

in memoriam

In memory of Jean-Louis Cohen

Marina Khrustaleva – about Jean-Louis Cohen (20.07.1949-7.08.2023), French architect and architectural historian that specialized in modern architecture and city planning.

Object

On the Hills

In the project by Studio 44, the “distributed” IT campus of Nizhny Novgorod is based on well-balanced contracts. Sometimes it is hovering, sometimes undulating, sometimes towering over a rock. For every task, the architects found appropriate form and logic: the hotels are based on a square module, the academic buildings are based on a “flying” one, and so on. Modernist prototypes, specifically, Convent Sainte-Marie de La Tourette, stand next to references to the antique Forum and the tower of a medieval university – as well as next to contextual allusions that help inscribe the buildings of the future campus into the landscape of the city hills with their dominants, high slopes, breathtaking river views, the historical city center, and the Nizhny Novgorod University.

Report

The Magic Carpet

The anniversary exhibition of Totan Kuzembaev’s drawings named “Event Horizons” shows both very old drawings made by the architect in the formative 1980’s, and now extracted from the Museum of Architecture, as well as quite a few pictures from the “Weightlessness” series that Totan Kuzembaev drew specifically for this exhibition in 2023. It seemed to us that the architect represented reality from the point of view of someone levitating in space, and sometimes even upside down, like a magic carpet with multiple layers.

Object

A Copper Step

Block 5, designed by ASADOV architects as part of the “Ostrov” (“Island”) housing complex, is at the same time grand-scale, conspicuous thanks to its central location – and contextual. It does not “outshout” the solutions used in the neighboring buildings, but rather gives a very balanced implementation of the design code: combining brick and metal in light and dark shades and large copper surfaces, orthogonal geometry on the outside and flexible lines in the courtyard.

Object

The Light for the Island

For the first time around, we are examining a lighting project designed for a housing complex; but then again, the authors of the nighttime lighting of the Ostrov housing complex, UNK lighting, proudly admit that this project is not just the largest in their portfolio, but also the largest in this country. They describe their approach as a European one, its chief principles being smoothness of transitions, comfort to the eye, and the concentration of most of the light at the “bottom” level – meaning, it “works” first of all for pedestrians.

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Spots of Light

A new housing complex in Tyumen designed by Aukett Swanke is a very eye-pleasing example of mid-rise construction: using simple means of architectural expression, such as stucco, pitched roofs, and height changes, the architects achieve a “human-friendly” environment, which becomes a significant addition to the nearby park and forest.

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Ledges and Swirls

The housing complex “Novaya Zarya” (“New Dawn”) designed by ASADOV Architects will become one of the examples of integrated land development in Vladivostok. The residential area will be characterized by various typologies of its housing sections, and a multitude of functions – in addition to the social infrastructure, the complex will include pedestrian promenades, shopping malls, office buildings, and recreational facilities. The complex is “inscribed” in a relief with a whopping 40-meter height difference, and overlooks the Amur Bay.

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Agglomeration on an Island

Recently, an approval came for the master plan of the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk agglomeration, which was developed by a consortium headed by the Genplan Institute of Moscow. The document provides for the creation of 12 clusters, the totality of which will give the region a qualitative leap in development and make the island more self-sufficient, more accessible, and less dependent on the mainland. We are inviting you to examine the details.

Interview

Ivan Grekov: “A client that wants to make a building that is “about architecture” is...

In this article, we are talking to Ivan Grekov, the leader of the architectural company KAMEN (translates as “stone”), the author of many high-profile projects that have been built in Moscow in the recent years, about the history of his company, about different approaches to form making, about different meanings of volume and facade, and about “layers” in working with the environment – at the example of two projects by Osnova Group. These are the MIRAPOLIS complex on the Mira Avenue in Rostokino, whose construction began at the end of last year, and the multifunctional complex in the 2nd Silikatny Proezd on the Zvenigorodsky Highway; recently, it received all the required approvals.

Report

Grasping and Formulating

The special project “Tezisy” (“Abstracts”), showcased at Arch Moscow exhibition in Moscow’s Gostiny Dvor, brought together eight young “rock stars of architecture”, the headliner being Vladislav Kirpichev, founder of the EDAS school. In this article, we share our impressions of the installations and the perspectives of the new generation of architects.

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The White Tulip

Currently, there are two relevant projects for the Great Cathedral Mosque in Kazan, which was transferred to a land site in Admiralteiskaya Sloboda in February. One of them, designed by TsLP, was recently showcased at Arch Moscow. In this article, we are covering another project, which was proposed during the same period for the same land site. Its author is Aleksey Ginzburg, the winner of the 2022 competition, but now the project is completely different. Today, it is a sculptural “flower” dome symbolizing a white tulip.

News

ATRIUM’s Metaverse

The architectural company ATRIUM opened a gallery of its own in a metaverse. Inside, one can examine the company’s approach and main achievements, as well as get some emotional experience. The gallery is already hosting cyberspace business meetings and corporate events.

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From Darkness to Light

Responding to a lengthy list of limitations and a lengthy – by the standards of a small building – list of functions, Vladimir Plotkin turned the project of the Novodevichy Monastery into a light, yet dynamic statement of modern interpretation of historical context, or, perhaps, even interpretation of light and darkness.