По-русски

The Life of Iron

The building of the Vyksa Metallurgy Museum, designed by Nikita Yavein and Sergey Padalko, provides for the natural aging of metal – it is planned that the iron will gradually rust – at the same time utilizing the advanced type of construction, based on metal’s ability to stretch. The building will be constructed from pipes and rolled steel supplied by OMK company, as well as from recycled bricks.

Julia Tarabarina

Written by:
Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

23 December 2022
Object
mainImg
Vyksa is not just a minor city catering for the large and successful metallurgical plant owned by OMK company. Over the recent years, the city has become famous for the festival of modern urban culture, lots of graffiti, yard improvement projects, and an art residence, which has recently moved to a new building. The ponds have landscaped beaches, architects are commissioned to design bus stops and projects of renewing the city space – in a word, OMK and its “OMK Uchastie” charity foundation do a lot to create in this city something that you could describe as a “spot-on metropolitan aura”. In 2017, the city hosted an international competition for the right to decorate one of the plant’s outside walls.

Meanwhile, the project of Shukhov Park is an initiative of a quite different scale. It is situated in the city center, stretching along the dam of the Verkhnevyksynsky Pond that has a protected status as a heritage site of local importance, because it was built still in the XVIII century. The park starts from the Metallurgov Square in front of the Batashevs palace, where now the museum house of these factory owners is situated. The embankment was landscaped in 2019 in accordance with the project developed by Wowhaus; this same company developed the concept for the entire park. Soon, key engineering exhibits from the Vyksa OMK plant will be moved over here, these being the water tower and the grid shell of the sheet rolling shop, both having to do with the engineering research by engineer Vladimir Shukhov. The park will also include the building of Quantorium, an educational technology park for children, which, in addition to standard laboratories, will feature a metallurgical quantumum, engineered specifically for Vyksa. The Quantorium is being designed by Ostozhenka and Andrey Gnezdilov; and the hotel, which will stretch along the embankment – by Front Architecture. In a word, this project is a resonant one, and in many respects unique, at least due to its sheer scale, and also because of the fact that the entire park is situated about 6 or 8 meters below the water level, like fields in the Netherlands. 

As for the “Center of Industrial Progress” museum, this is the key, the most noticeable, and the fundamental part of the ambitious Vyksa project. The museum will be built on the territory of the Batashevs’ first iron foundry, which has existed here since the XVIII century (the dam was built specifically for it).

“Shukhov park”. Master plan. Vyksa, project, 2022. The Center of Industrial Progress is top right, in the northern part, next to the Metallurgov Square
Copyright: © Studio 44


In the project, developed by Nikita Yavein (Studio 44) and Sergey Padalko (Vitruvius and Sons), the building of the future museum justifies the ambitions connected with it: the architects not just set for themselves a task to competently design a public building (that’s something that’s expected!) – but to make the building bring forward and express the very essence and intrinsic nature of metal and metallurgy.

author photo

Nikita Yavein, Company:

This project is very important to me. We were able to touch something that we rarely get to work with: the very origins, the primacy of the material, and something that I would describe as the basics of our material world and life in general. This is a kind of “pre-architecture”, an architecture that comes before architecture.

The main idea is that metal has the ability to stretch, whereas most of the traditional structures as we know them – brick and stone walls, domes, vaults – are designed to utilize compression. Of course, stretching has always existed as a kind of parallel culture in tents, including architectural ones. But the metal’s ability to stretch began to be used much later, in the constructions of the XX century, including Shukhov, and especially in the works of engineers of the post-war period. In my opinion, the building of the St. Petersburg CCM stadium, which has unfortunately been torn down now, was very characteristic in this sense: its sag, a kind of “belly” hanging over the interior space, was very spectacular, and it precisely stretching-based.

In the Vyksa project of the “Center of Industrial Progress”, we return this primary function and expressiveness of metal.

In addition, we plan to use only those materials that are available locally. The plant produces, among other things, pipes and rolled steel – we take pipes of different grades and make columns of the peripters out of these materials. We take rolled steel and make “stretching” ceilings out of it. All this will be made of natural metal, which will be naturally and gradually covered with a patina, turning into a semblance of Corten steel. We consider the rusting of metal to be also a sort of installation.


Nikita Yavein calls this museum “The Temple of Metal” or “The Temple of Hephaestus”. 

It does look like a temple, or even a temple complex – an ancient monument of some Paestum archaic, austere and laconic, like a megalith, maybe unearthed or maybe growing from the earth, intrinsically wild and akin to this earth itself, from which, as a matter of fact, metal is extracted.

The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
Copyright: © Studio 44


author photo
Of course, this project was a very interesting one; it is my personal favorite. There are a lot of unique things in it, starting from building things below the water level: walking down the embankment at the level of the city pavement, you will be able to see the roof of the two-tiered exhibition building, that’s for sure. We were very impressed with the place, the factory, and the Shukhov structures. There was a time when we were thinking about how to work with this material, like, what can be opposed to it? And I would say that we came up with something that to some extent can be considered as “anti-Shukhov”: the roof sheets that stretch between the columns are completely different, and at the same time their functioning is interesting from an engineering point of view. We calculated that a thickness of 6 mm would be enough, but we laid 8 mm as a margin of corrosion.

And I have been observing the process of patina formation for six months in real time: it was a pity to throw away the column that was part of our installation at the ArchMoscow exhibition – I took it to my country home, and it stands there, changing from month to month. This thing is really a living being – and I think that it will be exciting to watch this effect on the scale of a whole building.
 





First things first, though. The territory stretches along the pond bank, starting from the Metallurgov Square in front of the Batashevs house. Here, in the north part, three museum buildings of different size and width are situated, standing parallel to one another and the bank. Each of the volumes is a “peripter”, even though the term is not quite accurate because the columns (which are in fact metal pipes of varying diameter!) are only present on the longitudinal sides. Between the rows of columns, the architects “suspended” metal sheets that form the ceilings. The metal sheets will be exposed, and the water will simply flow down at a small angle, in the most natural of ways. Only in the warm contour, a ceiling with heat insulation is provided.

Thus, the structure is as exposed as can be, and a certain bravado of metal can be seen in it – heavy and hovering at the same time.

A layout.The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
Copyright: © Studio 44


Since the rows of columns, as we already said, are only longitudinal, what comes to mind is a comparison not just with the peripters, but also with the streets of the antique – and, broader, southern – cities, protected from the sunlight by awnings.

Both comparisons are appropriate; it is even important that there are two of them: the similarity to the peripters makes one feel the whole monumental character of the structures – and at the same time can be traced back to 200-year history of designing European museums in the form of Ancient Greek temples, and, moreover, the asymmetry of the complex is precisely in the paradigm of the neo-Greek architectural design. At the same time, the analogy with the streets allows you to feel the composition and the town planning meaning of the museum ensemble, because it is skillfully inscribed into the context, reveals axes and views, at the same time avoiding closing or “cutting” the space, and interconnecting it with new “rays”.

The main axis starts from the Batashevs house and the Metallurgov Square, immediately taking a visible shape of a metallic pedestrian bridge, whose line is continued (on the level of the second floor) by a “street” running between the eastern and central buildings, and points to the main landmark – the Shukhov water tower at the square behind the museum. The bridge and the “street” behind it allows you to pass on the same level from the city and through the museum, finally descending the three staircases to the farther square and then into the park.

  • zooming
    1 / 6
    The master plan. The red marks te axis running from the Metallurgov Square to the Shukhov Tower through the pedestrian bridge. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
    Copyright: © Studio 44
  • zooming
    2 / 6
    Plan of the 1st floor. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
    Copyright: © Studio 44
  • zooming
    3 / 6
    Plan of the 2nd floor. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
    Copyright: © Studio 44
  • zooming
    4 / 6
    Plan of the 3rd floor. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
    Copyright: © Studio 44
  • zooming
    5 / 6
    Section view 3-3. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
    Copyright: © Studio 44
  • zooming
    6 / 6
    Section views 1-1 and 2-2. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
    Copyright: © Studio 44


We will note here that the narrow central “peripter” has no walls on its second floor: this is an open colonnade that displays just one (although very big) exhibit – judging from the project, this is the grid shell dome; its surging contour “salutes” to the sag of the metallic ceiling. Thus, entering by the bridge, walking in a straight line from the city, on the level of the second floor, you can not only reach the tower but also wander amidst the columns underneath the vault and cross over to the next street. As was already said, the “pipe” columns are of varying diameter – they are thinner in the central part, and thicker at the side ends. One can see three streets here or maybe a hypostyle hall – a public space. In this place, a few auxiliary museum exits/entrances will be provided.

The main axis running from the Mettalurgov Square, the Shukhov Tower ahead. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
Copyright: © Studio 44


Another museum square is situated before the pedestrian bridge, 6 meters lower than the water level in the pond or the Metallurgov city square. The level of the first floor is accessed by a wide staircase, cut with ramps, which streams over the slope. Here, left of the entrance, one will see another outdoor exposition zone – the so-called “Martin Garden”, consisting of “large-sized production machinery” used in the open-hearth workshop. In one version of the project, the authors even proposed a waterfall on one of the sidewalls. Further, from the side of the dam, the two remaining furnaces from the cast-iron plant are exposed, being also a part of the outdoor exposition.

The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
Copyright: © Studio 44


All of this – the outdoor exposition zone, the giant staircase, and the double-level space with a bridge overhead – even the very thought that we are lower than the waterline – works to create a wow-effect, and is, of course, mesmerizing. We descend the iron staircase and find ourselves in a garden of “aging” iron.

The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
Copyright: © Studio 44


I will remind you that the ensemble is asymmetrical, and all the three buildings are of different sizes. The central one is long and narrow, it’s only 12 meters wide, and the width of the “streets” on its sides is 6 meters, only half of that length. The first floor of the central building includes the museum vestibule and a cafe, lit by circular skylights that look like the ones in Saint Petersburg‘s Pulkovo airport.

The cafe zone. The central building, teh 1st floor. The skylight in the ceiling. Version 2. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
Copyright: © Studio 44


The western building of the museum, situated right of the Batashevs house, is squatting and almost square. On the 1st floor there is a storage room, administration offices, guide rooms and toilets, and on the 2nd floor there are halls for temporary exhibitions.

The eastern building, on the other hand, is the longest and the tallest. On the inside, there is a three-tier, triple-height space, surrounded by galleries; in the north end, there is an amphitheater the full height of the building. It is planned to place the permanent exposition here. In this particular case, the tall space in the center of the hall is necessary not only from the aesthetic standpoint: this place keeps the remnants of the walls of blast furnace and foundry workshops of the XVIII century, endowed with the cultural heritage status. Essentially, the museum hall is built around them like a semblance of a “case”. Needless to say, the preserved remains of the walls in the interior will look like dinosaur skeletons in the atrium of the Museum of Paleontology – that is, quite spectacular and atmospheric.

  • zooming
    1 / 3
    Plan of the 1st floor. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
    Copyright: © Studio 44
  • zooming
    2 / 3
    Plan of the 2nd floor. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
    Copyright: © Studio 44
  • zooming
    3 / 3
    Plan of the 3rd floor. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
    Copyright: © Studio 44


Anyway, the central building is the tallest one. It is also exquisite and transparent; it is a landmark, a vestibule, and a portico. Preserving yet another relic, it points to another one, the water tower.

The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
Copyright: © Studio 44


The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
Copyright: © Studio 44


The Shukhov tower rises above the territory of the museum having a full right to it, like the monument to engineering thought, standing tall its entire historical height of 32 meters. As for the museum itself – a modern building – it behaves quite tactfully, observing the height restrictions set by the vicinity of the Batashevs house. Its height, counting from the zero elevation mark, is 14.4 meters, and if we are to count the 6-meter deepening of the museum territory, the colonnade of the central building rises by no more than 8 meters, and the two other volumes simply “sprawl” on the ground.

The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
Copyright: © Studio 44


  • zooming
    The facades. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
    Copyright: © Studio 44
  • zooming
    The facades. The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
    Copyright: © Studio 44


Thus, several conceptual tensions appear in the project. One tension is between the contextual tact and the bold architectural statement, quite in the spirit of modern art. It is for a good reason that Nikita Yavein likens this museum to an installation.

Another kind of tension is the one between the purity of the idea and the subtleties of realization, which are, of course, there. The architects admit that the “raw” factory metal will nevertheless receive some additives for beautiful aging – i.e. the material will still be treated specially for this building. They also admit that the ceiling will conceal extra beams meant to reinforce the structure. And, finally, the stained glass windows, to be quite honest, will not be of local origin, but will be brought from elsewhere – in the “performance” architecture they occupy a neutral position. But then again, the building is not a chemical experiment – it requires purity not so much from the ingredients as from the imagery.

The third (and the main) esthetic tension is between the past and the future, and it is the most complicated of all, too. According to the organizers, the museum will “explain the history of human civilization, refracting it through the prism of metal”. Meanwhile, the press calls it “The Center of Industrial Progress”, which makes us presuppose two components: history and something that is directed into the future. The history component is more or less clear: it is represented by the cupola towers, the remains of the walls of the Blast Furnace and Foundry buildings with the cultural heritage status, and even by a pile of bricks of different times – from the XVIII century to the 1960s – extracted from later-dismantled buildings, similar to the material from the archaeological excavation, reused for the walls of the museum.

The other pole is all about “raw” factory metal of pipes and intermediate floors. Taken in its current state, it starts its life from the moment of construction, and it is prescribed to rust naturally, to gradually change, and to live a life of its own, so that after a while this “new” substance would cyclically become similar to “old”, sinking into an earthy velvety tone similar to that of the brick wall. Are we witnessing progress getting old?

The museum complex “Center of Industrial Progress”, Vyksa, project, 2022
Copyright: © Studio 44


At the same time, aging the metal and inviting us to watch the aging process, the architects work with a new, quite modern type of construction, which utilizes – let’s go back to the beginning of this article – the ability of metal to stretch. They turn to the history of modernism, hence the suspended vaults and skylights, yet at the same time they emphasize the relevance and modern character of these structures, just “thrown” over the colonnades. What we see is an interesting attitude towards the progress: it is productive, yet fleeting, it is devoured by patina, and it is “unearthed” like a pseudo ruin.

Pseudo-ruins are very relevant today: essentially, they are all about new progress, they are all about the dream to unearth some powerful artifact, something that will change your life forever. Science fiction movies and books immediately come to mind. It is these movies and books that show us, jam-packing the retrospective as much as possible, how progress turns into historical layers, goes underground and resurfaces again. And it shows us just how strange powerful things may look.

Thus, the first episode of Star Wars and the timeless image of the Russian “gravitsapa”, a rusty nut that is nonetheless capable of ensuring intergalactic travel, also come to mind.

***

As an epilogue, I must say that the Vyksa museum project is but one of a whole series of museums in the portfolio of Studio 44, and it inherits numerous interesting solutions: the search for axes and working with the space, including public spaces, staircases, squares and amphitheaters (indoor and outdoor), “megalithic” inclusions, contrastive pairs, bold, to the point of brutal, shapes, and striving for integrity, combined with carefully calculated, clear and logic distribution of functions that comes together as a jigsaw puzzle, or, rather, like a 3D erector set. It is enough to recall the wing of the General Staff and the Museum of Locomotives, the projects of the Sovrisk Museum in Ufa, the Blockade Museum in St. Petersburg, the Museum of Technology in Tomsk – the list may continue.

The Vyksa metal museum fits in perfectly among the “megalith museums”; it is easy to find the same techniques and advantages in it. The architectural language is reinforced by industrial themes, and is raised to the level of modern art.

In other words, everyone now loves the old industrial buildings preserved and reconstructed – but how do we take the next step, turn these sympathies into a figurative statement? The “beautifully rusting” museum in Vyksa, perhaps, gives an answer to the question.

23 December 2022

Julia Tarabarina

Written by:

Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov
Headlines now
Julius Borisov: “The “Island” housing complex is a unique project – we took it on with...
One of the largest housing projects of today’s Moscow – the “Ostrov” (“Island”) housing complex built by Donstroy – is now being actively built in the Mnevniky Floodplain. They are planning to build about 1.5M square meters of housing on an area of almost 40 hectares. We are beginning to examine this project– first of all, we are talking to Julius Borisov, the head of the architectural company UNK, which works with most of the residential blocks in this grand-scale project, as well as with the landscaping part; the company even proposed a single design code for the entire territory.
A Balanced Solution
The residential complex “Balance” on Moscow’s Ryazansky Prospekt is one of the large-scale, and relatively economical (again, by Moscow standards) housing projects. Its first phase has already been built and landscaped; the work on the others is in progress. Nevertheless, it has an integral internal logic, which is based on the balance of functions, height, and even image and space composition. The proposed solutions are recognizable and laconic, so that each of them was reduced by the authors to a graphic “logo”. To see everything, you have to flip through the pages and look through to the end.
Horror Vacui
In the city of Omsk, ASADOV architects took on a very challenging task: they are developing a concept of a public and residential complex, which involves reconstructing the city’s first thermal power station standing right next to Omsk’s first fortress. This territory has already seen a lot of projects designed for it, and the residential function of this land site has been the subject of heated debate. In this article, we are examining the project in question, aimed at developing a mid-scale city fabric suited for the historical center. We also examine the above-mentioned debate. Seriously, will this project save this place or will it bring it to ruin?
A Multi-Faced Grotto
This building, seemingly small, unremarkable, semi-ruined, and not even very ancient – the Grotto in the Bauman Garden – was restored by the “People’s Architect” architectural company with all the care applicable to a heritage monument. They preserved the romantic appeal of the ruins, added multimedia content, and explored the cascading fountain, which, as it turned out, was completely preserved. Brace yourself for a long story!
First among Equals
The building of a kindergarten in the town of Beloyarsky is more than just another example of a modern educational space. Its design began a long time ago; it is located in Russia’s Far North; it is also a state-owned facility that is subject to regulations, and had to cut costs during construction (as usual). However, the design is contemporary, the layout is modern, and the building feels very fresh. The project is planned to be replicated.
Gustave Falconnier
In the “ruin” wing of Moscow’s Museum of Architecture, an exhibition of “glass bricks” by Gustave Falconnier is open. These “bricks” are essentially the predecessors of glass blocks, but more complex and beautiful. The exhibition shows genuine “bricks”, buildings composed of them, the history of the destruction of Falconnier windows in the building of the State Archives, and it also became one of the reasons to revive this unique production technology.
​Streamline for City Canyons
Stepan Liphart has designed two houses for two small land sites situated in the area surrounding the Varshavsky Railway Station, which is being intensively developed now. The sites are situated close but not next to each other, and they are different, yet similar: the theme is the same but it is interpreted in different ways. In this issue, we are examining and comparing both projects.
​The Eastern Frontier
“The Eastern Arc” is one of the main land resources of Kazan’s development, concentrated in the hands of a single owner. The Genplan Institute of Moscow has developed a concept for the integrated development of this territory based on an analytical transport model that will create a comfortable living environment, new centers of attraction, and new workplaces as well.
A School of Our Time
On the eve of the presentation of the new book by ATRIUM, dedicated to the design of schools and other educational facilities, based on the architects’ considerable experience, as well as expert judgments, we are examining the Quantum STEM school building, constructed according to their project in Astana. Furthermore, this building is planned to be the first one to start a new chain. The architects designed it in full accordance with modern standards but sometimes they did break away from them – only to confirm the general development rules. For example, there are two amphitheaters in the atrium, and there is an artificial hill in the yard that is meant to make the flat terrain of the Kazakhstan steppe more eventful.
The Fluffy Space
Designing the passenger terminal of the Orenburg airport, ASADOV architects continue to explore the space theme that they first introduced in Saratov and Kemerovo airports. At the same time, the architects again combine the global and the local, reflecting topics inspired by the local conceptual context. In this case, the building is “covered” by an Orenburg downy shawl – an analogy that is recognizable enough, yet not literal; some will see the reference and some won’t.
The White Fitness Center
The white health and fitness center, designed by Futura Architects at the entrance to St. Petersburg’s New Piter residential complex, provides the developing area not only with functional but also with sculptural diversity, livening up the rows of the brick city blocks with the whiteness of its seamless facades, cantilevered structures, and dynamic inclined lines.
The New Dawn
In their project of a technology park to be built on the grounds of “Integrated Home-Building Factory 500” in Tyumen Oblast – the biggest in Russia – the HADAA architects preserve not just the industrial function of the giant hangar built in the late 1980s and 90% of its structures, but also respond to its imagery. They also propose a “gradient” approach to developing the available areas: from open public ones to staff-only professional spaces. The goal of this approach is to turn the technology park into the driver for developing the business function between the industrial zones and the future residential area in accordance with the Integrated Land Development program.
​Tame Hills for New Residents
T+T Architects have reported that they have completed the landscaping project for the yard of the first stage of Alexandrovsky Garden housing complex in Ekaterinburg – the landscape complements the contextual architecture, tailored for the buyers’ preferences and downtown standards, with bold neo modernist master strokes and lush and diverse vegetation.
The Crystal of the City Block
The typology and plastique of large housing complexes move with the times, and you can sometimes find new subtleties in the scope of seemingly familiar solutions. The Sky Garden complex combines two well-known themes, forming a giant residential area consisting of tall slender towers, placed at the perimeter of a large yard, in which a crossroads of two pedestrian promenades is “dissolved”.
Sunshine, Air, and Water
The construction of the “Solnechny” (“Sunny”) summer camp, designed by ARENA project institute, has been completed, the largest summer camp within the legendary Artek seaside resort for children. It was conceived still in Soviet time, but it was not implemented. The modern version surprises you with sophisticated engineering solutions that are combined with a clear-cut structure: together, they generate Asher-esque spaces.
​Art Deco at the Edge of Space
The competition project by Stepan Liphart – a high-end residential complex executed in a reserved classicist style in close proximity to the Kaluga Space Museum – responds equally well to the context and to the client’s brief. It is moderately respectable, moderately mobile and transparent, and it even digs a little into the ground to comply with strict height restrictions, without losing proportions and scale.
​A Hill behind the Wall
The master plan of a new residential area in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, developed by the Genplan Institute of Moscow with the participation of Kengo Kuma & Associates, is based on the complexities and advantages of the relief of the foothills: the houses are arranged in cascades, and multi-level improvement penetrates all the blocks, continuing in forest trails.
Going, Going, Gone!
The housing complex “Composers’ Residences” has been built in accordance with the project by Sergey Skuratov, who won the international competition back in 2011. It all began from the image search and “cutting off all spare”, and then implementing the recognizable Skuratov architecture. It all ended, however, in tearing down the buildings of the Schlichterman factory, whose conservation was stipulated by all the appropriate agencies prior to approving Skuratov’s project. This story seems to be educational and important for understanding the history of all the eleven years, during which the complex was designed and built.
The Life of Iron
The building of the Vyksa Metallurgy Museum, designed by Nikita Yavein and Sergey Padalko, provides for the natural aging of metal – it is planned that the iron will gradually rust – at the same time utilizing the advanced type of construction, based on metal’s ability to stretch. The building will be constructed from pipes and rolled steel supplied by OMK company, as well as from recycled bricks.
​And the Brook is Flowing
ASADOV Architects have designed a master plan for developing a residential area at the outskirts of Kaliningrad: a regular grid of housing blocks is enriched by large-scale public facilities, the main “artery” of the new area being the fortification channel that regains its original function.
Off We Go!
The new terminal of the Tomsk airport is being designed by ASADOV bureau. The architects keep on developing its identity, building the imagery upon the inventions of Nikolai Kamov, whose name the airport bears. The result is laconic, light, and, as always, levitating.
Maximum Flexibility
The Multispace Dinamo, which recently opened within the Arena business center, is an example of a project that is entirely based upon cutting-edge approaches and technologies. It is managed via a mobile application, special software was created for it, and the spaces are not just multifunctional but carefully mixed up, like some kind of jigsaw puzzle that allows the office workers to mix their working routine for better efficiency.
A Factory’s Path
Last week, the new center for constructivist studies “Zotov” hosted its first exhibition named “1922. Constructivism. The Inception”. The idea of creating this center belongs to Sergey Tchoban, while the project of the nearest houses and adjusting the building of the bread factory for the new museum function was done by the architect in collaboration with his colleagues from SPEECH. We decided that such a complex project should be examined in its entirety – and this is how we came up with this long-read about constructivism on Presnya, conservation, innovation, multilayered approach, and hope.
The Savelovsky Axis
The business center, situated right in the middle of a large city junction next to the Savelovsky Railway Station takes on the role of a spatial axis, upon which the entire place hinges: it spins like a spiral, alternating perfect glass of the tiers and deep recessions of inter-tier floors that conceal little windows invented by the architects. It is sculptural, and it claims the role of a new city landmark, in spite of its relatively small height of nine floors.
Parametric Waves
In the housing complex Sydney City, which FSK Group is building in the area of Shelepikhinskaya Embankment, Genpro designed the central city block, combining parametric facades and modular technology within its architecture.
The Multitone
The new interior of the Action Development headquarters can be regarded as an attempt to design the perfect “home” for the company – not just comfortable but broadcasting the values of modern development. It responds to the context, yet it is built on contrast, it is fresh but cozy, it is dynamic, yet it invites you to relax – everything of this coexists here quite harmoniously, probably because the architects found an appropriate place for each of the themes.
Refinement No Longer Relevant
A few days ago journalists were shown the building of Bread Factory #5, renovated upon the project by Sergey Tchoban. In this issue, we are publishing Grigory Revzin’s thoughts about this project.
The Comb of Strelna
In this issue, we are taking a close look at the project that won the “Crystal Daedalus” award – the “Veren Village” housing complex in Strelna, designed by Ostozhenka. Its low-rise format became a trigger for typological and morphological experiments – seemingly, we are seeing recognizable trends, yet at the same time there are a multitude of subtleties that are a pleasure to go into. Having studied this project in detail, we think that the award is well-deserved.
A Tectonic Shift
For several years now, Futura Architects have been working with the “New Peter” residential area in the south of St. Petersburg. In this article, we are covering their most recent project – a house, in which the architects’ architectural ideas peacefully coexist with the limitations of comfort-class housing, producing a “multilayered” effect that looks very attractive for this typology.
Three “Green” Stories
In this issue, we are examining three environmental urban projects showcased by the Genplan Institute of Moscow at the Zodchestvo festival. The scale of the projects is really diverse: from gathering information and suggestions from the residents on a city scale to growing meadow grass between houses to paintings, which, as it turned out, possess power to cure trees, healing their wounded bark. + a list of kinds of plants natural for Moscow to help the developer.