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15 Best Projects for Moscow Region

Mosoblarchitecture has conducted the first architectural competition named “The Best Project for Moscow Region”, and a namesake festival, in the course of which they discussed new trends in the mass housing construction and awarded the winners – 15 projects in 5 nominations.

Natalia Koriakovskaia

Written by:
Natalia Koriakovskaia
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

25 July 2023
Contest Results
mainImg
Although the architectural agency of the Moscow Region organizes conferences, festivals, and seminars/webinars on a regular basis, this was the first festival that involved awards for the top projects. Its task was to “summarize the results of the efforts made in recent years by Mosoblarchitecture to regulate design activity”, but essentially it was to showcase architectural and urban planning solutions worthy of attention.

There were quite a lot of such projects, which made it possible to rank and subsequently award them, holding a contest, and combining it with an architectural festival/conference. The task of the latter was to explain the “rules of the game”, to stipulate the level of design solutions and criteria for their evaluation to everyone who designs and builds in the Moscow region or plans to work there.

About the Festival

The festival was opened by a strategic session devoted to trends and innovations of the Moscow Region in the field of mass housing construction. According to Alexandra Kuzmina, in recent years Mosoblarchitecture has paid somewhat less attention to this area than it has to social facilities, and it is not surprising that the topics for discussion have arisen. One of the topics is CRT, another is modernization of house-building plants, yet another is standards recently approved by the region, to name but a few. The largest builders in the Moscow region are actively using panel house-building technologies.

Social Rehabilitation Center for Support for Young Deaf-Blind Persons with Disabilities/ Project
Copyright: Photograph: provided by Mosoblarchitecture


The prejudice against panelized housing construction, as well as the very qualitative line between panel housing construction and monolith construction, continues to blur. It was heard at the festival that a paradox arises: with the developers who develop territories by hectares, even monolith construction resembles lookalike panel districts – while modernized house-building plants move in the opposite direction: they offer modern panel technology, which allows creating truly customized projects, tied to the architectural context.

Meanwhile, Mosoblarchitecture, regardless of the chosen technology, strives to monitor compliance with urban planning regulations, which are now mandatory in the Moscow region. The architects are also expected to ensure a “third function”, i.e. service and leisure infrastructure, recreational spaces, urban public gardens, amphitheaters, squares, sports hubs, and the like.

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    Festival “Best Projects for Moscow Region”, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph: provided by Mosoblarchitecture
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    Festival “Best Projects for Moscow Region”, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph: provided by Mosoblarchitecture


Examples of their work at the festival were shared by the developer companies PIK, FSK and KROST: PIK showcased a new facade concept, which (thank God!) finally lost the geometric patterns familiar to everyone, but received instead scalloped fragments, accent completions and textured first floors, where the panel is combined with monolith. Representatives of FSK talked about urban planning and technological searches for the sake of transition to flexible compositional solutions combining what they called “beacon buildings” – high-rise and visual dominants – with background development. FSK is now actively experimenting with the aesthetic side of panel construction. KROST is building standard medical and obstetric stations on the basis of its own industrial technology by order of the Moscow Region – and some of them are already complete. On the other hand, the head of the company, Alexey Dobashin, has called for the start of integrating buildings for small and medium-sized industry into new residential neighborhoods, thus creating a variety of jobs and reducing pendulum migration.

Festival “Best Projects for Moscow Region”, 2023
Copyright: Photograph: provided by Mosoblarchitecture


In the second part of the festival, not developers, but architects, the award winners, shared their projects. This award, just like the Moscow Mayor’s Award, was organized on the basis of the presence of an architectural solution agreed by the committee approving the architectural and town-planning image of the project. 90 projects competed in 5 nominations, two of which were related to housing, and another three covered social facilities, public buildings and industrial complexes.

The authors of the projects that scored the top places presented their solutions to the audience of the architectural festival. 

Below, we are covering projects by all the 15 winners.
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    Festival “Best Projects for Moscow Region”, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph: provided by Mosoblarchitecture
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    Festival “Best Projects for Moscow Region”, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph: provided by Mosoblarchitecture
Residential Multistory Real Estate

Dolina Yauzy (“Yauza Valley”) housing complex

where:Russia, Mytishchi
date2022 — 2023 / 2023 —
function:Residential / Residential complex
studio:
BBM Project
https://www.bbm-project.ru/
The winner in the Residential Multistory Real Estate nomination was the first renovation project in the Moscow Region – the three towers of the Yauza Valley Residential Complex, which the Samolet Group is currently building in Mytishchi on Trudovaya Street. What makes it surprising is definitely the fact that we are facing a renovation project, which at the same time looks like “comfort plus”: there are bay windows forming the facade plastique and relief surfaces enlivening it, as well as rental areas in the first floors for cafes, stores and other local businesses.

The first tool of transition to a new level of architecture of a residential building – in this case, by way of renovation – are balconies. Samolet is probably the only one of Moscow region’s developers who not only uses balconies in their projects, but has three types of them – French balconies, so-called “balconies of a lonely smoker” and balconies for tea parties. In this case, the balconies and loggias are assembled vertically two by two and form bay windows with a different outlook: they noticeably liven up the building’s plastique. The bay windows are especially active at the corners, and above them, again two by two, corner windows are situated. All these techniques compensate for the essentially unassuming shape of the towers – thanks to the balconies, they really seem to come alive. Another “vitalizing” technique is relief brickwork, in this case striped. The bricks are angobed, Russian-made, with a different color on each tower.

One more thing: the complex consists of three towers; their plastique is identical, it’s only the color that’s different. Curiously, it was only Tower #3 that got awarded, the one built of the brown brick.
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​“In the Heart of Pushkino” housing complex

where:Russia, Pushkino
date2020 — 9.2020 /
function:Residential / Residential complex
studio:
KPLN
http://www.kpln.ru/
architect:Sergey NikeshkinAndrew Mikhailov
Second-placed in this nomination was the housing complex on the Turgenev Street in Pushkino, designed by KPLN, headed by Sergey Nikeshkin. We already gave a detailed coverage of it here.

The complex has similarities with the already mentioned Yauza project – first of all, it is also a three-tower composition. The towers stand at the edge of woodland; their stylobate unites different public spaces. Elegant “pin-tucks” of the crowning part of each volume are formed by the gradual deepening of the last three floors.
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    View from the Oranzhereinaya Street. Version 1 (main). “In the Heart of Pushkino” housing complex
    Copyright: © KPLN
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    View from the Oranzhereinaya Street. Version 3. “In the Heart of Pushkino” housing complex
    Copyright: © KPLN
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    View from the Oranzhereinaya Street. Version 4. “In the Heart of Pushkino” housing complex
    Copyright: © KPLN
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Building #3 in Otrada housing complex

where:Russia, Otradnoe
date2020 — 2022 / 2022 —
function:Residential / Residential complex
studio:
StalСЊnoe WС‹mya
architect:Sergey Savchuk
Third place in the nomination was scored by the mid-rise part of the Otrada housing complex designed by Chelyabinsk’s architectural company named “Stalьnoe Wыmya” (so spelled!) – neighborhoods with facades built on a combination of dark brick and white surfaces.
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Residential Multistory Real Estate

The housing complex on the Sinichka River

where:Russia
date2019 — 2022 /
function:Residential / Residential complex
studio:
StalСЊnoe WС‹mya
architect:Sergey Savchuk
The winner in this nomination was a residential project on the Sinichka River, near the village of Maryino, also by Stalьnoe Wыmya architects. This project is an example of virtuoso work with the relief: on a narrow, awkward plot with a drop to the river of up to 15 meters and a maximum height of 6 floors, the authors were able to accommodate 15 000 m2 of housing. The houses are characterized by a carefully thought-out vertical layout. We have already told you about the project, so we will only remind you that the relief here is used as an advantage: it hides a three-level parking lot with a ramp-free access to each tier, and its roof is used as a public terrace with sightseeing platforms. The arrangement and angles of the sections are well thought out: the architects managed to find such a solution that the views of the Krasnogorsk forest park are not blocked either by neighboring apartments or nearby housing estate.
It is possible that this project was ahead of the other applicants in terms of scores precisely because the design conditions were not as extreme.
 
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Novaya Shcherbinka housing complex, Stage 2

where:Russia
date — 2023 /
function:Residential / Residential complex
studio:
Archproekt
http://arch-project.ru/
City blocks with a stepped silhouette, ranging from 4 to 8 floors high, alternate white facades with thin faceting, red and dark bricks, projections and ledges – all this makes them look both restrained and diverse at the same time. The houses with low height look fresh and clean, and this is how a comfortable residential environment actually emerges. The peculiarity of the project is that the surface of the courtyards is elevated above the city sidewalk by 60 cm, which made it possible to place the first floor windows high enough, while the entrances to the entryways both at the street level and at the courtyard level are barrier-free.
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The housing complex in Shatura

where:Russia
date — 2023 /
function:Residential / Apartment building
studio:
Architectural bureau of Yuri Vissarionov
http://www.pamvissarionov.ru
architect:Yuri Vissarionov
This brick house with an L-shaped plan has only four floors in it – the paragon of mid-rise construction. The natural material of the facades and the low height make the house cozy, while the triangular bevels above the loggias disguise the protrusions of the technical floor and enliven the silhouette.
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Social Infrastructure

Mayak Adaptation Center for young deaf-blind people

where:Russia, Sergiev Posad
date2019 — 2020 /
function:Hospitality / Health / Health Centre
studio:
PIK-Project
https://www.pik.ru/
ATRIUM
http://atrium.ru/
architect:Vera ButkoAnton Nadtochiy
The winner in the nomination of social facilities – the Mayak Center for the adaptation of deaf-blind people with disabilities by AB ATRIUM – is quite expectable: it is a unique building born out of a unique function. For the architects, the project was definitely a challenge, as here it was necessary to propose architecture capable of working as a unique one-of-a-kind simulator. The architects conducted an in-depth study of the possibilities of materials, textures and their combinations, which formed the basis of a navigation system specially designed for the complex. A few years ago, the project became a WAF nominee.

The task of this complex is to teach people with visual and hearing disabilities to live in the real space of the city, and to teach them with the help of architecture itself, which should give blind and deaf people living here this system of adaptation, as well as real spatial experience. For this reason, the building is not a compact volume, but a complex structure – it consists of different functional blocks connected by a circular route. It is a mini-city, where there is a sports block, assembly hall, workshops, a swimming pool, and each building is highlighted with its own material, which helps develop orientation skills inside.
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The Sports Cluster in Domodedovo

where:Russia, Domodedovo
date — 2021 /
function:Sport / Sports complex
studio:
Architectural bureau of Yuri Vissarionov
http://www.pamvissarionov.ru
architect:Yuri Vissarionov
The second place in the nomination went to a sports complex in Domodedovo designed by Architectural Bureau of Yuri Vissarionov with an indoor soccer arena and an ice rink. The project is interesting because it is a relatively new model of public space for the Moscow region – it integrates sports facilities into a large recreational area. Thus, the city will have a sports mini-district with its own promenade for family recreation.
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The Medical Center in Noginsk

where:Russia, Noginsk
date2022 — 2023 / 2.2023 —
function:Hospitality / Health / Polyclinic
studio:
A2M
https://a2m.moscow/
architect:Dana MatkovskayaAndrey Adamovitch
The 3rd place winner is also interesting – it is a medical center in Noginsk designed by A2M architects. Seemingly, you cannot design anything fundamentally new terms of form when you design a medical center of local significance. However, A2M never ceases to amaze with formal searches and memorable objects. In this case, the architects “molded” an oval building with an inner courtyard from rectangular volumes, each of which consists of a window and a blank wall: the cells reflect the layout of the medical rooms inside and alternate in a staggered order – the building seems to be literally “forming” before our eyes. The layout is thought out in such a way that the courtyard will be convenient to get to any of the six departments of the polyclinic.

The project is designed for duplication, so the facades can be finished with both fiber-cement panels and metal cassettes.
 
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Public buildings and Complexes

The multifunctional complex of “Russia Today” news agency

where:Russia, Pokrovskoe
date — 2021 / 2023 —
function:Hospitality / Health / Resort
studio:
Reforma
https://archreforma.ru/
The best in the category “Public Buildings and Complexes” was recognized the multifunctional suburban complex of the Russia Today International Information Agency designed by Reforma architects. It is being built on the site of an unfinished recreation center, which was started and abandoned at the turn of the 1980-90s. Showing their project to the audience, the architects said that compositionally the complex is “assembled” from its constituent functions: the front and quiet zone, restaurant, administration and media hall. At first, the authors distributed these functions on the territory based on logistical considerations; then, according to the architects, they began to attract and merge one into another “like drops”, forming a bionic shape. A grid of lamellae was “stretched” on top, their frequency and inclination varying in different parts of the volume, so that the buildings somewhat resemble lamellar mushrooms.
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The restaurant in Novogorsk

where:Russia, Khimki
date2022 — / 2023 —
function:Commercial and Retail / Restaurant
studio:
A2M
https://a2m.moscow/
architect:Andrey AdamovitchDana Matkovskaya
The second place went to the project of a restaurant on the bank of a pond near the Alpamed cottage settlement in Novogorsk, Khimki District – however, the entire northern part of the microdistrict consists of cottage settlements, and a restaurant with a view terrace and glass walls should definitely be in demand. The light, long building is laconically reminiscent of the Zoya museum by the same A2M architects: it has both modernist traditions and a modern note – the smooth curves of the walls and the sharpening of the corners of the two volumes adjacent to the glass parallelepiped of the restaurant hall are responsible for it, as well as the facing with half-brick masonry with an alternating western row, thanks to which the facades become textured and striped.
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A multifunctional service building on the Novorizhskoe Highway

where:Russia, Krasnogorsk
date2022 — 2023 /
function:Mixed-use / Mixed-use complex
studio:
Mezonproekt
http://www.mezon.pro
architect:Ilia Mashkov
The building is interesting because it is truly multifunctional: a supermarket on the first floor, a fitness center on the second, and an office on the third, with no function clearly prevalent. In addition, the shape of its volume stretched along the highway is streamlined, with a hint of sculpture; greenish trapezoids, smoothly changing their size, form a pattern on the facades, which helps to level out the scale and adds to the form not only relevance but also integrity.
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Industrial Estate

The pharmaceutical and logistics complex

where:Russia, Solnechnogorsk
date — 2022 /
function:Education /
studio:
RuSkom Project
https://ruscomproject.ru/
The pharmaceutical and logistics complex

The nomination of industrial estate was pretty intriguing because for decades industrial architecture was not considered to be architecture – it was all just utilitarian buildings that had no business being at an architectural competition. However, now the structure of industrial complexes has started to change – more and more often the choice falls on the light industrial format, and the production facilities themselves are united into industrial multifunctional parks, where the issue of competent organization of the environment is finally coming out of the shadows.

The winner in this nomination – the pharmaceutical and logistics complex (designed by RuSkom Project) – is situated in one of Moscow-region industrial parks “Esipovo”, not far away from the town of Solnechnogorsk. The project had in fact several clients, but the architects ultimately convinced them to make a mono volume, which houses multipurpose premises and a large front office that looks more like a business center. The architects confessed that the construction budget was minimal, but they wanted to make the facility comfortable enough: thus, the office has a fitness center, an event area and other public functions. All of those are grouped around the central lobby and represent a system of courtyards and rooms of various configurations, creating a living environment with flexible functionality, which is quite unusual for the industrial sector.

The clients also wanted to save a lot of money on the facades, but even here the architects found a way out: they made them snow-white and broke up the monotony with mosaics. The simple sandwich panels and panoramic glazing made a pretty cool architecture.
 
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Bus station in Bronnitsy

where:Russia, Bronnitsy
date2021 — 2023 / 2022 —
function:Transport /
studio:
Archproekt
http://arch-project.ru/
The Bronnitsy bus station from ARCHPROEKT, which took 2nd place, is a small but beautiful silhouetted building with a folded roof on supports, which certainly deserves an award for following the best traditions of modernist bus stations.
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Overland garage in Lesnaya Otrada Residential Complex

where:Russia
date2019 — 2021 / 2022 — 2023
function:Transport / Garage
studio:
StalСЊnoe WС‹mya
architect:Sergey Savchuk
Third-placed was an overland parking garage in the village of Svetlye Gory, designed by Stalьnoe Wыmya, which has been mentioned here many times. Its peculiarity is the pattern of the metal fence; it really turned out to be beautiful, which transferred a utilitarian building into the category of creativity.
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Hotel and recreational complex in Vereya

where:Russia, Vereja
date — 2022 /
function:Hospitality / Health / Hotel
studio:
Lozinsky
architect:Igor Lozinsky
In addition to the five nominations, the jury awarded one special prize in the category “Public Buildings and Complexes” – a hotel and recreational complex in Vereya by Lozinsky & Partners. The project is indeed outstanding, but it was not eligible to participate in the main competition due to the lack of an agreed architectural and town-planning image. Earlier we have already written about it – the complex is being built on the bank of the Pakhra River, with a panorama to the historical Vereya on the opposite side. The project is complex and unusual, mixing ecological theme with palace traditions of Russian manor and romantic spirit of Bazhenov. Such an atypical conglomeration of ideas eventually gave birth to a hotel composition in the form of a symmetrical arc, partially dug into the relief, with spa and conference zone blocks docked to it, and residential modules covered with shingles, reminiscent of Kizhi domes.
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25 July 2023

Natalia Koriakovskaia

Written by:

Natalia Koriakovskaia
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov
Headlines now
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.
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.
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.
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.
​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.
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.
​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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
​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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
​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.