Genpro considered the development of the vertical city concept and made it the theme of their pavilion at the “ArchMoscow” exhibition.
Written by: Natalia Koriakovskaia Translated by: Anton Mizonov
10 June 2024
Overview
No architectural forum bypasses the topic of skyscraper construction, and ArchMoscow was no exception. One of the ambassadors of this theme at the recent exhibition was the company Genpro, which dedicated their pavilion, titled “Vertical Civilization”, to high-rises. Inside, it looked pretty suprematist: glowing “architectons” of lightboxes with fragments of high-rises printed on them in a black space that evoked the image of outer space. Under the ceiling, there were curly clouds, clearly hinting at the ever-growing height of the urban skyline.
Genpro showcased five of their high-rise projects in the pavilion – Sydney City, a residential complex on Shosseynaya Street, JOIS, N’ICE LOFT, and a project in Moscow-City. Inside the black room, the usual sense of tectonics is lost: it seems that the lightboxes float above the surface and, reflecting off the ceiling, vanish into infinity. This suprematist picture evokes memories of projects for flying cities. However, Genpro wants to convey that all this is no longer a utopia, but today’s reality. The five showcased high-rise projects are the Moscow skyline of the near future. Thus, moving from our reflection outside the pavilion, we enter the “city of skyscrapers” that emerged from a master plan drawn by Genpro.
“The idea of the project is to show the process of the “growth” of the urban skyline as a kind of natural, aesthetically pleasing development” explains the pavilion’s curator, Genpro’s creative director, Evgeny Zelenov “This verticality does not oppress us, although many, of course, disagree with it and try to avoid it. But we need to adapt to the high-rise environment, as it is the future of Moscow”.
Make no mistake: skyscrapers are not a consequence of someone’s aesthetic taste or preferences, but a derivative of the market, economy, and the very structure of the modern city. Their construction is usually a necessity, even in spite of the fact that building structures over 150 meters tall is very expensive. I say “usually” because there are also examples of skyscrapers being endowed with a more symbolic function: hence the spires that increase the height of record-breaking buildings. However, the main bulk of high-rises emerges due to the high cost of land and the need for a high concentration of people, whose synergistic effect exceeds the costs and brings more economic benefits to the city.
The history of skyscraper construction spans more than a hundred years, during which skyscrapers have managed to earn fame as the main feature of the utopian city, as well as the disdain of supporters of the conservation of the historical environment. Nevertheless, this is our present, Genpro reminds us once again. Moreover, if some time ago any building over 150 meters was considered a dominant structure and had a landmark status simply due to its size, now we are already talking about secondary skyscraper development. As Evgeny Zelenov says, essentially, an ensemble of environmental, background architecture and dominants is being created, similar to Paris in the Haussmannian times, only with taller buildings. But the principle is the same.
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The Genpro booth at ArchMoscow 2024
Copyright: image courtesy by Genpro
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The Genpro booth at ArchMoscow 2024
Copyright: image courtesy by Genpro
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The Genpro booth at ArchMoscow 2024
Copyright: image courtesy by Genpro
Participants in the case session conducted by Genpro noted how the structure of buyer demand has been changing lately. According to surveys by product specialists, people have become bolder in buying apartments above the 20th floor. Experts believe that the mentality is changing, and city dwellers are no longer afraid to live higher than the generations before them did. Moreover, people even want to live higher up, where the air is cleaner. They also want to live in locations they could not afford in the format of medium- or low-rise housing of equivalent quality. As a result, what seemed impossible ten years ago is becoming the norm, driven by internal social and economic processes – overpopulation, rising housing costs, deteriorating environmental conditions, and changes in the labor market structure.
Thus, the discussion around skyscraper construction is shifting to a different plane: high-rises are no longer debated from the perspective of whether they are needed or not, good or bad, but rather what benefits this phenomenon can bring to the city. Participants in the case session noted that the concept of a vertical city helps preserve biodiversity because skyscrapers necessarily include green areas and parks both outside and inside, for example, in the format of rooftop gardens, green walls, or terraces. In addition, such expensive projects are created with energy efficiency and environmental safety requirements in mind and make a significant contribution to reducing the carbon footprint. High-density development is also quite efficient from the perspective of the urban transportation framework since high-rise clusters are formed near transportation hubs.
Finally, according to market experts, the issue of emotional well-being depends more on the quality of the designed environment rather than the number of floors per se. The growing demand for apartments on higher floors confirms that for many, the panoramic view and other benefits of high-rise living outweigh the cons.
What is a vertical city today? Any skyscraper project, such as JOIS or Sydney City, is like a layered cake: numerous service functions are brought inside, so that residents only need to move up and down within the complex for a complete living experience. Household services, shopping, restaurants, kindergartens, co-working spaces, and offices – all of these, especially popular due to the rise of remote work – are concentrated in one location, allowing residents to save time on commuting.
For the modern megalopolis, high-density development is perhaps the only way not only to regulate traffic loads but also to preserve green or historical areas and save space by distributing people over a smaller area. The “Vertical Civilization” project, presented by Genpro at ArchMoscow, essentially marks the end of the debate between urbanists and anti-urbanists: it captures the vision of the future Moscow that is actively forming right before our eyes and is unlikely to backtrack.
“The verticality of the city is inevitable, and we are crossing this barrier right now. Needs that did not exist thirty years ago are coming to the forefront, and people prefer locations and the infrastructure set that the “vertical city” provides over mid-rise developments far from the center. A new skyline is gradually emerging, a new silhouette that used to exist only on paper. Urbanization dictates economic parameters, and those who choose to live in places with a concentration of various resources and social benefits are also choosing density” Evgeny Zelenov says.
The increase in the number of floors is, of course, not the final point in the development of the modern city. When asked what to expect next, Evgeny replies that infrastructure will grow upwards along with the buildings. “Remember how Le Corbusier planned to run transportation over the roofs of residential buildings, creating multi-tiered urban mega-structures. Well, I think we are heading towards this multi-layered city now. We are already living in an era of developing unmanned transport, and I believe that the chain of transport infrastructure on the ground will be completed, and we will move to transport above ground – with the help of cars, drones, and even people themselves. Then vertical development will be more integral, with your orders or even you yourself being delivered directly to your apartment. I would like to see that, and I think we will witness the beginning of this era”.
The Golden Crown
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Flexibility and Integration
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A Step Forward
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Gold in the Sands
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Layers and Levels of Flight
This project goes way back – Reserve Union won this architectural competition at the end of 2011, and the building was completed in 2018, so it’s practically “archival”. However, despite being relatively unknown, the building can hardly be considered “dated” and remains a prime example of architectural expression, particularly in the headquarters genre. And it’s especially fitting for an aviation company office. In some ways, it resembles the Aeroflot headquarters at Sheremetyevo but with its own unique identity, following the signature style of Vladimir Plotkin. In this article, we take an in-depth look at the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) headquarters in the Moscow agglomeration town of Zhukovsky, supplemented by recent photographs from Alexey Naroditsky – a shoot that became only recently possible due to the fact that improvements were finally made in the surrounding area.
Light and Shadow
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Casus Novae
A master plan was developed for a large residential area with a name of “DNS City”, but now that its implementation began, the plan has been arbitrarily reformatted and replaced with something that, while similar on the surface, is actually quite different. This is not the first time such a thing happens, but it’s always frustrating. With permission from the author, we are sharing Maria Elkina’s post.
Treasure Hunting
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Depths of the Earth, Streams of Water
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Fir Tree Dynamics
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A Brick Shell
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Word Forms
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Flexibility and Acuteness of Modernity
Luxurious, fluid, large “kokoshniks” and spiral barrel columns, as if made from colorful chewing gum: there seem to be no other mansion like this in Moscow, designed in the “Neo-Russian-Modern” style. And the “Teremok” on Malaya Kaluzhskaya, previously somewhat obscure, has “come alive with new colors” and gained visibility after its restoration for the office of the “architectural ecosystem” as the architects love to call themselves. It’s evident that Julius Borisov and the architects at UNK put their hearts into finding this new office and bringing it up to date. Let’s delve into the paradoxes of this mansion’s history and its plasticity. Spoiler: two versions of modernity meet here, both balancing on the razor’s edge of “what’s current”.
Yuri Vissarionov: “A modular house does not belong to the land”
It belongs to space, or to the air... It turns out that 3D printing is more effective when combined with a modular approach: the house is built in a workshop and then adapted to the site, including on uneven terrain. Yuri Vissarionov shares his latest experience in designing tourist complexes, both in central Russia and in the south. These include houseboats, homes printed from lightweight concrete using a 3D printer, and, of course, frame houses.
Moscow’s First
“The quality of education largely depends on the quality of the educational environment”. This principle of the last decade has been realized by Sergey Skuratov in the project for the First Moscow Gymnasium on Rostovskaya Embankment in the Khamovniki district. The building seamlessly integrates into the complex urban landscape, responding both to the pedestrian flow of the city and the quiet alleyways. It skillfully takes advantage of the height differences and aligns with modern trends in educational space design. Let’s take a closer look.
Looking at the Water
The site of Villa Sonata stretches from the road to the water’s edge, offering its own shoreline, pier, and a picturesque river panorama. To reveal these sweeping views, Roman Leonidov “cut” the façade diagonally parallel to the river, thus getting two main axes for the house and, consequently, “two heads”. The internal core – two double-height spaces, a living room and a conservatory, with a “bridge” above them – makes the house both “transparent” and filled with light.
The White Wing
Well, it’s not exactly white. It’s more of a beige, white-stone structure that plays with the color of limestone – smoother surfaces are lighter, while rougher ones are darker. This wing unites various elements: it absorbs and interprets the surrounding themes. It responds to everything, yet maintains a cohesive expression – a challenging task! – while also incorporating recognizable features of its own, such as the dynamic cuts at the bottom, top, and middle.
Urban Dunes
The XSA Ramps team designed and built a three-part sports hub for a park in Rostov-on-Don, welcoming people of all ages and fitness levels. The skate plaza, pump track, and playground are all meticulously crafted with details that attract a diverse range of visitors. The technical execution of the shapes and slopes transforms this space into a kind of sculptural composition.
Proportional Growth
The project for the fourth phase of the ÁLIA residential area has been announced. The buildings are situated on an elongated plot – almost a “ray” that shoots out from the center of the area towards the river. Their layout reflects both a response to Moscow’s architectural preferences over the past 15 years, shifting “from blocks to towers”, and an interpretation of the neighboring business park designed by SOM. Additionally, the best apartments here are not located at the very top but closer to the middle, forming a glowing “waistline”.
The “Staircase” Building
In designing the “Details” residential complex in New Moscow, Rais Baishev spiced up the now-popular Moscow theme of a “courtyard” building with an idea drawn from the surrealist drawings by Maurits Escher. He envisioned the stepped silhouettes and descending slopes as a metaphysical mega-staircase, creating a key void within the courtyard that gave the project an internal “spine”. This concept is felt both in the building’s silhouette and on its façades.
Projection of the Quarter
No one doubted that the building that Vladimir Plotkin designed as part of the “Garden Quarters” would be the most modernist of all. And it turned out just that way: while adhering to the common design code, the building successfully combines brick and white stone, rhythmically responding to the neighboring building designed by Ostozhenka, yet tactfully and persistently making a few statements of its own. This includes the projection of the ideal urban development composition “14–9–6”, which can be found right next door, mathematical calculations, including those for various types of terraces (and perhaps the only reminder of the Soviet past of the Kauchuk rubber factory!), and the white “cross-stitch” pattern of the façade grid.
Domus Aurea
In this issue, we examine the “Tessinsky-1” house, designed by Sergey Skuratov and completed in 2023. Located in the middle of the Serebryanicheskaya Embankment district, at the intersection of its main streets, this house assumes a sort of “nodal” role: it not only responds to everything around it and preserves many memories of the former EMA factory within itself, but it weaves all this into a newly directed pattern, reconciling bright “gold” and dark-colored brick, largely with the help of the new, modern-yet-archaic Columba brick, which, come to think about it, is the most precious element here.
The Chimney of Nikola-Lenivets
In this issue, we are examining the “Obelisk House” designed by KATARSIS and built for the Arkhstoyanie 2023 festival. However, it was only finished later on, and this is why we are examining it now. It seems to us that after the “Obelisk House” appeared in Nikola-Lenivets, a dialogue and a few inner connections appeared between the temporary structures built here. These houses no longer look like “accidental neighbors”, more of which below.
Periscope by the Bay
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From Arcs to Dolmens
While working on the competition project for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, ASADOV Architects prioritized the value of the natural and urban environment, aiming to preserve the balance of the location while minimizing the resemblance of the volume that they designed to a “traditional building”. The task was challenging, and the architects created three versions, one of which having been developed after the competition, where their main proposal took third place. However, the point of interest here is not the competition result but the continuity of creative thinking.
Hide and Seek
The ID Moskovskiy house, designed by Stepan Liphart in St. Petersburg, in the courtyards near Moskovskiy Avenue beyond the Obvodny Canal and recently completed, is notable for several reasons. Firstly, it has been realized with considerable accuracy, which is particularly significant as this is the first building where the architect was responsible not only for the facades but also for the layouts, allowing for better integration between the two. On the other hand, this building is interesting as an example of the “germination” of new architecture in the city: it draws on the best examples from the neighborhood and becomes an improved and developed sum of ideas found by the architect in the surrounding context.
The Big Twelve
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Above the Golden Horn
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Nuanced Alternative
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Blinds for Ice
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