По-русски

An Architect in a Metaverse

In this interview, we talked to the participants of the festival of creative industries G8 about why metaverses are our tomorrow’s everyday routine, and how architects can already influence it today.

06 September 2022
Interview
mainImg
Metaverses are the central subject matter of the “Architecture” section at the G8 festival of creative industries that took place in the “Supermetal” space on the 9th of September. The curator of the section was Sergey Nadtochiy, the art director and the branch manager for AR and VR projects in the Atrium studio. In his opinion, the world is on the verge of transformation of the Internet, which in turn will cause a transformation of architecture. And just as graphic designers created a two-dimensional Internet as we know it, so architects will create a three-dimensional Internet that we will all use tomorrow. At the conference, the pioneers of this direction in Russia – Ivan Puzyrev and Alina Chereyskaya – talked about the architecture of the metaverses.

The agenda of the event is available here. We asked the architects to share about metaverses and about what’s going on with them right now.

Sergey Nadtochiy, Head of the ATRIUM Digital and ATRIUM Education

Art Director of Atrium studio, founder of the Dearch.space platform dedicated to NFT architecture and design. In the company, Sergey heads the ATRIUM Digital and ATRIUM Education departments, which develop projects for AR/VR spaces and the metaverse, and a methodology for designing modern educational spaces.

Ivan Puzyrev

Co-founder of Arhead Metaverse, an expert in augmented and virtual reality technologies with more than 10 years of experience in the field of digital strategy focused on spatial computing and the use of augmented reality on a city scale. His portfolio of projects includes “Dubai Culture”, “Hermitage”, and “Venice Biennale”.

Alina Chereiskaya

Architect and partner of Samlab, winner of the Europe 40under40 award, tutor of DigitalFUTURES. Editor of the telegram channel @salab_daily on the practical application of robots, AI, VR, AR and other technologies in architecture, as well as the host of a podcast about architecture in the digital age, “The House that Code Built”


What is a metaverse, and why is it inevitable

Alina:
The term first appeared in a novel by Neal Stephenson “Snow Crash” back in 1992 – it described some synthetic virtual space, in which you could be whatever you wanted, and do whatever you wanted. It’s been 30 years now, and everybody started talking about metaverses because technologies came around that can make this thing a reality.

Currently, we are in a transition period from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0. While Web 1.0 was essentially about static websites where the user could only consume content, in Web 2.0 you can create content and share it online. In Web 3.0, you will be able to securely own the content. The two major issues with Web 2.0 are the vulnerability of your personal data and the content copyright. By using the blockchain technologies and NFT, Web 3.0 will be able to solve these issues, and, in addition, it will ensure immersive experience through AR and VR, and will provide a horizontal system, in which the communities will make their own rules. In this crisis of the Internet and its gradual transformation, new spaces appear, and metaverses become a part of Web 3.0.

The pandemic also played a part – this self-isolation proved that we can work, study, and even hang out remotely. AR and VR are widely available; computers and software make it possible to create virtual worlds.

Today, an individual lives in a hybrid space where the digital world is represented by social media and online services, while the physical world is represented by their favorite cafe, the city square, and their home. According to forecasts, by 2026, 25% of people will spend at least an hour a day in a metaverse, and the number of active users has been growing dramatically in recent months. It must be noted that the metaverse must become a single seamless space – in 2022, we are only witnessing the forming of prototypes.



Ivan:
Metaverses are like some three-dimensional Internet, or the next dimension for your content. Everything that we see around us is volumetric but for some reason the digital interfaces remained flat for a long time. This is why the exodus of information to the volumetric space can be perceived as an inevitable process: the information no longer fits in the small flat screens, it needs more room. This is a continuation of gradual movement from books, audio recordings, radio, and mobile platforms to the global phenomenon that will connect people and information.

According to preliminary forecasts, by 2026, about a quarter of the world’s population will spend about an hour in a metaverse in this or that form. If we consider virtual worlds to be any joint experience inside a three-dimensional world, then such phenomena as Minecraft, Roblox, or Fortnite are already drawing millions of unique users a month. More modern metaverses, which are more decentralized and are driven by some form of blockchain, do not attract as many people so far, but this will change. In metaverses, people will receive values that in no way will be at odds with the values of the physical world – rather, they will only complement it.

What can an architect do for a metaverse?

Sergey:
Creating architecture for metaverses is something that all users can do, but the freedom of self expression in a metaverse presents its own specific challenges. Historically, cities developed spontaneously, but now we are well aware of the issues created by outlaw construction and bad town planning. Thus, we have a task to develop interaction and control systems meant to make sure that the new quality of the Internet does not lead to chaos. Currently, software developers are trying to solve these problems themselves, sometimes attaching the users but this is clearly not enough. It is necessary to carry the architectural expertise over to the metaverse.

In the modern world, the progress is driven by the technology companies, but they have their own standards of success: how many purchases, how many clicks, how much time on the page, and so on. Pursuing their own interests, they may create an environment that is not based on universally accepted human values. A vivid example: the automobile lobby of the mid-20th century was so powerful, and the architects were so unaware of the scale of the transformation of cities under the influence of technological progress, that we are still raking out the mistakes of that time. Architects should take responsibility for what is already happening in the metaverse, and try to create an architecturally correct environment there.

zooming
Liberland Metaverse
Copyright: © Zaha Hadid Architects


Alina:
Today’s prototypes of metaverses often look like cities: the same public spaces, the same territories that can be developed, the same buildings, parks, and streets. Today this is all voxel geometry and low-polygon aesthetics – and the architects are used to a different concept. At the same time, cyberspace does not hinder us by any physical limitations, construction regulations, or budget constraints. What matters in the digital world is how you work with geometry, how you optimize it, and what narrative you are offering to the end user. And the architects are still yet to come up with the language for that digital world. There will be author spaces that will cooperate with architects, and there will be spontaneous spaces too.

Ivan: 
You need three components for a metaverse to exist. The first one is the world, the context, the 3D space. The second is the avatar. And the third is the content that can be placed within the space, and with which the avatar will interact. All these components will be modernized and augmented; subcategories will appear, but the content will forever remain the most meaningful and significant component. Just the same as the architect in the physical world, the architect in a metaverse will be able to influence the feelings of a whole group of people inside such a space. Today, this is something that is already done by game designers. The stage of mimicry to the physical world must soon pass or settle for occupying a small part in the architecture of metaverses because the challenge lies in new materials, new tools, and the absence of most of the constraints inherent to the physical world.

What are the necessary competencies for an architect of metaverses?

Alina: 
I would describe the main competence as creative coding – a skill that combines coding and creative skills. We are witnessing rapid development of AI that is already changing the fundamentals and tools for creating architecture. Neural networks can generate images and videos, they can alter geometry, and we are one step away from the point when they will be able to generate 3D objects by mere description. It is important to understand the principles of writing a code and be at the junction of different disciplines.

Ivan:
One of the key skills in the architect’s profession is now game design and understanding how games are actually wired – it is not always a primitive set of crystals, and the audience can be very complex too. On the whole, contrastive combinations within professions generate a unique vision inside a metaverse, and it is doing it a lot of good. And make no mistake – metaverses are not just about games. When the Internet first came about, we all thought that it would come down to exchanging messages – nobody had a clue that by using this silicone box we would order food or taxis. A metaverse behaves in exactly the same way; a lot of functions will come around, as well as UX and UI design.

The influence of cyberspace architecture on the physical one

Sergey:
In a metaverse, the traditional construction logic no longer applies, and sometimes you can even change the laws of physics, granting your avatars an opportunity to jump 30 feet high or walk on the ceiling. Such conditions for creative activity will create a new quality of architecture, which, I am absolutely sure, will sooner or later bleed from virtual architecture into physical one. I will remind those who think that you can only become a real architect if you build and work with real-life material that many great architects developed their own unique style specifically on virtual projects – Fun Palace by Cedric Price or the utopian projects by Boullée and Ledoux, to name but two. Over the last 20 years, the architectural discourse has been in a state of crisis because there are no significant and groundbreaking trends. A metaverse is all about a new approach and new opinion makers. Very soon they will create a new visual language, come up with new properties of spaces, and will change architectural styles.

zooming
Liberland Metaverse
Copyright: © Zaha Hadid Architects


Ivan: 
A metaverse can also be regarded as a digital layer that is superimposed over the city and can be read from a smartphone, for example. This is why the buildings must possess a set of elements that will match not just human vision but the AR’s as well: even today we have unmanned vehicles, drones, and robots that do delivery and other services. In the more distant future, I think, the bravery and craziness of the architects in a metaverse will introduce new visual habits in people, which will affect the architecture of the physical world.

Alina:
Today, a metaverse may serve as a platform for testing ideas that can later on be applied in a physical world. Zaha Hadid Architects, for example, is developing for Liberland the master plan and the public spaces for presentations.

The digital world must become an experimental space for reinventing things that we are building in a physical world considering the global environmental impact of the construction industry. Furthermore, metaverses are more inclusive thanks to their being more accessible and thanks to their wide range of features.



What have you done for a metaverse?

Alina:
In the SA lab, we turned to digital architecture in 2020, where we were doing projects for the GEEK PICNIC festival. When the event switched from offline to online, we came up with virtual pavilions. The project explored the opportunities for architecture unhindered by the habitual time and budget constraints; within one day, the pavilions were visited by 10,000 users, and this still can be done by any computer user.



A few months later we, together with ARCHSLON and SYNTHESIS MOSCOW, we conducted Russia’s first online architectural festival 360FEST, in which students themselves created virtual spaces for museums.



In 2022, within the framework of the DigitalFUTURES program, on the basis of the Tongji university, we taught students from nine countries how to create virtual spaces and landscapes at the Wormhole Gallery workshop. Virtual galleries often look like physical ones – essentially, these are white boxes filled with content. In this project, however, we completely revise the gallery typology, meditating on the material and tactile in digital, and we also cross physics, game design, architecture, and coding. What we ultimately got was a meditation space, in which you can be alone or travel between the works by architects. The final projects were placed in three metaverses – Voxels (Cryptovoxels), Decentraland, and TopoPixel.



The G8 Festival will feature releases of the new projects that hitherto were not published anywhere.

Also, we want to consolidate our educational experience in a single environment, working on the KODIIA project – a platform with interactive educational tools for creative coders. KODIIA is aimed at forming a synthesis of technical and creative skills, and is focused on coding as a creative tool for creating games, virtual spaces, and graphic design experiments. Currently, one can leave an application for early access to a beta version.

Ivan:
We did the first virtual exhibition of digi art in the Hermitage, and, surprisingly, the curators gave us a Carte Blanche. We took the building of the Stock exchange, scanned it, and fully recreated it. The digital artist Oleg Soroko used a whole set of algorithms that allowed to transform the bottom part of the space beyond recognition and added to it an unbelievable number of lines and shapes, seemingly out of the human hand’s control. Oleg did not really mold them – he programmed an algorithm that yielded this shape. The top part, however, remained the exact replica of the Stock Exchange building. What it ended up being was some sort of a transaction between something historical and something absolutely new.

Within the framework of the Future Cities festival, we created a virtual world, in which works were presented by artists that work in the physical world in different cities. We carefully transferred the installations and cityscapes into the metaverse, and it resulted in a trip that you can make without leaving the comfort of your home.

Yet another client of ours is the Hutton developer company. At the international convention of modern art Cosmoscow it will showcase its own project – any spectator of the presentation will be able to go to the Moon.

On the basis of our arhead.io platform, Sergey Nadtochiy and his team created a space for the DEIP company – he sent us traveling inside a computer board as a chunk of energy. For me, this was like a reminder about the material: for example, when we speak about “cloud storage”, imagining something nebulous, this is in fact just a metaphor because actually all the data is stored on servers that belong in the physical world. Making a run of the computer board and hearing about blockchain, we again remember that everything digital is still material in its essence, just as everything non-organic is in fact organic because it has risen from the soil. This is something that you cannot experience in a physical world.

  • zooming
    1 / 4
    DEIP metaverse city – ATRIUM architecture, Arhead platform
    Copyright: © ATRIUM
  • zooming
    2 / 4
    DEIP metaverse city – ATRIUM architecture, Arhead platform
    Copyright: © ATRIUM
  • zooming
    3 / 4
    DEIP metaverse city – ATRIUM architecture, Arhead platform
    Copyright: © ATRIUM
  • zooming
    4 / 4
    DEIP metaverse city – ATRIUM architecture, Arhead platform
    Copyright: © ATRIUM


Sergey:
My first project, dedicated to architecture in a metaverse, was my diploma project in AA School. Under the leadership of the founders of the Space Popular studio, we, together with other students, spent a whole year researching cyberspace and designing it. We did not copy from available tools and platforms, but created our own projects that can only be implemented in 5 or 10 years’ time.


The first project in ATRIUM on the Arhead platform, together with the Balagan creative agency, we developed for a blockchain company event, creating a whole virtual city. And on the 7th of September, the Somnium Fashion Week started – one of the most significant events in the world of digital fashion, for which we designed the main space for the fashion show as such and a showroom of one of the brands.

zooming
Somnium Fashion Week space, visualization
Copyright: © ATRIUM


In addition, together with the Dearch Space platform we helped other creators to come up with six more fashion spaces. Together with my partners, who also have some architectural background, we created this platform in order to help architects and designers master cyberspace, and we also wanted to help the companies that want to showcase their product and interact with the metaverse users do this in a high-quality environment.

Currently, we are actively exploring the market, building partnerships with platforms and distributors, organizing their joint work, preparing new events, publications and educational content. We believe that it is the architects who will create the metaverse, and we invite everyone to join this fascinating process!

06 September 2022

Headlines now
View
“Strangers” in the City
We asked Alexander Skokan for a comment on the results of 2025 – and he sent us a whole article, moreover one devoted to the discussion we recently began on the “appropriateness of high-rises” – or, more broadly speaking, “contrasting insertions into the urban fabric”. The result is a text that is essentially a question: why here? Why like this?
Interview
Dmitry Ostroumov: “To use the language of alchemy, we are involved in the process of “transmutation...
What we ended up having was an extremely unusual conversation with Dmitry Ostroumov. Why? At the very least, because he is not just an architect specializing in the construction of Orthodox churches. And not just – which is an extreme rarity – a proponent of developing contemporary stylistics within this still highly conservative field. Dmitry Ostroumov is a Master of Theology. So in addition to the history and specifics of the company, we speak about the very concept of the temple, about canon and tradition, about the living and the eternal, and even about the Russian Logos.
Object
A Glazed Figurine
In searching for an image for a residential building near the Novodevichy Convent, GAFA architects turned to their own perception of the place: it evoked associations with antiquity, plein-air painting, and vintage artifacts. The two towers will be entirely clad in volumetric glazed ceramic – at present, there are no other buildings like this in Russia. The complex will also stand out thanks to its metabolic bay-window cells, streamlined surfaces, a ceremonial “hotel-style” driveway, and a lobby overlooking a lush garden.
Report
A Knight’s Move via the Cour d’Honneur
Intercolumnium Architects presented to the City Planning Council a residential complex project that is set to replace the Aquatoria business center on Vyborgskaya Embankment. Experts praised the overall quality of the work, but expressed reservations about the three cour d’honneurs and suggested softening the contrast between the facades facing the embankment and the Kantemirovsky Bridge.
Object
A Small Country
Mezonproekt is developing a long-term master plan for the MEPhI campus in Obninsk. Over the next ten years, an enclave territory of about 100 hectares, located in a forest on the northern edge of the city, is set to transform into a modern center for the development of the nuclear energy sector. The plan envisions attracting international students and specialists, as well as comprehensive territorial development: both through the contemporary realization of “frozen” plans from the 1980s and through the introduction of new trends – public spaces, an aquapark, a food court, a school, and even a nuclear medicine center. Public and sports facilities are intended to be accessible to city residents as well, and the campus is to be physically and functionally connected to Obninsk.
Object
Pearl Divers
GAFA has designed an apartment complex for Derbent intended to switch people from a work mode to a resort mindset – and to give the surrounding area a much-needed jolt. The building offers two distinct faces: restrained and laconic on the city side, and a lushly ornate façade facing the sea. At the heart of the complex, a hidden pearl lies – an open-air pool with an arch, offering views of a starry sky, and providing direct access to the beach.
Object
A Satellite Island
The Genplan Institute of Moscow has prepared a master plan for the development of the Sarpinsky and Golodny island system, located within the administrative boundaries of Volgograd and considered among the largest river islands in Russia. By 2045, the plan envisions the implementation of 15 large-scale investment projects, including sports and educational clusters, a congress center with a “Volgonarium”, a film production cluster, and twenty-one theme parks. We explain which engineering, environmental, and transportation challenges must be addressed to turn this vision into reality. The master plan solutions have already been approved and incorporated into the city’s general development plan.
Object
The Amber Gate
The Amber City residential complex is one of the redevelopment projects in the former industrial area located beyond Moscow’s Third Ring Road near Begovaya metro station. Alexey Ilyin’s studio proposed an original master plan that transformed two clusters of towers into ceremonial propylaea, gave the complex a recognizable silhouette, and established visual connections with new high-rise developments on both right and left – thus integrating it into the scale of the growing metropolis. It is also marked by its own futuristic stylistic language, based on a reinterpreted streamline aesthetic.
Object
A Theater Triangle
The architectural company “Chetvertoe Izmerenie” (“Fourth Dimension”) has developed the design for a new stage of the Magnitogorsk Musical Theater, rethinking not only theater architecture but also the role of the theater in the contemporary city.
Interview
Aleksei Ilyin: “I approach every task with genuine interest”
Aleksei Ilyin has been working on major urban projects for more than 30 years. He has all the necessary skills for high-rise construction in Moscow – yet he believes it’s essential to maintain variety in the typologies and scales represented in his portfolio. He is passionate about drawing – but only from life, and also in the process of working on a project. We talk about the structure and optimal size of an office, about his past and current projects, large and small tasks, and about creative priorities.
Object
​A Golden Sunbeam
A compact brick-and-metal building in the growing Shukhov Park in Vyksa seems to absorb sunlight, transform it into yellow accents inside, and in the evening “give it back” as a warm golden glow streaming from its windows. It is, frankly, a very attractive building: both material and lightweight at the same time, with lightness inside and materiality outside. Its form is shaped by function – laconic, yet far from simple. Let’s take a closer look.
Architecton Awards
In 2025, the jury of the Architecton festival reviewed the finalist projects through live, open presentations held right in the exhibition hall – a rather engaging performance, and something rarely seen among Russian awards. It would be great if “Zodchestvo” adopted this format. Below, we present all the winning projects, including four special nominations.
send.project
Garden of Knowledge
UNK architects and UNK design created the interiors of the Letovo Junior campus, working together with NF Studio, which was responsible for developing the educational technology that takes into account the needs and perception of younger and middle school children.
The Silver Skates
The STONE Kaluzhskaya office quarter is accompanied by two residential towers, making the complex – for it is indeed a single ensemble – well balanced in functional terms. The architects at Kleinewelt gave the residential buildings a silvery finish to match the office blocks. How they are similar, how they differ, and what “Silver Skates” has to do with it – we explore in this article.
Overview
On the Dynastic Trail
The houses and townhouses of the “Tsarskaya Tropа” (“Czar’s Trail”) complex are being built in the village of Gaspra in Crimea – to the west and east of the palaces of the former grand-ducal residence “Ai-Todor”. One of the main challenges for the architects at KPLN, who developed the project, was to respond appropriately to this significant neighboring heritage. How this influenced the massing, the façades, and the way the authors work with the terrain is explored in our article.
Object
A New Path
The main feature of the Yar Park project, designed by Sergey Skuratov for Kazan, is that it is organized along the “spine” of a multifunctional mall with an impressive multi-height atrium space in its middle. The entire site, both on the city side and the Kazanka River embankment, is open to the public. The complex is intended not to become “yet another fenced enclave” but, as urban planners say, a “polycenter” – a new point of attraction for the whole of Kazan, especially its northern part, made up of residential districts that until now have lacked such a vibrant public space. It represents a new urban planning approach to a high-density mixed-use development situated in the city center – in a sense, an “anti-quarter”. Even Moscow, one might say, doesn’t yet have anything quite like it. Well, lucky Kazan!
Object
Beneath the Azure Sky
A depository designed by Studio 44 will soon be built in Kenozersky National Park to preserve and display the so-called “heavens” – ceiling structures characteristic of wooden churches in the Russian North, painted with biblical scenes. For each of these “heavens”, the architects created a volume corresponding in scale and dimensions to the original church interior. The result is a honeycomb-like composition, with modules derived directly from the historic monuments themselves, allowing visitors to view the icons from the historically accurate angle – from below, looking upward. How exactly this works is the subject of our story.
Object
​The Power of Lines
The building at the very beginning of New Arbat is the result of long deliberations over how to replace the former House of Communication. Contemporary, dynamic, and even somewhat zoomorphic in character, it is structured around a large diagonal grid. The building has become a striking accent both in the perspective of the former Kalinin Avenue and in the panorama of Arbat Square. Yet, unfortunately, the original concept was not fully realized. In 2020, the Moscow ArchCouncil approved a design featuring an exoskeleton – an external load-bearing structure, which eventually turned into a purely decorative element. Still, the power of the supergraphic “holds” the building, giving it the qualities of a new urban landmark with iconic potential. How this concept took shape, what unexpected associations might underlie the grid’s form, and why the exoskeleton was never built – all this is explored in our article.
News
Resort on the Kama River
Wowhaus has developed a project for the reconstruction of Korabelnaya Roshcha (“Mast Grove”), a wellness resort located on the banks of the Kama River.
Object
Nests in Primorye
The eco-park project “Nests”, designed by Aleksey Polishchuk and the company Power Technologies, received first prize at the Eco-Coast 2025 festival, organized by the Union of Architects of Russia. For a glamping site in Filinskaya Bay, the authors proposed bird-shaped houses, treehouses, and a nest-shaped observation platform, topping it all with an entrance pavilion executed in the shape of an owl.
Object
The Angle of String Tension
The House of Music, designed by Vladimir Plotkin and the architects of TPO Reserve, resembles a harp, and when seen from above, even a bass clef. But if only it were that simple! The architecture of the complex fuses two distinct expressive languages: the lattice-like, transparent, permeable vocabulary of “classical” modernism and the sculptural, ribbon-like volumes so beloved by today’s neo-modernism. How it all works – where the catharsis lies, which compositional axes underpin the design, where the project resembles Zaryadye Concert Hall and where it does not – read in the article below.
Object
How Historic Tobolsk Becomes a Portal to the Future
Over the past decade, the architectural company Wowhaus has developed urban strategies for several Russian cities – Vyksa, Tula, and Nizhnekamsk, to name but a few. Against this backdrop, the Tobolsk master plan stands out both for its scale – the territory under transformation covers more than 220 square kilometers – and for its complexity.
Object
St. Petersburg vs Rome
The center of St. Petersburg is, as we know, sacred – but few people can say with certainty where this “sacred place” actually begins and ends. It’s not about the formal boundaries, “from the Obvodny Canal to the Bolshaya Nevka”, but about the vibe that feels true to the city center. With the Nevskaya Ratusha complex – built to a design that won an international competition – Evgeny Gerasimov and Sergei Tchoban created an “image of the center” within its territory. And not so much the image of St. Petersburg itself, as that of a global metropolis. This is something new, something that hasn’t appeared in the city for a long time. In this article, we study the atmosphere, recall precedents, and even reflect on who and when first called St. Petersburg the “new Rome”. Clearly, the idea is alive for a reason.
Object
On the Wave
The project of transforming the river port and embankment in the city of Cheboksary, developed by the ATRIUM Architects, involves one of the city’s key areas. The Volga embankment is to be turned into a riverside boulevard – a multifunctional, comfortable, and expressive space for work and leisure activities. The authors propose creating a new link with the city’s main Krasnaya (“Red”) Square, as well as erecting several residential towers inspired by the shape of the traditional national women’s headdress – these towers are likely to become striking accents on the Volga panorama.
Interview
Valery Kanyashin: “We Were Given a Free Hand”
The Headliner residential complex, the main part of which was recently completed just across from Moscow City, is a kind of neighbor to the MIBC that doesn’t “play along” with it. On the contrary, the new complex is entirely built on contrast: like a city of differently scaled buildings that seems to have emerged naturally over the past 20 years – which is a hugely popular trend nowadays! And yet here – perhaps only here – such a project has been realized to its full potential. Yes, high-rises dominate, but all these slender, delicate profiles, all these exciting perspectives! And most importantly – how everything is mixed and composed together... We spoke with the project’s leader Valery Kanyashin.
Object
​The Keystone
Until quite recently, premium residential and office complexes in Moscow were seen as the exclusive privilege of the city center. Today the situation is changing: high-quality architecture is moving beyond the confines of the Third Ring Road and appearing on the outskirts. The STONE Kaluzhskaya business center is one such example. Projects like this help decentralize the megalopolis, making life and work prestigious in any part of the city.
send.project
Perpetuum Mobile
The interior of the headquarters of Natsproektstroy, created by the IND studio team, vividly and effectively reflects the client’s field of activity – it is one of Russia’s largest infrastructure companies, responsible for logistics and transport communications of every kind you can possibly think of.
Object
Water and Light
Church art is full of symbolism, and part of it is truly canonical, while another part is shaped by tradition and is perceived by some as obligatory. Because of this kind of “false conservatism”, contemporary church architecture develops slowly compared to other genres, and rarely looks contemporary. Nevertheless, there are enthusiasts in this field out there: the cemetery church of Archangel Michael in Apatity, designed by Dmitry Ostroumov and Prokhram bureau, combines tradition and experiment. This is not an experiment for its own sake, however – rather, the considered work of a contemporary architect with the symbolism of space, volume, and, above all, light.