The building, bearing the romantically real-estate-friendly name “House of Horizons”, is actively under construction in Krylatskoye, a location remarkable in many ways. Aside from a single 1980s “microdistrict”, almost nothing was built in this area for decades; only in the past couple of years have a few new residential projects appeared. Krylatskaya Street runs along the crest of a high slope above the Moscow River; to the north, across the water, lies Serebryany Bor; to the west, the Rublyovsky Forest; to the south, Krylatskiye Kholmy Park. In short, the location is superb. It is no surprise that the building received such a name: here, especially when looking toward the northern, river-facing half of the panorama, one experiences a sweeping horizontal expanse – from the Zhivopisny (“Picturesque”) Bridge to the Rublyovskoye Highway interchange.

Kleinewelt Architekten have fully capitalized on the advantages of the site. Although the plot itself is a rectangle lying parallel to the river, the building is stretched across it transversely – that is, along a north-south axis. Such an orientation relative to the cardinal directions is, as is well known, the most advantageous in terms of sunlight exposure and overall natural lighting of the apartments.

The street line is defined by a transverse “beam” housing a sports and recreation complex with a swimming pool.



This two-level base, open to the general public, extends along the street, shaping and activating it, morphologically reminiscent of the glass-fronted pavilions of late modernism. The differences lie in the quality of the glazing, the deep cantilevers of the cornice slabs, and the presence of a balcony accessible from the sports complex, opening toward the river panorama – in all those details that were nonexistent in the 1980s. The idea back then was good; it was the details that were missing. Now, perhaps, is precisely the right moment to revisit those productive ideas – without neglecting the details.

The composition of the building is unmistakably modernist. At the southern end of the residential volume, the circulation core with three elevators is grouped together, connected to the corridor by a transparent lobby “layer” with glass walls.



In its lower section, to a height of four stories, the residential building’s outline is articulated by rectangular support pylons. It is like a “house on stilts”, only here the “legs” first contain the public functions and, deeper into the site, a lobby with seven-meter-high glass walls.

From the east, another volume adjoins the sports complex along the street line, connected to it by a passageway. This is where the entrance to the parking garage is located. Not a typical one, but with a straight entry-exit ramp, so residents do not have to navigate a spiral turn.



The underground parking is arranged on two levels. The stylobate level – along the street accommodating the parking and the sports complex, and within the courtyard the lobby with its “inhabited roof” – consists of two tiers with a combined height of just over 11 meters. Thus, the three lower floors of the 27-story building – roughly one-ninth of its total height – are given over to public spaces of varying degrees of privacy.

As mentioned, the lobby volume with its glass facades stretches transversely to the street at the base of the residential tower. On its roof, an open communal space for residents is planned – a ventilated gap, an “upper courtyard” positioned between the residential volume proper and the glass-walled lobby.



The building therefore presents itself as a structure logically composed of several interrelated volumes.

The façades of the residential section respond directly to the panorama, which here is presented – rightly so – as the principal value.



The three main façades are designed as a kind of volumetric “saw” and are perceived as identical or at least similar, though this is not entirely accurate. All are clad with triangular balconies, arranged in a checkerboard pattern, alternating from floor to floor. However, on the principal façade – here the northern, and the one commanding the views – the balconies are equilateral triangles in plan. The side façades form a serrated line; one could say they are composed of triangular bay windows. Here the triangles are no longer equilateral but right-angled: the hypotenuse adjoins the apartment space and dissolves into it; the shorter leg forms a solid wall facing south; and the longer, glazed leg looks northwest or northeast, toward the forested and river panoramas of Serebryany Bor. It is a concise logic, built on simple geometry and justified from the standpoint of market value, based on the apartments’ view characteristics.

The balconies that are placed along the elongated side facades are set within triangular recesses, forming a kind of counterpoint to the forward-projecting triangles of the end façade. The fact that all of the balconies “reach” toward the river is emphasized by the outline of those balconies that – quite deliberately – align with the chamfered corner walls: they are “deprived” of a front northern wall, and their outer point is slightly extended forward, sharpening the triangle and turning these balconies into something like “captain’s bridges” for contemplating the river.



At the same time, this design solution further enhances the slightly “bristling” look of the facades.



The building also has a “head”, an attic crown. It consists of penthouses of “one-and-a-half” height – four meters – allowing for loft-style internal mezzanine levels with double-height living rooms, glass façades, and tall recessed niches that rhythmically articulate the glazed surface of the upper volume with vertical divisions.



Three penthouses with elevated ceilings occupy the top, 27th floor. On the 26th floor beneath them, there are four apartments, surrounded along the perimeter by open terraces – reportedly “ranging from a cozy 12 to an impressive 91 square meters”. Accordingly, the outer walls of the 26th-floor apartments are set back, creating in the building’s outline not only a “head”, but also a “neck”, which works well for the expressiveness of the silhouette.

One senses a certain echo of the well-known building of the Russian Academy of Sciences, located in another, southwestern part of the city – also on the river. Yet within the oeuvre of Kleinewelt Architekten, such “heads” are not unprecedented: one might recall, for example, the MOD
residential complex with its glowing crowns.



Construction is progressing at full speed, with completion planned for 2027.