Archi.ru:
- How was the work on the project going? What factors was it influenced by?

Julius Borisov:
- We faced to problems while working on the project. The first one was the city planning tasks based on the context. That is, on the one hand - the historical heritage - the special ensemble of VDNKh; and on the other hand - the wish of the client, State Atomic Energy Corporation "Rosatom", to make a pavilion that will be admired both by the branch employees and the general audience. At once, it created a certain conflict.

On the first stage of the contest, we resorted only to the context, used the approach through the cultural component. But this approach soon proved to be insolvent. Both the representatives of Moskomarchitektury and the All-Russian Society for Protecting Historical and Cultural Monuments saw it too. 

To find a solution to this conflict was the task of the second stage. We went along with our favorite trends - purism and minimalism in the interpretation of the construction and the "art-gesture", but at the same time, tried not to miss the meaning of the project.
We decided to compete with our colleagues on the level of ideas instead of the level of forms. Our team was the first to set a task not to visualize the area of nuclear energy through formal symbols familiar to all of us (the atom, atom bomb), or through architectural elements and archetypes (cornices of the neighboring pavilions, streamlined "futuristic" forms, symbolizing the innovation of nuclear energy), but through the sense - to give room for the visitors to feel this energy, sense what happens inside of the atom, rather than learn about it. In our project, we tried to translate this condition on a sensual level.