The architectural company Kleinewelt Architekten was created in 2013 by three partners: Nikolai and Sergey Pereslegins and George Trofimov. Over the last few years, the company has been able to have its projects built in Moscow as well as in the regions, and won a few large-scale closed competitions for privately owned companies.

Archi.ru:
– How did you choose your profession?

Nikolai Pereslegin:
– Ever since I was a kid, the most exciting thing for me was coming up with some different worlds and creating some different spaces. The way I see it, the profession of an architect presents a great number of opportunities and fields for applying most diverse skills that you may have – including the ability to listen to your opponent, or, on the other hand, to prove your point. My parents graduated from Moscow Institute of Architecture, and my grandmother was also an architect. So, to me, the choice of my profession was based on a whole number of personal factors, one of them being my family background. 

Sergey Pereslegin:
– As for me, I always wanted to create things - maybe of a completely different nature but things that I would be proud to show to the world, things that would be there to stay. I considered different options - including but not limited to microbiology. But at some point in time I realized that abstract or fundamental science just wasn't my thing. I wanted to see the results of my work, and I wanted people to see them. But "scientific research" approach was something that I tried to keep, and it helps us immensely in our work. 

George Trofimov:
– My choice of profession was absolutely deliberate and by no means accidental. Ever since I was a kid, I loved drawing, making houses from a construction kit, and I seemed to be always making things. And it was my love of inventing and creating things that ultimately lead me to architecture. But before I became an architect I tried my hand at different creative professions. Among other things, I worked as a graphic designer and a photographer. Here is the takeaway from this experience: 99% of any creative product is short-lived and is designed for a really short service life, architecture being about the only exception. The very realization of the fact that you are working for a long-term perspective, that you are doing something serious, something that is meant to be there for ages, is a huge motivator that feeds your creative energy. And this, of course, leaves its mark on our approach to doing things.

What we don’t like is any "packaged" or "prefabricated" solutions. We always come up with new ideas, from simple things to complicated façade projects. 

– And what is the subject matter of your research? Shapes? Scenarios of how human beings will live inside your projects?

Nikolai Pereslegin: As a prime mover, the subject matter of our research is, as a rule, the human beings themselves. The most interesting thing about all this is to see how totally different people will react to this or that solution of ours, how these solutions will affect their mood or worldview. This is really exciting – trying to model this or that scenario for the people in order to introduce new values into the reality, values that are important to us.

Sergey Pereslegin: Also, I would like to add that very often the subject matter of our research is information. The first stage of solving any task that we have is about collecting information that will help us to better understand what is required of our project and what makes it different. This can be information from totally different levels – from historical to social, from cultural to functional, or even from the day-to-day operation level.

George Trofimov: What we don’t do is mindless shape-making. Anything we do, we do it for a reason. 

Nikolai Pereslegin: The first stage of any of our projects is the scientific survey. We process huge amounts of information; the first sketches come later on down the line. 

Sergey Pereslegin: It is this survey that enables us to turn the project into a discovery or an invention.