This year, to the festival attractions of Vyksa, an excellent picture was added at the end of the nine-story building of a street artist from Yekaterinburg Slava ATGM - "Good Harvest" (there were others, but this one is out of competition). Unicorns, sun loungers (like on the Crimean embankment in Moscow), a boat-bench by the pond and much more, created for the past "Art-ravines" - are in their places, but now Vyksa invites you to take a closer look at the courtyards …
For the last three years, the festival has been curated by Oleg Shapiro (Wowhaus bureau). Thanks to him, architectural workshops, presentations of small forms and public areas appeared in the Art-Ravine program. And if several years ago architects came to surprise the townspeople with stories about themselves, and then to inspire with their objects for Vyksa, this time it came to joint work - participatory design. The festival, as you know, changes curators, but this year the organizers managed to give the residents “not fish, but fishing rods”: to involve them in a long-term venture, an experiment, in general, with an open result.
The Art Courtyards project has not been implemented for the first year. According to the competition, the sites were determined, then professionals came there and made them beautifully. As the beauty worn out, residents began to ask the organizer of the festival - the OMK-Uchastiye fund - to patch up, nail down, touch up … This year the method of creating courtyards has changed.
Artyom Chernikov, an architect and teacher at Moscow Architectural Institute, was invited to curate Art-Yards. He put together a team on the principle of an artel, when different competencies are supplemented by mutual responsibility - shared responsibility (no wonder that all participants tell about the same facts). Workshop "Park", the team "Seliger" and "Project Group 8" worked on the Vyksa yards. According to Chernikov, courtyards are a topical, fertile topic that allows architects to test an unusual approach to work, gain media fame and, as a result, the trust of customers. “It is beneficial for everyone,” says Artyom. - First of all to us, architects - as a workforce and professionals."
The residents of the city became the most active participants in Art-Yards. The project was launched in December last year: the townspeople submitted ten applications for the competition. The designers went to ten addresses in order to evaluate the courtyards according to formal criteria (cleanliness, lighting, playgrounds, parking lots) and understand how active and ready for non-standard solutions the residents themselves are (they had to decorate the adjoining territories for the New Year). The winner was the courtyard in the Central microdistrict (two-part, multi-storey brick building, there is a homeowners' association) and the courtyard on Kornilov Street (two-story brick building, with wooden sheds, with a drug dispensary opposite). The curator of Art-Dvorov set the task of showing that it is important to work with both a typical urban environment and a rural environment. As a result, a neighboring center was created in Tsentralny, they gave a description of the scheme of the step-by-step development of the territory for several years in advance, on Kornilov they expanded the influence of sober people, limited those who are not related to the life of the yard.
The Neighborhood Center (Architectural Bureau "Park") was built on the roof above the basements, arranged by residents several years ago. The place with a relatively small elevation was popularly called the "Black Dagger" - here the boys stretch so that, in the end, throw the enemy off the sloping roof. Unsafe game: the walls of the basement approach the road, along which motorists often cut off traffic jams. At the same time, the most popular children's routes run here … The roof has become the "agora" - the community center of the courtyard.
Roman Kovensky (workshop “Park”) explains: “We designed a metal frame, sheathed it with wood, covered it with polycarbonate. The light permeable pavilion is visible from all sides, from all windows. The entrance, aka stage, tribune, podium, is oriented towards the courtyard. There are various scenarios for using this flexible space - it is easily transformed - hang anything on the frame! Over time, residents will be able to modernize the pavilion - according to seasons and needs. The main thing is that a place for general meetings has appeared."
The pavilion is the first object of the stage-by-stage improvement of the courtyard. The architects propose to move parking lots beyond its perimeter and change the transport scheme. But this will have to be dealt with by the HOA.
On Kornilova Street, in microdistrict 52, the pavilion is adjacent to the fence of the sports box. Naturally, one wall is blank, but it contains climbing hardware. The pavilion is already two-level - this is also a tribune in case of competition in the rear on the field, from here you can also go down a wide hill. True, in nature, the proximity of the hill to the sheds is embarrassing, but it turned out that they are still planned to be demolished in order to expand the public space of the quarter.
These new facilities appeared in Vyksa in June, and pre-project studies began in winter. Chernikov invited Nadezhda Snigireva and Dmitry Smirnov to the team - architects from Vologda who were repeatedly awarded with the Archiwood competition. However, in Vyksa, "Project Group 8" acted in a different guise - as specialists in participatory design. Last year, Vologda residents translated and published the book "The Practice of Public Participation in Shaping the Environment of Large and Small Cities" by American Henry Sanoff, participated in international seminars on this topic, and now they work in Kazan with colleagues involved in the development of public spaces - the presidential program of Tatarstan. In Vyksa, Nadya and Dima did the same - involving residents in the decision-making process and the implementation of projects. Clarification of the problems and merits of the territory, cultural codes and values, design games, excursions, lectures, discussion of concepts and design solutions - all this became an integral part of the Art Courtyards project.
I asked Nadia if this is a substitution of social work for architectural design? She replied, “No. There is a specific goal here - to form a technical task based on the needs of the consumer, user, not just to strengthen the community by spending another 10 holidays, but to teach how to change the environment, to involve as many people as possible. We collect a lot of very different data - it is important to translate it into architecture, into specific parameters. There is a demand for high-quality design - without architects, residents will not be able to make it. If you ask the children what color to paint the swing in, explain why it is impossible to make a volleyball court here, it is better not to throw out the metal, but turn it into such and such details, call men to drill and weld, women to paint and clean, then it turns out, which is what people need. What they take as their own and cherish. Moreover, we are ready to further develop independently. Moreover, as the architects noticed from their experience of communicating with the Vyksa residents, the residents do not imagine anything supernatural, they approach the formation and refinement of ideas intelligently.
Of course, this is long and costly, it is easier to put up a typical playground and not forget an information board for it - at the expense of such and such a deputy. This is exactly how landscaping is carried out in most cities.
… I didn't ask about the budget of the Art-Courtyards project. With what to compare it? Surely, the financial capabilities of OMK-Uchastiye are greater than that of an ordinary DUK. With a Moscow beautification concept? - yes, it's funny. Vyksa will never become "Moscow", but the example of "Art-ravine" is about the fact that, despite the usual domestic monocentricity, it is important to make any city comfortable, regardless of its scale and status.
