The chief architect of Moscow, Alexander Kuzmin, spoke about the high-rise future of the capital as a preamble to the speakers' reports. Moscow's high-rise development is being carried out, as he said, on the principle of a crater: a ban on high-rise construction in the center, an explosion of the silhouette diagram in the area of the 4th transport ring and a decline to investment unattractive outskirts. It is known that within the framework of the "New Ring of Moscow" program, 60 zones have been allocated. At the same time, there are 140 names of investors interested in the construction of high-rise buildings in these territories. But not everyone, according to Kuzmin, is able to assess the scale of responsibility. As a result, some of the started objects have to be "frozen". The situation is aggravated by the lack of standards for high-rise construction in the capital. For each building, as the head of the Moskomarkhitektura said, "its own gentleman's set." At the same time, new requirements may be presented at the design and even construction stage. Thus, in particular, architectural curiosities appear in the capital. But, as noted by Alexander Kuzmin, Moscow is a many-sided city. “It's in St. Petersburg,” as the chief architect of the capital joked, “before you draw anything, you need to put on a tuxedo.”
Londoner Bill Price, director of WSP Conculting Engineers, who has participated in the projects of the Freedom Tower and the Heast Tower (New York), Torre Mayor (Mexico) and others, talking about technology for the construction of high-rise buildings and security issues, emphasized the importance of the contribution that can today bring engineering to architectural design. From a selection of materials on the topic of high-rise construction in the previous ARX magazine (it is also part of a global media project), it is known that the Heast Tower facades, embroidered with diagonally crossed steel beams, are not so much an artistic gesture of Lord Foster as an engineering solution that takes into account the geometry of the triangle as the most stable and tough.
Frenchman Jean Pistre, President of Valode & Pistre, using the example of his company's projects for Yekaterinburg, spoke about the possibilities of developing high-rise construction in Russia (the choice of a non-capital metropolis is indicative). Despite the data from a survey of Muscovites voiced in Alexander Kuzmin's speech, according to which 15% of them would gladly settle in a high-rise building, Mr. Pistre proceeded from the situation of a negative attitude towards skyscrapers in society. But he noted the urban planning and image value of high-rise buildings and called for leveling possible negative impacts on the environment through imagery and symbolism, which, among other things, can become architectural resources for expressing national identity. Thus, when designing the Yekaterinburg skyscrapers, the French used the images of two warriors, christening the resulting pair of skyscrapers at the entrance to Yekaterinburg "the guardians of the Urals" and the Tatlin Tower, which has already become a cultural symbol of Russia. In French projects, simpler images were read - a lily flower, a rock, a sail, a lighthouse.
Russian architect Sergei Skuratov spoke at the conference about his experience in designing a high-rise complex on Mosfilmovskaya Street (Moscow). His image is dancing couples. There are two of them. The vortex-like dynamic composition of the structures twisted by a screw echoes the "dancing by the sea", as it was called in the ARX magazine, the Turning Torso building (Sweden, Malmo) by Santiago Calatrava. But the incomplete - in the Moscow version - screw of the towers creates the feeling of "screwing into the sky", a slight turn of the "dancing" heads towards the center of Moscow (in order to optimize the view scenarios and better insolation of the apartments). The “clothes” of buildings are an irrational irregular structure with relief alternation of matt and dark glass and lightening of the facades upwards. However, as it turned out during the discussion of the report, after the calculation, which translates this complex imagery, "emotionally suffered" by the architect, into the cost of construction costs (more than $ 3.5 thousand), a typical, according to Russian speakers, for our country history of alterations and compromises. “You probably have to be a philanthropist and value architecture very much in order to agree to the construction of such buildings,” said Sergei Skuratov.
In the next report of Timur Batkin, deputy general director of Don-Stroy (the customer of the complex on Mosfilmovskaya), architecture was not among the listed factors of the profitability of buildings. Although, according to the experience of Western colleagues, voiced at the conference, a successful architectural solution can increase the value of real estate by 25 percent or more and spur the dynamics of sales. But in the situation of the overheated real estate market in the capital, everything is probably moving very dynamically. Therefore, the skyscraper on Mosfilmovskaya is not being built alone, but, as it is now fashionable in China, the most productive in terms of high-rise construction, by a whole quartet. By the way, in the West, skyscrapers are primarily office buildings (only 1/5 are residential), while in Moscow the proportion is reversed. This poses an edge to the question not only of harmonizing species scenarios and accounting for insolation in apartments (it was for these purposes that the screw was started in the complex on Mosfilmovskaya), but also requires inclusion in the complex of social infrastructure.
Sergey Skuratov paid attention to the visual self-sufficiency of the complex. Taking into account the strictness of the Moscow coordinators in terms of adhering to the already notorious "pool of visual connections", he brought not one skyscraper to the city stage, but a whole company. And not only because, as the architect joked, it is always more fun to come with a friend or girlfriend than to be alone. And because a high-rise building, due to its dimensions, is always inappropriate, but once a complex is formed, the structure immediately becomes self-sufficient.
American Ryan Mullenix, Deputy Director of NBBJ Columbus (USA), devoted his report to the infrastructural self-sufficiency of high-rise buildings. In his opinion, a diverse urban environment is a means of expressing the diversity that is inherent in a city. But as soon as a skyscraper, always being so visually different from the urban context, falls into infrastructural dependence on it, it fails, a commercial collapse. All modern skyscrapers in the United States strive to create a self-sustaining environment in their bowels. In fact, Mr. Müllenix noted, it is a city within a city. And all progressive approaches to the design of high-rise buildings are aimed at forming a microcosm within a single building or, even better, their complex.
The construction of a high-rise building is today and always a difficult and, above all, a communicative task. Larry Gets, First Deputy Director of NBBJ Seattle (USA), even shared with his Russian colleagues the 4 "C" principle they use: codes, clients, consultants, contractors. That is, the efficiency of high-rise construction depends on how well the codes for high-rise construction are worked out and how quickly and constructively on their basis clients, consultants and contractors (contractors) can agree on common goals. The image of New Babylon, tested in the second issue of ARX magazine when analyzing the world-famous already built skyscrapers, as well as the experience of Western colleagues presented at the last conference, show that in the West, the authorities and diversified professionals manage to come to an agreement with each other. In Russia, to all appearances, the situation is still more complicated, both in terms of regulatory documents and in terms of professional communication. Building ID and ARX magazine are trying to solve the latter problem, designating as their mission the creation of a universal language of architecture.
