Two giant 35-storey L-shaped plates form a huge zigzag, from a bird's eye view vaguely resembling two hands linked by fingertips. In the place of "coupling", where the corners of the two buildings converge, but do not touch, there are transitions - an arch leading from the northern courtyard to the southern and closed passage between the houses. Here is the longitudinal axis of the quarter, along which non-residential buildings of the complex are lined up in one line - a three-story fitness center and a six-story office building.
The architecture of the complex amazes with the open honesty of its forms. Houses do not hide the cellular nature of a well-organized anthill inherent in any apartment complex; on the contrary, this feature is emphasized and even hypertrophied. The houses are very large and very checkered. The facades are lined with an even grid, which in the first version was even more uniform than it is now (later the developers asked to increase the proportions of the cells belonging to the penthouses).
In combination with a small module of identical "windows", the scale of the complex seems even more gigantic than it really is, it openly shows its main feature - it is a clearly structured, equipped with everything necessary and densely populated "city" inside a very large metropolis, an integral part, clearly expressing the essence of the whole. According to Vladimir Plotkin himself, "… if we have a city of ten million, then this should somehow be expressed in architecture."
It is easy to see that the Plotkinsky complex runs counter to the tradition of elite construction that has developed in Moscow over the past decade, preferring towers that have become a symbol of housing well-being. There may be one tower, or several, but nevertheless, whatever one may say, in the eyes of a modern Muscovite, an expensive house is a tower, and a plate-house inevitably brings back memories of typical panel construction. The architect simply does not notice this conjuncture, which has spontaneously developed in the wake of opposition to the Soviet past. The distant resemblance to the plates of panel houses, which pops up in the minds of any Moscow resident, does not seem to exist for Plotkin, and, examining his houses in more detail, we understand that in this case it is, this similarity is only external.
First of all, in the Plotkinsky house, the facade cells, although in general terms correspond to the structure of the internal premises, do not completely depend on them, because the external pattern belongs to the "screen" of the ventilated facade. The white lines that outline it are thin, much larger than glass, and each "large" cell inside is divided twice more, all large facades are lined with two intersecting lines of greater thickness, and the proportions are close to the golden ratio. The rigidity of the geometric grid is disturbed by "random" inclusions - white spots that hide the blocks of communications. All together creates an ambiguous, multilevel rhythm, emanating from a simple technique and from time to time "playing" in violation of their own rules.
However, strict geometric rationalism is inherent in this ensemble only in large planes. Small elements of the complex successfully resist the overorganization of large ones: the end facades are crushed by planes broken at an angle, it seems that the plates of houses have been broken off by some supernatural hand from something much larger, and so, with torn edges, and are stuck into the ground. Along the longitudinal axis of the site, clinging to the ground, stretch the colorful buildings of the fitness center, framed by winding angular paths. So, a strictly structured house-quarter turns out to be no stranger to "decorations", understood not trivially, in the form of curls, but on a large scale, in accordance with the scope of the architectural and construction concept.
