Perhaps for more than a year now, the look of cars entering from the south side of the Lefortovo tunnel under the Yauza opens up a row of contrasting striped houses, which has noticeably refreshed the familiar landscape with its not quite ordinary look. These are the houses of phase 1b of the Symbol residential complex, which the DONSTROY company is building on the territory of the former Hammer and Sickle plant. They have been completed and are being populated, and in the summer, in the center of a well-equipped piece of territory with the participation of the Mayor of Moscow, the first section of the Green River, a boulevard designed by the authors of the first stage, architects of the ATRIUM bureau, was opened.
About the project we
told some time ago. It has a developed background: in 2014, the redevelopment of 58 hectares - b about Most of the gigantic plant territory, a competition was held. The jury then chose the MVRDV idea, but the customer preferred the concept of a British consortium led by LDA. The concept, very green and bionic - artificial hills alternated in it with towers and corners of "half-blocks" of streamlined shapes - was detailed by the British UHA London, bringing it closer to reality, abandoning the highest dominants, but retaining it as a "green" component in the form of an accent on landscaping and landscaping, and the preference for streamlined, bendable, flowing plastic. Therefore, it is not surprising that the Moscow bureau ATRIUM, architects known for their adherence to sculptural plasticity, was invited for direct design within the framework of the received design code. This made it possible to obtain the very houses that are now attracting the eyes of the flow of motorists of the TTK - certainly not trivial and noticeable against the general background of the capital's construction industry.
The group of buildings of stage 1b, designed and implemented by Vera Butko and Anton Nadtochim, is located in the eastern part of the plant's territory and consists of five U-shaped "frames" of varying degrees of asymmetry; all of them open onto the boulevard and are grouped along it.
“We were the general designers of the eastern part of the boulevard and all five buildings of stage 1b; we developed the concept, worked with stages P and RD, landscape and interiors of public areas. This is a unique case when it was possible to control all stages of object creation and link all solutions into a single integrated system.
We like the result - for the city this is a precedent for a different aesthetics, and implemented from urban planning solutions to landscape, in a comprehensive manner. I would say that there is no such aesthetics in our city anymore, neither from the point of view of form, nor from the standpoint of a living city-planning structure."
Let's start with the boulevard: in the end, DONSTROY promises to make it a publicly accessible city pedestrian artery. Wide, about 30 m wide, and slightly curving, in the future it should cross the entire triangular territory of the residential complex from east to west, parallel to the Entuziastov highway. The total length of the boulevard is about 2 km, it was laid as a recreational and "green" axis of the complex already in the concept. Now we have implemented a segment of queue 1b, about one-fifth of its length. In addition to lawns, paths, greenery and geoplastic elements, there are children's and sports grounds of the most modern type from the Chekhard bureau: with steel slides, structures made of natural logs, pergolas and trampolines. The project for the continuation of the park will also be handled by the ATRIUM bureau.
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zooming 1/4 Residential complex "Symbol" (stage 1b) © Donstroy
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zooming 2/4 Residential complex "Symbol" (stage 1b) © Donstroy
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zooming 3/4 Residential complex "Symbol" (stage 1b) © Donstroy
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zooming 4/4 Residential complex "Symbol" (stage 1b) Photo © ATRIUM
But the most amazing and attractive element, of course, is the bridge. It is located approximately in the middle of the constructed area at the intersection of the boulevard and the only internal automobile street in the eastern part of the residential complex, Nevelskoy passage. In the LDA concept and in the modified version of the UHA there was no bridge, there the boulevard simply intersected with the street - a bridge that made it possible to separate the streams and make the boulevard space, on the one hand, calmer and more self-sufficient, and on the other hand, more complex, two-tiered, was proposed. architects ATRIUM. It was developed jointly with the architectural studio of Vladimir Garanin.
The bridge is divided into a car passage and a parallel wavy footbridge. The boulevard, whose route is entirely devoted to pedestrians, "dives" under the bridge. Presumably, this is where the name "Green River" originated: an extended promenade is located lower than the private courtyards of residential buildings, and because of the difference in elevation it looks like a riverbed with sloping green banks. Under the bridge, the depth increases, although very smoothly - walking, we suddenly find ourselves at the minus-first level. The game with levels became possible due to the fact that the terrain here is mostly artificial. Firstly, according to the architects, the soil was reclaimed after the metallurgical plant, and secondly, all houses have underground parking lots, private courtyards are located on their roofs, and here, on the central axis of the complex, where there is no parking, a decision was made to deepen the "river" in general, and then "bring" it under the bridge.
The resulting effect is curious in itself: it does not just distribute the streams at the intersection, allowing those walking along the boulevard to avoid the need to “cross the road”. He also creates several emotional types of urban space, and not only different, but also pushing for comparison, the experience of the dissimilarity of neighboring sites: you can look from top to bottom and bottom to top, under the bridge you can hide from the sun or rain, or vice versa, get out of him, feeling the spaciousness and the dragging forward and upward perspective of intertwining paths. In addition, walking along the boulevard to the bridge, we objectively go down, and subjectively - we "raise" the curbs of the fences for ourselves, getting the opportunity to interact with the lower floors of houses, as if acquiring admission to the urban part of the stylobate, which determines the key social role of the bridge as a kind of node, the focus of life - whose functionality, of course, will depend on the future filling of the lower floors. But the premises adjacent to the bridge are already reserved not for parking, but for cafes, and the gentle slopes-squares can be used as summer terraces. Coupled with an open wooden amphitheater and pebble-like, rounded seats scattered around, it forms a kind of core of a residential area, the center of its social life - or even a small town square, akin to those that we love so much in the centers of historic cities; the difference is that it is closed from cars not by road signs, but spatially, through the difference in levels. “Various informal communities love to hang out under bridges,” say the architects. And here they created such a "party" place, but more glamorous than just under the bridge.
A striking detail is the support-pots, supporting trees and climbing plants. “Usually bridges are devoid of greenery, they become sinkholes, white spots in a green frame; so we decided to lift the trees up and make the bridge "green" - say the architects. The bases of the supports are smoothly rounded, like those of Vanka-Vstanka, and the concrete surface is sculpturally smooth: the architects, according to them, are grateful to the general contractor, FODD, for its quality.
Everything works for the perception of volumes to a greater extent as flowerpots and to a lesser extent as bridge pillars. Structural supports are treated atectonically, which is why bridges, automobile and pedestrian, visually hover, surrounded by hyper-pots, rather than lean on them. The paving reacts to the points of support with large concentric circles, which, in an enlarged, generalized manner, depict circles on the water, traces of rain - which, on the one hand, supports the associations between the boulevard and the river, and on the other hand, denotes a difference, because the lines of the paths on the boulevard stretch like the flow of water in the river, and the circles spread to all other non-boulevard streets of the complex and courtyards, to the entire conventional "land"; after all, such circles we most often see in puddles on the asphalt, they are, to some extent, a symbol of urban space in general.
So, the smooth graphics of the boulevard paths, similar to a semi-braided braid, streams of water in a river or seaweed, symbolically emphasizes the status of the promenade as a "Green River". All this can be appreciated when viewed from above: the effect is calculated when viewed from the upper floors, for the role of landscaping as a "fifth facade".
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The graphic completeness of the landscaping, its "formulation" both for the pedestrian's gaze and for viewing from above, creates a feeling of neatness, meaningfulness and interconnectedness of all manifestations of space inside the complex, external and internal, and their subordination to a single concept. Needless to say, ideas continue in the entrance lobbies: the flowing lines of the floor and walls, natural colors, the white pointed reception desk; in addition, a small winter garden made of living plants - a "green wall" is supposed to be inside.
The weaving of the boulevard lines echoes the equally restrained-flowing lines of the facades. Although it would be more accurate to say the opposite: the contrasting and strong-willed, “wiry” graphics of the houses were reflected in the boulevard; nevertheless, it was here primary and structure-forming.
The actual outlines of the houses are subordinate to the flat design and therefore are quite rectangular (although the parameters of the apartments are good: the ceiling height is 3.5 m, the height of the windows is 2.1 m; penthouses are placed in the sloping "crowns" of the upper floors). But complete and perfect bionics in residential buildings is impossible or difficult to implement, so the architects, limiting themselves to rounded corners and asymmetric construction of two out of five houses, subordinated the rest to a large-scale line drawing. They are visually active, attract and lead the eye, permeate the space of the complex - with the help of lines, the architects managed to enhance the effect of bionic mobility, maybe even - to impose this modern statement on houses as a reasonable compromise between the requirements of marketing and the imagery embedded in the project. As a result, they did not enter into a contradiction, as it happens, between the creative impulse and reality, but support each other: the financial part of the project did not have to make excessive concessions for the sake of form, but the architecture, meanwhile, provides a recognizable and, presumably, “sold »Type of houses. The architects express their gratitude to the DONSTROY company for its willingness to build according to a "non-linear" project, with rounded corners of the concrete frame and curved metal cladding panels.
The buildings are divided into two types: three smaller, from 5 to 17 floors, in the middle - horizontal movement prevails in them, and their silhouette is drawn with large steps (terraces are provided for adjoining apartments). Two other houses are located at the edges, they have 21-27 floors and about 100 meters in height, and here the vertical is strengthened: each section has rounded contours, so that in plan and when viewed from above, each house looks like a long balloon tied many times. The shape makes it possible to emphasize their structure as a group of high sections, stuck together towers. But the architects knock down a slender row of verticals with a diagonal contour at the junction between facades with a dark brick and light white surface. All towers, like yin and yang, are composed of such halves, and the diagonal contour echoes the branching lines on the "horizontal" buildings.
The “halves” on the facades of tall houses are endowed with easy-to-read contrast: a thin grid of brick lintels is treated vertically, the windows are combined in height, the white part is horizontal, window ribbons appear here - they also protrude slightly forward, taking on the role of the skin or bark of houses. Why the facades are three- or even four-layer: white matter - brick - dark metal - glass of windows. They have a relief, distinct, permeated with a "talking" plot - for example, bent dark metal with thin grooves of horizontal stripes is present everywhere here, recalling the metallurgical past of the territory.
As well as metal boxes for air conditioners, supporting relief and rhythm on some of the facades. Brick is definitely responsible for modern trends and respectability of the complex, its surface is actual-multi-tone, but everywhere it is placed in metal frames. Four textures and two directions, coupled with diagonals, are more than enough to create an integral, but mobile, active image - at times it seems that houses are frozen in some kind of dance, like in a disco, they move rhythmically, then smoothly, and this has its own megalithic charm.
The effect of the dance is supported by a variety of angles: using the turn of the boulevard and placing just a few sections at an angle on the hinge of this turn, the architects got many different points of view, the constant change of the picture when perceived in motion, especially if you walk along the boulevard. “The perspective in motion is intriguing, new perspectives are constantly being revealed,” says Anton Nadtochiy.
It must be said that although queue 1b is still an oasis surrounded by a construction site, but already inside, on the boulevard, it is not felt: from here the city looks successful and even self-sufficient - like an element prepared for connection to the general system, but at the same time capable and by itself, primarily due to the inner axis of the boulevard and the nucleus of the intersection with the bridge. The urban planning structure is open for development and at the same time is ready to heal, and the unity of the "genetic code" is not to a small extent ensured by the above-mentioned supergraphic, which unites all volumes, like the "fifth facade", with a single structure of large lines and spots. mobile and charged with visual dynamics.
Now the architects of ATRIUM are busy designing the eastern half of the boulevard of the residential complex "Symbol", its fragments to the right and left of the completed one, as well as the buildings of the school and kindergarten. An oval pavilion of a cafe, an artificial reservoir and a "dry fountain" should appear in the eastern part of the boulevard; the theme of "circles on the water" - large graphic elements of the pavement - is spreading everywhere. Another smaller inner pedestrian boulevard should appear to the south of the newly built houses. The next four houses will be built in the southern corner of the grounds, west of the school, they were designed jointly by WALL and ATRIUM (they proposed facades that inherit the elements of the constructed buildings, in particular the white balconies with a curved outline; they can be seen on the site of the complex). Then it is planned to build a house east of turn 1b, according to the project of ABTB Timur Bashkaev, and the next one, on the sharp eastern corner overlooking the Entuziastov highway, according to the UNK project by Yulia Borisova. In total, 6 construction phases are planned for the “Symbol” residential complex.
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zooming 1/4 Residential complex "Symbol" (stage 1b) © Donstroy
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zooming 2/4 Residential complex "Symbol" (stage 1b) © Donstroy
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zooming 3/4 Residential complex "Symbol" (stage 1b) © Donstroy
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zooming 4/4 Residential complex "Symbol" (stage 1b) © Donstroy
