The site for which ADM architects designed a car dealership is located in Severnoye Butovo between Projected passage and Kulikovskaya street. It is very convenient for this kind of trade: firstly, near, on the opposite side of the highway, there is a customs clearance center - from where it is convenient to deliver goods directly to the store; secondly, there is a car wash and two gas stations nearby. And, finally, the main advantage of the place - it is clearly visible from cars passing along the Moscow Ring Road - which determined the appearance of the building and the main architectural idea.
The architects suggested turning one of the facades - the one visible from the Moscow Ring Road - into a spectacular showcase. Prisms of glass consoles protrude from its plane far ahead, inside which cars intended for sale will be exhibited. At night, these voluminous windows will glow from the inside - and probably with multi-colored lights, attracting the attention of passers-by. Such a technique is expensive: the design of showcases is based on structural glazing and a metal frame, which ensures their significant removal from the body of the building. Therefore, the main facade is the most expensive part of the project, which is understandable - after all, in fact, it is a gigantic advertisement, solved by architectural means.
A large part of the building is occupied by a garage - a warehouse for storing cars, and the authors proposed a beautiful but economical solution for it. The outer walls of the garage are a lattice of vertical metal "corners" placed at a distance of 10-15 cm from each other. This makes the interior spaces naturally ventilated, and the customer saves not only on solid walls and heating, but also on ventilation. The lattice, however, is not simple. The edges of the "corners" that make up its surface are painted in different colors, due to which the facade constantly changes its color whenever the point of view changes - turning, for example, from white to blue, and from blue to orange. Due to the ingenious coloring, simple surfaces acquire a semblance of inner life, and the house becomes somewhat like a living creature - most of all, like a chameleon, constantly changing its color. The design turns out to be very cheap, but it looks impressive.
A garage with a metal grille of walls that is permeable to the wind is a "cold", unheated room that occupies most of the building. Warm interiors are intended for a service center located in the underground tier and for a two-story trading floor, the volume of which is built into the lower part of the building, occupies the first floor and continues up one more floor. The glass walls of the sales area recede from the outer contour of the building, creating the levitation effect loved by modernists.
All together, it looks a bit like a giant cabinet, some of the drawers of which are pulled out and show its contents. Or a computer database - the way it is often portrayed in films, when shiny containers with something beautiful and necessary come out of a vague mass of multicolored sparkle. The result is a rather modern and witty architectural image, playing on the theme of storage and demonstration at all available levels - from practical to artistic.
