The demographic crisis in Moscow is gradually recovering, being directly dependent on wealth. And the kindergarten crisis will still not go away, although on the outskirts of the kindergartens are being built and rebuilt quite actively. This spring, the turn came to the city center. By order of the Moscow Department of Education and the Mayor personally, the chief architect of Moscow invited well-known Moscow architects and invited them to think about projects for the reconstruction (or complete replacement) of twenty kindergartens within the Garden Ring. Thus, the Moskomarkhitektura itself acts as the customer for the "architectural" kindergartens. Three projects went to the workshop of Dmitry Alexandrov.
Most of the kindergarten buildings in question were built in the 1950s and 1960s. and were very progressive for their time. But those children, for whom they were built, are already bringing their grandchildren here, and the buildings are dilapidated, and besides, there are now twice as many children there. The latter determined the main task for architects - it is necessary to propose such a solution so that the capacity of kindergartens is at least doubled, and also to use the adjacent territory to the maximum for arranging playgrounds.
One of the features of Dmitry Alexandrov's projects is that all 3 kindergartens are not destroyed and rebuilt, but reconstructed, completing some volumes. Moreover, according to Dmitry Aleksandrov, “it was with difficulty that we managed to persuade the customer that in this case reconstruction is a more profitable and faster measure than demolition”.
The architects were attentive to both the existing buildings and the trees around them, the urban landscape and - what is important - to the needs of the kindergartens themselves. Before starting the design, the architects talked with the directors and found out their wishes. And as a result, a common idea for the three projects was formed. One of its main features is the spatial separation of children's groups of temporary stay (which do not require bedrooms) and permanent residence (those who require bedrooms). The groups are divided, but a connecting link remains between them - a common area with a dining room, playrooms, gymnasiums and a swimming pool.
In the project of a kindergarten in the courtyard on Bolshaya Gruzinskaya Street, the architects attempted to make a "park pavilion" out of the building of the kindergarten, that is, green the territory as much as possible. Three walking areas will be organized around the building for different types of groups, each in front of its own building. For temporary groups, the architects proposed to reconstruct the old building by adding a third floor, and opposite it to build a new building for temporary groups, echoing the height and modulus of the existing building. Between the two buildings there is a glass gallery on two floors with a larger module - this is a common space for all children, regardless of the group, where there is a dining room, sports and music halls, a swimming pool. This building is visible through and through and does not create obstacles for the visual flow of one green space into another, and the glazing gives a lot of natural light to exactly those rooms that need it.
The facades of the building have received an orange cladding, the bright color of which is a little restrained by the overall severity of straight lines. The interior of the building is trimmed with the most environmentally friendly materials - terracotta tiles and wood.
The second kindergarten, on Novokuznetskaya Street, is the smallest of the three. In the first version, it was supposed to be demolished and rebuilt, consisting of five multi-colored volumes. Each volume had an asymmetric gable roof with a different angle of inclination of the planes. These roofs are similar, however, not to the roof, but to the bevels of the upper part of the walls - the texture of the vertical and inclined planes is the same. In places where the walls were “broken”, windows were arranged, and rows of windows were also conceived in the surfaces of the wall-roofs, illuminating the interiors from above. All together, especially when viewed from above, resembles a child's toy, consisting of figures of different colors and slightly different shapes, strung on one axis. In a toy, such figures can be twisted - here it seems that the houses put on one pin were shaken by someone, and they froze during the game. Which is quite appropriate in this case.
In the second (approved) version, the kindergarten on Novokuznetskaya is not supposed to be demolished, but to be reconstructed and completed with bay windows, small side wings and an attic floor. Old volumes are faced with bricks, new ones are either white or light yellow, stone. The annexes will house a sports and music halls and a swimming pool. Children's bedrooms, in the old building, divided into small rooms, have been completely redesigned at the request of the educators - after reconstruction they will become larger and one group will fit in each bedroom.
The kindergarten in Kotelnichesky Lane stands on a steep slope towards the Moskva River. Therefore, the existing building has a two-story façade in one direction, and a four-story façade on the other. This pushed the authors to the idea of dividing groups of temporary and permanent residence, relatively speaking, in terms of height. The zone of permanent groups is located in the main building upstairs, and for groups of temporary stay it is planned to build a small new building on the side of the river, connecting it with special passages with the main playing and sports halls. Due to the difference in relief, the architects won out space for placing the pool - in the semi-underground floor, illuminating it around the perimeter with natural light. Above the pool there is a green lawn where children can play and even cars that serve the kindergarten can drive up. The architects also preserved the half-century trees growing around the garden, and took them as a basis for a new landscape solution. Built into the landscape and landscape, the grass on the roof and the noble dark brick make the building look like, for example, the former school at the German embassy on Mosfilmovskaya Street, give it a certain degree of rigor and tradition, inherent in the appearance of European educational institutions.
Our kindergartens have long been built according to standard projects. Recently, individual, architectural projects of schools began to appear - now it is probably the turn of younger children. To find a replacement for the gray "children's Khrushchov", to come up with such - this, it must be admitted, is a topic for architectural reflections. Therefore, strictly speaking, it is not bad that the authorities involved well-known architects in the design of kindergartens in the city center. It is very likely that new ideas and techniques will emerge during the design process; maybe later these ideas will be transferred to standard construction … Or maybe private design will come into this sphere altogether - who knows.
