Yuzhnoye Butovo is a district whose name the overwhelming majority of Muscovites associate with the hopelessly distant outskirts of the capital. The way there is really long: first to the final station of a regular metro, then a fascinating journey by light metro, which ultimately leads to a strange place that is not at all like Moscow. Here, residential towers easily coexist with private cottages, and between the microdistricts there are flooded fields with human-sized grass and picturesque lakes. But nature is nature, and many new settlers also need all the necessary infrastructure, and it is with it that Yuzhnoye Butovo is growing very actively at the moment. Sergey Kiselev & Partners has designed a large shopping and entertainment center for Yuzhny Butov.
The land plot intended for the construction of a shopping and entertainment center is located in the 124A quarter, where Yuzhnoye Butovo, in fact, ends. More precisely, the administrative boundaries of the district spread further, smoothly flowing into the boundaries of a giant cottage area, but Academician Pontryagin Street, to which the future complex faces with its main facade, is really the last multi-lane highway in this place with traffic lights and public transport stops. Well, or the first - if you go from the side of the village. And this mutuality of points of view is one of the key positions of this project, because the shopping and entertainment center is designed as a kind of outpost of commerce on the border of the city and the countryside and is designed for both residents of South Butovo and residents of numerous private cottages. This explains, in particular, its impressive dimensions: almost 29 thousand square meters will be allocated for trade and leisure, and another 19 thousand - for personal cars of visitors.
The customer initially planned to place the parking underground, but very quickly it became clear that this event threatened to drag him into the financial abyss: the hydrogeology of the site is far from safe and will require too serious investments. It is also important that a detailed calculation of the required number of parking spaces gave a round figure of 500 - and it is difficult to place so many cars underground even in the presence of the most unassuming grounds. SKiP have found a much more economical and at the same time rational option: a six-level above-ground parking is attached to the shopping center and forms a single volume with it - a wide parallelepiped. The height of each parking floor is three meters, and the height of each level of the main volume is exactly twice that, which made it possible to equalize the two blocks in height and "put on" a single facade on them.
This decision must be considered successful also from the point of view of the immediate environment of the future complex. The fact is that the southern border of the site faces the church under construction, and since the parking lot is attached to the shopping center on the south side, this facade turned out to be as neutral as possible, which in the case of the neighborhood of the store and the temple cannot but be recognized as the most appropriate option.
The main loading area of the shopping center, which in the design of the overwhelming majority of buildings of this typology, turns into a kind of technical "flux" that spoils the perception of the rear facade, has also been interestingly solved. "SKiP" blocked it with a fragment of the third level of the parking garage and thus visually isolated.
Pedestrians will be able to enter the shopping and entertainment complex both from Akademik Pontryagin Street and from the other side. This solution is designed for the long-term development of the Yuzhnoye Butovo region: in a few years, it is planned to build an additional light metro station "Potapovo" here, and passengers will be able to get to the store without crossing the carriageway. As for the entrance from Akademika Pontryagin Street, its "throughput" is dictated not so much by the current demographic situation in the area as by the provisions of the general plan: in particular, the construction of a four-storey office and residential complex is envisaged between the shopping center and the cottage village.
The interior of the shopping and entertainment center is traditional. Several pedestrian zones are formed around the three-height passage and the round atrium, which are the focus of all shops, regardless of their area and theme. Giant bay windows give the shopping galleries an interesting spatial intrigue. From the side of the street, these transparent inserts 1-2 levels high serve as a kind of additional advertising for the shopping complex, because their area allows pedestrians and passing motorists to look inside. However, there is also enough space for advertising signs on the facade, and the first floor is completely glazed, which gives shops a lot of actively working showcases, and the district is an impressive building, but by no means heavy.
The most noticeable technique here is the coloring of the facades. It is she who forms the image of the building. The main finishing material will be metal panels made of galvanized steel, painted in a neutral canvas tone, over which bright inserts are scattered - “pixels” of lemon, yellow, orange and red colors. Such a solution not only distinguishes the complex against the background of monochrome infill development and at the same time masks the true scale of the construction, but in general it goes well with the ideology of the young Yuzhnoye Butovo district. The chief architect of the project, Vladimir Labutin, compares the resulting facades with the initial stage of the artist's work on the canvas, when the very first strokes are applied to the canvas, “the color is tried”. And this metaphor is great for describing the city-planning significance of the building designed by SK&P. It is only the first stroke on the map of the southernmost outskirts of Moscow - however, it would be good if his cheerful mood was transferred to the future district.
