The building plot from the west adjoins the fence of the Accounts Chamber, from the north it is bounded by the red lines of st. Burdenko, from the east and south - existing office buildings. The customer bought it a long time ago and was originally going to build an elite housing here. The architect invited by him completed the project, which completely satisfied the developer both in terms of space and style. However, this project was not agreed: at a meeting of the Public Council it was categorically turned down. The severity of the architectural officials can be interpreted as a bias: one of them lives directly opposite the future construction site and is very interested in how the view from his window will change in the near future. It was he who recommended the developer to change the architect to Sergei Skuratov, who had already proved that he could not harm Burdenko Street. The developer, wanting to get the coveted approvals, did just that, and a very interesting architectural story grew out of this purely private plot.
Sergei Skuratov, who agreed to develop a completely new project of a residential building for this site in the shortest possible time, found himself hostage to several conditions at once. Firstly, a very modest area of the site (only 0.25 hectares), secondly, the already agreed area of the residential complex, and thirdly, difficult insolation and predictable height restrictions in the conditions of the Moscow center. However, all these are technical parameters, albeit intricate, but nevertheless they are nothing more than part of the equation that all professionals can solve. The problem of architecture itself turned out to be much more delicate, which interested not so much the customer as his opponent from among the members of the Public Council.
Sergei Skuratov does not hide the fact that he took the simplest path, namely, he directly asked the official who recommended him to the developer how he imagines the future view from his window. True, it cannot be said that this greatly facilitated the process of inventing the appearance of the future house for the architect. Because in a one-on-one conversation, it became clear that most of all the official wants to preserve the status quo: a small cozy park, in the depths of which once stood a house of dark brick, where surgeon Burdenko lived, after whose name the street was named. If on the other side of the scale we put the initially known total area of the projected complex - a little more than 12 thousand square meters - it becomes especially obvious in what difficult creative situation Skuratov found himself.
First of all, the trees on the site were preserved - several birches and a maple with a luxurious crown. And on the western border of the site there is a garden, in the terraced landscape of which a two-storey villa is inscribed. In fact, it is part of a residential complex, but from the side of Burdenko Street this modest volume is perceived as an independent structure, pleasing with its intimacy lovers of modest views from the window. In the central part of the site there is a five-story section, made on the scale of the entire street, and another ten-story tower adjoins it six meters deeper. The middle building has a fully glazed plinth, over which the four upper floors hang like a cantilever. However, the horizontal division of the facades is deliberately enlarged, so the five-storey volume is visually perceived as three-storey at best, and the tower moved into the depths of the site is five-storey.
The upper part of the tower is turned towards the center. At the level of the last three floors, Skuratov extended and slightly bent the northern facade to create a hood, the interior of which is completely glazed. Thus, the architect turned the apartments of the upper floors away from the contemplation of "windows into windows" of the offices of the Accounts Chamber and in return provided them with beautiful views of the historic center of Moscow. On the other hand, this architectural gesture can be interpreted as a nod of the new house towards another Skuratov object on Burdenko Street, which is located just diagonally and is exactly in the line of sight of the half-turned tower. It is also important that this most striking compositional element sets the plasticity of all facades of the complex: some of the windows of the lower floors are also slightly recessed into the facades, which part in front of them with wide vertical slopes.
In addition to the three-part stepped composition of the complex, which makes its presence on Burdenko Street really very sparing for historical buildings, the use of brick as the main facing material became a tribute to the house that once existed on this place and the wishes of the powerful reviewer of the project. It's no secret that this is generally Skuratov's favorite material. It is also no secret that the architect treats him like a virtuoso illusionist, capable of giving the surface of the walls a very different texture with one touch - sometimes smooth, sometimes rough, sometimes fleecy. The new residential building on Burdenko Street is no exception. It would seem that Skuratov uses all the same techniques that are familiar from his house in Tessinsky and the office center on Novodanilovskaya embankment - alternating light and terracotta shades, and responding to smooth surfaces with areas with strongly protruding bricks. But the result is a completely original house, which is easily identified as a Skuratov object and, with great difficulty, as an object faced with ordinary bricks.
