When the architects started to develop the project, they had a well-written competition assignment from the magazine "Sovremenny Dom", which ordered to create a townhouse village, moderately economical and fast-built, but at the same time aesthetically attractive, capable of breaking the stamp that blocked development is monotonous and depressing. The site, ready to become a field for an experiment, was located seven kilometers from Moscow along the Novorizhskoe highway, slightly away from the federal highway, on a field adjacent to a pine forest on two sides, and on the third to a picturesque stream.
In plan, the allotment of land resembles a jackboot, whose flat sole faces the track, and the wide, almost square-shaped lapel faces the forest. True, this metaphor will lose its relevance in the near future - the investor intends to acquire a neighboring plot of land and build the second stage of the village, which will give the entire ensemble a logical completeness. On the opposite side of the Novorizhskoye highway, behind the line of houses in the Voronki village, the park of the Arkhangelskoye estate begins. As you might guess, it was the neighborhood with the famous museum that gave the project a resounding name; it also prompted the architects to introduce a certain regularity into the layout of the village. The pronounced geometrism of that part of the territory of Novoarkhangelskoye, which faces the forest, was very disposed to this - the rectangle was divided into four equal parts by the crosshairs of two pedestrian boulevards with a round square in the middle. The entrance gate to the village is an arch, it is also the building of a two-story public center, the main infrastructure of Novoarkhangelskoye, and this volume, like propylaea, fixes the main axis of the boulevard. True, it is not the main manor house or even a group of townhouses that serves as a "counterweight" to it, but a round playground. There are spare ones to the right and left of the main entrance to the village, and each of them continues along the street, one of which - Sosnovaya - is equal in length to the pedestrian boulevard, and the second - Olkhovaya - after passing the center, leaves its straightness and obediently follows all the bends of the bootleg in moderation a well-worn and therefore very comfortable boot.
In total, there are 118 cottages in Novoarkhangelskoye, ranging from 197 to 313 square meters, and each house has an individual land plot ranging from 0.4 to 4 ares. In pursuit of visual diversity, instead of the traditional 2-3 types of townhouse sections, Architecturium has developed six, which are grouped into four types of houses. Along the Sosnovaya and the straight section of Olkhovaya, perhaps the most traditional sections are built - houses glued in one row, each of which has a balcony and an attic, as well as a garage for two cars. The main residential area of Novoarkhangelskoye is formed by four U-shaped townhouses - "Horseshoes", which can boast not only the neighborhood with the central intersection of the village, but also cozy courtyards. Another type of blocking is corner sections, of which point houses for four apartments are made up ("Cross"). Among the main advantages of these houses is the presence of glazed attic floors, which fill the dwellings with natural light as much as possible. And along the winding section of Olkhova there is a "Snake" of 14 sections, picturesquely repeating the curves of the relief.
The basic principle of blocking sections is based on the removal of transverse dividing walls outside the houses themselves. In fact, fences are extensions of firewalls, but in order to avoid the feeling of piling up partitions and general unnecessary closure, the architects did not make them too high. The maximum height of each such wall is 1.2 meters, and, as practice shows, this is more than enough to create a feeling of isolation of a small adjoining space. And, of course, such dividing walls that grow out of buildings look much more "architectural" than all kinds of nets and fences. In addition, some sections are shifted along these walls relative to each other - this is how, for example, the "Snake" is designed.
The houses themselves seem visually low. The architects were able to achieve a similar effect using skylights, of which there are 6-7 in each cottage. Such a number of glazed "bevels" makes the houses not only lighter, but also visually more proportional, which is very important given the modest area of the adjoining plots and the high building density of townhouses.
Interestingly, the competition project also provided for soundproof houses along the highway - housing of spectacular architecture (the roof actually went down to the ground, acting as a noise barrier) and a slightly lower price category. However, technical requirements and standards eventually forced the architects to abandon this idea - now there are engineering structures and a dog walking area in this zone. And in order to save the settlement as much as possible from any relationship with the highway, the architects also removed the second entrance from the highway, leaving only the main one passing through the community center.
By the way, it was originally planned that this center will be divided into two blocks, one of which will house a restaurant, the other - a supermarket and consumer services. However, later the developer abandoned this idea, as there are an abundance of supermarkets and restaurants within a five-minute access from the village, and the stake was placed on a medical center with a unique range of services and high-quality equipment. Other infrastructure facilities include several playgrounds, a sports center and a dog walking area.
This is where the discrepancies with the original draft end. The general plan of the village has retained its picturesqueness and abundance of green spaces, which in 2004 brought victory to the Architecturium project. The undoubted success of Novoarkhangelskoye also lies in the fact that the developer managed to practically fully realize the settlement before the economic crisis and therefore did not seek to save on building materials. On the contrary, they immediately abandoned cheap but short-lived sandwich panels, preferring a monolithic supporting frame with brick walls with effective insulation and external facing with facing brick and natural stone. And the railings of the balconies, the cladding of the garage and the above-window fragments are made of dark brown painted wooden slats. Together, this has formed an extremely rich palette - red and light beige, sandy and chocolate - and, multiplied by a variety of architectural forms, creates a very rich visual environment, far from the definition of "dull" as much as possible.
