Leninsky district is one of the most extensive and gloomy in Chelyabinsk. Even today, its layout and appearance bears the stamp of the fact that it was created as a military-industrial complex. The largest factories of the city are concentrated here - electric machines, pipe-rolling, metal structures and others - in general, all those industries that brought Chelyabinsk the title of "tank city" during the Great Patriotic War. It must be said that after the war, little has changed in the Leninsky District: for many years it developed under the heading "secret", and the same type of residential quarters were built right between the factory territories, as vast as they were monotonous. Public life in this part of the city revolves mainly around the Palaces of Culture and Sports of the Metalwork Plant and the Chelyabinsk Pipe-Rolling Plant (ChTPZ), as well as on the embankment of Lake Smolino, on the banks of which the district is built. It is necessary to say separately about Smolino - this lake with an area of 27 square kilometers is quite comparable to the sea, it even more resembles it with its slightly salted water. The lake would serve as the main natural attraction of the region, if it did not give him so much trouble. In particular, the water level in it is constantly rising, so that a flooded coastal zone and local floods are by no means uncommon for Chelyabinsk, which makes the embankment not the safest place to spend leisure time. The already mentioned main centers of social life - DK - have long since fallen into disrepair, and since they are located on Novorossiyskaya Street, which runs along the coast, a comprehensive project for the reconstruction and improvement of this entire zone has matured by itself.
One of the customers of the large-scale undertaking was the ChTPZ pipe-rolling plant, and the project itself was developed at Chelyabinskgrazhdanproekt. In particular, it provides for the strengthening of the embankment to the level of the dam, reconstruction of the recreation center, construction of a water park, a block of sports facilities, a medical center and a school. As an investment component of the project, it also featured commercial space and residential buildings, some of the apartments in which were intended for factory workers and invited specialists, and some were for sale. The investor invited the workshop of Vladimir Bindeman to design the last one, and Architecturium developed a dynamic and memorable project of residential buildings for Chelyabinsk.
Architecturium proposed a composition of three stepped plates, which, when viewed from one side, merges into a single volume, and from the other, looks like three separate bodies connected by bridges. In an effort to orient as many apartments as possible not just to the lake, but to its southern shore (in the rather harsh climate of Chelyabinsk, any extra ray of light is perceived as grace), the architects placed the houses at an angle to Novorossiyskaya Street. And since all the buildings are interconnected, not only the silhouette, but also the plan of the residential complex looks like a staircase with three steps. In the conditions of the dominance of typical buildings around Bindeman, he really did not want to repeat even within three volumes, so each of the buildings has different proportions. The easternmost reaches the maximum permitted height of 77 meters and is a vertical parallelepiped. The middle building is, rather, a square, and the westernmost one is again a parallelepiped, but already laid on the ground with its long side. Separately, it is necessary to say about the inserts connecting these volumes - blocks half the height of the first building are L-shaped and attached to the northern facades of the houses so that only fully glazed loggias go out into the gaps between them. From the side of the lake, these transparent walkways are perceived as completely independent elements and visually fasten the three buildings into a single whole. And if in the main buildings most of the living rooms are oriented to the south, then in the houses-inserts there are gallery-type apartments that are oriented to the west and catch the setting sun.
There is a lot of glass in this project. In fact, the entire southern facade of the complex is a glass surface, whose tinted surface is here and there diluted with bright red accents, scattered in a chaotic manner. And although it would seem that the glass facade is an attribute of purely southern architecture, in the harsh northern edge it looks appropriate, and its smoky surface, reflecting the glare of the sun in the water in summer, enters into an equally organic dialogue with the endless field of ice in winter, into which it turns Smolino. In a separate white block, the architects brought out the stairs and engineering communications. This light-colored insert divides the living spaces into three different layers. It can also be compared to a double-sided canvas on which architects, depending on the context, apply two completely different paintings.
And if the residential complex faces the lake with a translucent veil, then the northern facade, on the contrary, is designed as a continuous ceramic mesh of bright red color. On the one hand, the architects wanted to oppose the gloomy urban environment with something bright and positive, on the other, this facade will never see the sun, which means it must somehow designate it itself.
The basis for all residential buildings is a three-level stylobate, which houses all kinds of shops, a spa complex and household services, as well as parking for future residents. The need to accommodate so many functions in this volume immediately forced the architects to make it very large: a whole airfield was formed in front of each of the houses on the north side. And since such an area required the appropriate design, the stylobate was finished with massive natural stone and due to this it is visually perceived as a “base of foundations”. The roof of the stylobate is flat and several ramps lead to it. True, there is no improvement there, Chelyabinsk is too cold a city for such delights. “Perhaps, at the height of summer, some kind of spontaneous improvement is possible, for example, tubs of flowers or a summer cafe,” says Vladimir Bindeman, “but, most likely, the matter will be limited to the fact that the roof of the stylobate will be used as reserve parking spaces for residents. houses.
This cheerful house in the factory district of Chelyabinsk is perceived as a fountain of orange juice in dull rainy weather. The architects managed not only to design a new dominant of the area, but to cure the "vitamin deficiency" of its visual range. We can only hope that this first injection of vitamin C will not be the last.
