The multifunctional center, presented by TPO "Reserve", was designed for a site that is part of the so-called "Big City", a large-scale urban development plan covering a significant part of the districts to the south-west of the MIBC under construction. In this case, the site is located very close to Moscow City, on the embankment behind the Third Ring, between 1st Silikatny and Prichalniy passages. Construction of a new metro station Arbatsko-Pokrovsky line is planned 150 meters from the complex, in addition, a new bridge across the Moskva River and the highway will pass near the northwestern border of the site. Thus, in the future, the complex will be surrounded by a whole network of developed transport arteries, and the architects were forced to initially take this into account in the project.
Also, the appearance of the complex was influenced by the provisions of the general plan for the development of Moscow until 2025, according to which the territory adjacent to the river should be cleared of industrial facilities and turned into a park. In order for the planned green zone to be clearly visible from the side of the future exit from the metro, Vladimir Plotkin designed the complex consisting of two 26-storey buildings on the stylobate - the space “in the alignment” of the buildings will provide a visual link between the park and the metro pavilion.
The parallelepipeds of the towers are slightly shifted relative to each other - this was done, as Vladimir Plotkin explained, because at the construction site of the future complex, in the Shelepiinskaya embankment area, the Moskva River turns slightly, and the dynamic, as if bifurcating, silhouette of office towers will be perceived from the water the best way. New buildings are carefully built into the high-rise horizon of the embankment: on the one hand, the front of the new development of this reconstructed territory, according to the general plan, is gradually increasing to the "Moscow City", on the other - to the planned high-rise buildings on the street. Demyan Bedny. As Vladimir Plotkin said at a meeting of the council, he also thought over the visual dialogue of his complex with the area of the Filevskaya floodplain, located on the opposite bank of the river.
The laconic and graceful composition of the facades leaves no doubt about the authorship. Plotkin uses his favorite strip glazing of facades in this project. The plasticity of the composition is achieved with the typical for TPO "Reserve" undercut with shallow cantilever overhangs. The console in the upper part of the building filled with a large stained-glass window prompted Alexander Kudryavtsev to compare with the building of the Transport College in Rotterdam, built by Nötelings & Riedijk.
Most of the members of the architectural council spoke in favor of Vladimir Plotkin's project. Earlier, as Mikhail Khazanov said, the project had already been approved by the experts of the International Academy of Architecture, especially supporting the planned connection with the park. The remarks concerned mainly the interior layouts of the office towers. For example, Andrei Bokov proposed to use the experience of the Americans and design internal staircases of 2-3 floors for companies renting several levels at once - this will free up elevators for "transit" passengers.
The project was praised for its "exemplary presentation", but for consideration by the Public Council, Vladimir Plotkin was asked to prepare options with a brighter and more expressive architecture. At the council under the mayor, this project should be shown along with the planning project for the entire territory, which has not yet been prepared (the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan is responsible for the planning project). The Council considered it necessary to support Andrey Bokov's initiative and recommend to the General Planning Institute to engage in the work of architects - "volumetric", in this case TPO "Reserve".
When considering the second object, the story with the lack of a project for planning the territory repeated itself. Only if in the first case the picture was relatively clear, since The Research and Development Institute of the General Plan has been working on the concept of the Big City since 2005, the development plan for the development of buildings near the Elektrozavodskaya metro station, where Alexey Bavykin designed the hotel building, turned out to be much less developed.
The site chosen for the construction of the hotel has a very complex shape and disadvantageous "neighbors". From the north, it is bordered by B. Semenovskaya Street, the only major street in this place, from the south - by the railway track and the Elektrozavodskaya platform. From the west and east, the site is literally squeezed by adjoining buildings, so that in its plan it resembles a funnel with a narrow neck facing B. Semenovskaya. The fate of the "neighbors" is uncertain: from the east, the future hotel is adjoined by a complex of buildings of a knitwear factory, which in recent years has been transformed into an office complex. And from the side of the Elektrozavodskaya metro station, the pavilion of which is an architectural monument, there are the McDonald's building facing B. Semenovskaya and the small shopping center Pokrov Most, designed by Nikolai Lyzlov. In the depths of the site, it is planned, but has not yet been built, an impressive shopping complex covering the only pedestrian passage from the railway platform to the metro. Thus, the transport situation in this place is quite neglected, the area near the metro has not been formalized and it is not yet clear what it will be, and the passenger traffic is huge.
Alexey Bavykin, in order not to clutter up the allotted area completely, pushed the hotel inland, freeing the "neck" in front of its facade for landscaping. In the plan, the complex repeats the triangular shape of the site, and the facade with which it faces the factory is designed as a firewall. It is impossible not to note the architect's foresight: the blind end, firstly, will allow the owner of the neighboring plot, whose intentions are still unknown, if necessary, attach the building very close, and secondly, it significantly saves the usable area of the hotel, since the corridors and stairs have been arranged by Alexey Bavykin exactly on this side of the building. Visually, the complex seems to be "stratified" along its entire height, since the firewall is painted brown-red "like a brick", and the facade facing the metro, on the contrary, is faced with light aluminum panels, which successfully echo the Lyzlov pavilion.
The light and dark halves of the building effectively converge at one of the vertices of the triangle, the same one that faces B. Semenovskaya Street. This narrow "nose" is additionally accentuated by a low turret on the roof, which will most likely serve as an outdoor advertising structure (on the tablets presented at the meeting of the Architectural Council, for example, it was crowned with the brand name "Mercedes"). On the reverse side, the light part of the building, more voluminous and textured by definition, is cut by a rectangular console resting on a thin column and decorated with a scattering of small glazed balconies.
The striking image of the building, created by Alexei Bavykin on such a crowded and complex area, was to the liking of almost all members of the council. Only a dull firewall, clearly visible from all points, seemed out of place to the chairman. However, in the absence of a planning project for the entire territory from B. Semenovskaya Street to the railway, the council could not thoroughly imagine the place that the hotel would occupy, correlate it with the scale of the adjacent buildings. Moreover, the situation in the near future, with the emergence of, for example, a shopping center near the metro, will change, and, perhaps, very dramatically. Svyatoslav Mindrul also noted that Alexey Bavykin in his project did not solve the problem of pedestrian connections in any way. As a result, the council almost unanimously decided to postpone Bavykin's project indefinitely. The architect was recommended to work on additional options for the configuration of the building, since the site is complex and responsible, and the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan, in the meantime, will complete its part of the work.
