The results of the competition "House of the XXI century", as well as the very process of its preparation and holding, are interesting for several reasons. First of all, the topic for him was low-rise economical housing using energy-saving technologies. This typology has long been the subject of research and experimental development all over the world, and in Russia, interest in it has awakened quite recently. Further, the national project "Affordable and Comfortable Housing" has been considered a priority in the country for 4 years already - it is quite obvious that for such a project it should be important what exactly and how to build. So, in itself, the idea of an architectural competition in this case is more than logical.
"House of the XXI Century" is not the first competition of its kind. In 2007, the Expert media holding held the Russian House of the Future competition as part of a large-scale project of the same name. Later, many of its active organizers (Alexander Bravermann, Vyacheslav Glazychev, etc.) united in the Federal Housing Development Fund (RHD Foundation), which became the main initiator of the House of the XXI Century competition. The 2009 competition looks more solid than its predecessor: only workshops (ie legal entities) were invited to participate, which by definition cut off youth experiments; the prize fund has become higher, and the first prize has grown from 175 to 500 thousand rubles.
In addition to the RHD, the National Agency for Low-Rise and Cottage Construction (NAMIKS) and the Union of Architects of Russia (SAR) became the co-organizers of the House of the XXI Century competition. Government officials and experts from the Union of Architects jointly developed a detailed 30-page terms of reference. As an example for the development of a town-planning concept, the contestants were offered a real plot of 19 hectares in Istra near Moscow. In the management of the RHD there are many plots of federal land, one of them was adopted as a "sample" for the competition.
As stated on the RHD website, the organizers intend to make the projects received as a result of the competition “re-use projects,” that is, in the future, launch them into production as standard. So the purpose of the competition is to collect a representative pool of projects for all kinds of low-rise buildings and “strongly” (as the state knows how) to recommend them for use. Thus, the current topic, a good prize fund, and the prospect of implementing the best project, and maybe even replicating, all this attracted the attention of architects to the competition. However, upon closer examination, everything turns out not so rosy and smoothly.
First of all, the participants were given very little time to actually work on the competition project - 6 weeks, during which it was required to create “… an innovative architectural project of a low-rise residential building for use in the integrated development of the territory in order to create a high-quality, energy efficient and environmentally friendly living environment”. It can be assumed that the main part of the time was "eaten" by the internal debates between the organizers, and it was impossible to extend the dead-line, because the year was coming to an end, and the state money had to be spent before the New Year. The haste is also felt in the fact that the jury considered all the projects in one day on December 28, on the very eve of the holidays, and in the fact that after the announcement of the decision of the experts, not only all the competitive projects were not shown to the public, but even the appearance of the winning project at first remained a riddle.
Despite the short time frame, the requirements for the technical and economic indicators of the facilities were formulated rather rigidly. Thus, the cost of building one square meter should not have exceeded 25,000 rubles; in each project, energy and resource saving technologies, materials and structures were to be used. The first was required to be confirmed by calculations, the second - by certificates. The maximum area of individual houses and townhouses was to be between 150 and 120 sq. m, respectively, the area of apartments is from 28 to 100 sq. m, depending on the number of rooms, but not less than 20 meters per person.
In addition, it can also be assumed that the organizers of the competition had different tasks. For the SAR, it turned out to be a long-awaited occasion to enter into an equal dialogue with the authorities, in particular, on the topic of current legislation. This is primarily about the law, which now regulates the conduct of all, including architectural, competitions (Federal Law No. 94 "On placing orders for the supply of goods, performance of work, provision of services for state and municipal needs"). He prioritizes the economic parameters of the project and actually ignores its artistic merits, thus destroying the very institution of creative competitions in our country. The participation of the Union of Architects in organizing the competition "House of the XXI century" was, among other things, an attempt to hold a real creative competition, acting within the framework of Federal Law No. 94; and also - to draw attention to the problem as a whole. On the other hand, it was important for the RHD Foundation to end up with the most realistic project, ready for implementation and replication (of course, after some revision), and all copyrights to it. Judging by the documents, he succeeded: the RHD Foundation will receive all (!) Rights to the awarded project for 10 thousand rubles. This amount should not be confused with the actual prize for the winner, it is a payment for “alienation of the right to use the project”, and it is quite obvious that in this competition it was made purely symbolic (one and a half times less than the cost of one meter of projected housing).
And finally, the organizers weeded out half of the submitted projects, did not consider it for purely clerical reasons. Firstly, according to the terms of the competition, each team had to submit only one project. This gave a reason to weed out 5 projects. Secondly, relying on the "letter" of the same 94 law, 36 works were removed from the competition, the authors of which had the imprudence to submit a copy of the original document instead of the original. It would seem that they are details - but the 94th law considers this to be of principle. As a result, out of 80 submitted projects, half of them were eliminated at the acceptance stage - 41 projects out of 80, and 36 workshops out of 75. One subtlety should be mentioned here. Two members of the jury - Advisor to the Director General of the RHD Foundation Elena Bazhenova and President of the SAR Andrey Bokov, considered it necessary to declare their disagreement with the elimination of half of the candidates in Appendix No. 2 to the protocol on this decision, and that the effectiveness of such events needs to be increased, for SAR it was his duty to prepare a memorandum … Then the name of Andrei Bokov disappeared from the jury, although it was not openly announced about the withdrawal of the President of the CAP from the jury: one can only guess whether Andrei Bokov left the jury for reasons of principle or simply could not attend the meeting on December 28.
So, out of 39 works that remained after all the formalities were observed, the jury chose the winners in individual categories and one project, which was unanimously awarded the Grand Prix. It was the work of "A. Nekrasov's Architectural Workshop" - the project "Traditional House with Winter-Summer Transformation". The main highlight of this architectural solution was the use of special heat-preserving shutters, which partially cover large windows in winter. Based on their idea, the authors have developed a complete line of low-rise residential buildings, from a detached cottage to block-out townhouses and apartment buildings. The project of Nekrasov's workshop received not only the first prize (500 thousand rubles), but also several other awards: it was recognized as "the best project of an individual residential building (prize 250 thousand rubles), became the winner in the nominations" For the best architectural solution "(prize 150 thousand rubles) and "For the best solution of the living environment" (prize 150 thousand rubles). During the award ceremony, the jury members even had to comment on such frequent appearances on the stage of Andrei Nekrasov with assurances of the impartiality of their choice.
In addition, the first prizes (250 thousand rubles each) were awarded to CJSC MGPM from the city of Mytishchi for the best project of a “block house”, “Archproekt-2” for a project of an apartment building. Smaller prizes (150 thousand each) went to: Ostozhenka for a technological solution, St. Petersburg construction company Grom - for an environmental solution; and the Staraya Kazan workshop received two small prizes - one for energy efficiency, the other for the project of a dwelling for a young family.
However, having weeded out half of the projects for bureaucratic reasons, the organizers nevertheless decided to observe the semblance of justice and noted several works from among the notorious 36 projects. This decision was taken at the initiative of the Union of Architects in order to slightly smooth out the unpleasant impression from the selection procedure. So, among those who did not pass according to the documents, the jury noted the project of Asadov's workshop "for innovation and an original approach to creating a living environment"; "Mezonproekt" for a technological urban planning approach; bureau "ADEK" for the creation of "a favorable and comfortable living environment using standard solutions", and JSB "Alice" for innovative environmental solutions.
As for the works that were not marked by the jury, it should be admitted that the full selection of competitive projects presented at the exhibition does not make the most favorable impression. The overwhelming majority of them are not fresh developments. It is felt that many teams that had projects of low-rise buildings of the middle and low price category in their portfolio, put them up for the competition, hoping at least in this way to justify the efforts spent in their time. These projects are easily recognizable in the catalog of the "House of the XXI Century" competition by the typical execution of the main drawings, oversaturated with dimensions and notes. It is just as easy to isolate a series of similar, although not so detailed solutions, which at one time were probably rejected by the customer at the “project” stage. They are distinguished by graphics characteristic of the last century and simple 3D visualizations. The number of projects in which one would feel the actual and targeted development of the topic formulated in the competition task is quite small. However, one should not be surprised at this, due to the lack of time for the development of bids. Six weeks is clearly not enough to develop an original architectural and urban planning concept, search for suitable energy-saving solutions, calculate the estimated cost of a house and collect accompanying legal and technical documentation. So many participants preferred to use “recyclable materials”, only slightly “making up” it in an energy efficient way.
It turns out that the majority of Russian architects are not too keen on cultural missionaries and, if they are concerned about the quality of mass housing, they are mostly only in words. Perhaps one of the reasons for this indifference is a complete waiver of copyright, included in the terms of the competition. We do not know on what conditions at the beginning of the 19th century some of the best Russian architects of that time, A. D. Zakharov, V. P. Stasov, K. I. Rossi and others, took part in the drafting of "exemplary" projects, but their role in this endeavor was the key. We can only hope that the next "House of the XXI century" will bring more high-quality and promising works worthy of becoming new "exemplary projects".
