For several years now, the topic of affordable housing has been one of the central topics for the professional architectural community, and not only in Russia. Suffice it to recall the First Moscow Biennale of Architecture, the theme of which was the “eternal” question “How to live?”, And the central exposition was an exhibition of European social housing projects. Government agencies keep up with advanced curators: for example, in December 2009, the RHD Foundation is holding a competition for the best project of a low-rise economy-class dwelling “House of the XXI Century”. In total, about eighty applications were submitted for the competition. Among the works presented was the project of the architectural studio of A. Asadov called "Patch". And although the jury eventually excluded him from the competition program, the project was still awarded a special prize for "innovation and original approach to creating a living environment."
The “Patch” owes its appearance to a series of projects of prefabricated houses, which A. Asadov's workshop designed for the “Eternit” company. Later, specifically for the “House of the XXI Century” competition, the architects made an “upgrade” of this project, as well as developed projects for townhouses and sectional low-rise buildings and demonstrated how a comfortable and visually very diverse living environment can be “assembled” from all these elements.
The prototype of the urban planning structure of this project was the space of a medieval city, densely built up, lined with narrow streets and, most importantly, human-scaled. The master plan of such a city really resembles a patchwork quilt, in which each segment has its own pattern, but all together they add up to a single picture. This principle of “gradation” was taken as the basis of the projected city - hence its romantic name “Patch”.
Individual plots with houses are collected in neighborhoods, which in turn are concentrated around the central public space, where schools, kindergartens and a small park with a lake are located. Each block has a mixed type of development: along its perimeter, bordering the public center, there are low-rise sectional houses, behind them in the depths of the block are townhouses, and even further away are separate houses. All three types of houses were created using the same module, however, this is by no means a trivial parallelepiped, as one might assume. On the contrary, the architects of Asadov's workshop were true to themselves and preferred the nonlinear geometry they loved so much: their "houses of the 21st century" have at least five corners, and in some cases the roof turns into a wall. And so that such plastic delights do not cause inconvenience to future residents, the architects have carefully thought out the internal layouts that allow using the polygonal space as efficiently as possible. And if, in the case of cottages and townhouses, the customer can choose the most suitable layout option for his family, then sectional houses are assembled, as a designer, from apartments of all types, and all sections have different facades, and are interconnected by stairs.
Naturally, future residents can choose not only layouts, but also the constructive scheme of their home. The supporting frame can be made of wood, metal, reinforced concrete, and the use of prefabricated systems significantly reduces the cost of the designed housing. The engineering support of "Patchwork" is of particular interest. In addition to traditional technologies, they will also use energy-saving technologies that are so in demand today. The simplest of these will be solar panels and wind turbines. A more advanced technology is the so-called "passive house", that is, a house that is heated with warm air and requires almost no heating. One of the most difficult and expensive options is a home with a ground source pump, which operates on the difference in ground temperatures. Such "bells and whistles", of course, significantly increase the cost of construction, but such a village can be completely autonomous, which means that it can be built at any distance from civilization.
The main idea of "Patchwork" is that many residential combinations can be made from several basic modules, and various options for finishing facades and roofs further diversify the visual environment of the city and give each of its volumes an individual character. Of course, the idea of a town-planning designer is not new, but A. Asadov's workshop did not seek to discover America. Rather, the authors of the project are trying to prove that in the 21st century the term “typical” does not necessarily mean “boring”, “low-quality”, “worst”. On the contrary, a typical residential architecture can be both aesthetically attractive and comfortable to use, and at the same time budget. The main thing is to take a responsible approach to choosing the type of house that suits you.
