The territory of the former factory occupies a little more than one and a half hectares and faces the Savvinskaya embankment. Its buildings are chaotic and multi-layered: pre-revolutionary factory buildings, pre-war buildings, and dull concrete boxes of the 60s have been preserved here - however, with all the seeming diversity, there is no bright architectural dominant here. Sergey Skuratov admits that at the first acquaintance with the site, he made such a sad impression on him that the architect realized that he had to design not so much (more precisely, not only) high-class housing, but, first of all, a full-fledged urban environment that functionally and aesthetically corresponds to its location and the modern needs of the city. An equally important task was to build a kind of bridge between the two closest neighbors of the site - Andrei Bokov's Japanese House with an oval mirrored facade (if you look at the embankment from the Moskva River, it is located to the right of the Gardtex buildings) and Sergey Kiselev's residential tower (she, respectively, on the left). And if the building of Bokov stands right on the red line, then the Kiselev house somewhat recedes from the embankment, which makes a smooth bend here, following the river. For Sergei Skuratov, it was very important to fill the existing gap between these buildings and at the same time not to suppress any of them, so the architect placed his complex on one straight line between the two objects, and allocated the formed "corner" between it and the red line of the embankment for the creation of a city park.
It is important to note that the eastern, that is, the opposite to the embankment, border of the site runs along Bolshoy Savvinsky Lane - a quiet and narrow street that has retained the charm of old Moscow, but today is increasingly clutched by modern tall buildings. It would have gradually turned into a deaf, always shaded gorge on the Khamovniki map, if Skuratov had not come up with a visual link to the embankment located 12 meters below. “Long and narrow, the lane is in vital need of a spatial exit to the embankment, from which it is now completely isolated,” says the architect. - As for the slope, which opens from the side of the embankment due to the "puncture", we decided to fill it with city-wide functions."
The composition of the entire complex, therefore, is built at the intersection of two rectangular axes - a two-level public zone is created along the Savvinskaya embankment, and a pedestrian two-level esplanade descends perpendicular to it from Bolshoy Savvinskiy lane. The maximum use of the relief made it possible to significantly increase both the public area and the area of landscaping of the site, and its release from cars made it possible to include in the complex a variety of infrastructural objects oriented to the Savvinskaya embankment.
“I must admit that, although the public functions were provided for in the terms of reference, they were not clearly spelled out,” says Sergei Skuratov. “We decided that with such an advantageous location of the complex of such functions, it should be as large as possible - this would include it in an active city life and provide it with all-season demand.” With the light hand of the architects, the complex will include a fitness center, a supermarket, restaurants and cafes, a shopping mall, an art gallery and a kindergarten. In particular, the supermarket is located under the main stylobate, located at a height of 6 meters from the level of the embankment, and through the recreational space that will connect it to the pedestrian boulevard, visitors will be able to get to a fitness club, boutiques, cafes and an art gallery. The latter is located under the playgrounds and has overhead lights.
In total, Skuratov places 3 volumes on the site - a tower and two elongated parallelepipeds, but only one of them goes out onto the red line, and then only with its end. This is the so-called building "C", in terms of resembling the letter "G". “He is a kind of“guardian of the territory”, protecting it from the north winds, - explains the architect. “It was very important for us to emphasize its harmony and verticality, as well as to deduce its height parameters from a number of 7-8 storey“recumbent”houses along the front of the embankment." Block "A", on the contrary, will be stretched along the embankment, however, it has been moved deeper into the site by as much as 18 meters. On the one hand, this shift made it possible to break up an additional square, which creates protection from noise and a visual barrier between the house and the embankment, and on the other hand, to add another floor and organize several penthouses on the roof of the building. It is interesting that their authors also shifted further into the terrace by 6 meters (otherwise four staircase-elevator blocks would have protruded above the roof), however, this shift is almost unreadable from the street, since the upper floors are completely faced with glass and visually seem to dissolve into a low Moscow sky. The one-section tower - block "B" - is hidden behind the "back" of block "A" and two floors above it. This only vertical dominant of the complex is necessary for its perception from distant points, for example, from the side of Berezhkovskaya embankment. Such a composition and the presence of a wide boulevard between the buildings allow absolutely all apartments in the complex to be oriented towards the embankment - from the farthest it can be seen thanks to the glazed bay windows.
Glass generally plays one of the key roles in creating the architectural image of this complex. Of course, when designing buildings on the site of the former factory, Sergei Skuratov used brick for their facing - a material they just love very much, and best of all convey the "memory of a place" - but its brutality is emphasized with the help of glass. Moreover, the glass is different - somewhere transparent, somewhere mirrored, and somewhere completely unexpectedly absent. The planes of the facades are lined with rectangles of different lengths - some of the balconies in the houses are glazed, some are not, and this makes them look like giant abacus with transparent knuckles, which, it seems, can be moved in any order. In fact, of course, this liberty is deceiving, but Skuratov was trying to achieve exactly this effect. “I needed the theme of glass thinning and gradual dematerialization of a brick building in order for the complex to look organically next to the Japanese House,” says the architect. On the other hand, where the Kiselev tower is the neighbor of the esplanade, we see a completely different facade - the already mentioned end of the "C" building is designed as a double frame, whose drawing is extremely graphic and very readable.
Designing an elite residential complex, Sergei Skuratov masterfully solved the most difficult urban planning problem. Thanks to its esplanade, oriented towards the vastness of the Moskva River and, in the long term, the powerful vertical dominant of the City, the embankment, which today is a deserted transport artery along monotonous buildings, promises to turn into a new center of urban activity.
