The competition for the project of an elite residential building, which is planned to be built on the site of a former textile factory, was attended by 4 architectural bureaus - Sergey Skuratov Architects, TPO Reserve, Bogachkin and Bogachkin and Sergey Kiselev and Partners. On the options developed by the first three, "Archi.ru" has already made detailed reports, which can be found on the hyperlinks provided. We deliberately left the analysis of the SK&P project for last, since this workshop played a key role in the history of the competition and the development of this site.
For the first time, the architectural studio "Sergey Kiselev and Partners" was invited to work on the site at Savvinskaya in 2002. Then the investor planned to build up the entire embankment from the so-called "Japanese House" (architect Andrey Bokov) to 2nd Truzhennikov Lane, and the designers worked on a concept for the development of this territory. Among the many options of that time, a proposal stood out with the location along the front of the embankment of a residential complex consisting of two parts, between which there was a boulevard connecting the embankment with Bolshoy Savvinsky Lane (a similar urban planning idea formed the basis of Sergey Skuratov's Esplanade project) and a high-rise building on corner of the embankment and 2nd Truzhennikov. Then, in the end, only this house was realized, which later collected many professional awards. In the rest of the territory, in different years, architects designed either residential complexes or office complexes, depending on how the market conditions changed and the size of the site gradually "shrank". Perhaps the most notable project of this period was the "house-beam" - a two-part volume covered with an extended glass "bar" of the upper tiers. Sergey Kiselev personally became the author of this idea. The house was approved and ready for implementation, but later the customer wanted to increase its number of storeys, the process of reconciliation began, and the project was hopelessly bogged down in the authorities.
In the midst of the crisis, investment activity at the site ceased altogether, and at the beginning of this summer, the customer returned to the idea of reconstruction of factory buildings. True, this time it was decided to build housing of the most elite class on the embankment. It was a difficult time for the workshop - a little more than a month has passed since the death of Sergei Borisovich, and perhaps that is why, having heard about a radical change in the concept and extremely vague requirements for the architecture of the complex, Igor Shvartsman offered the customer to hold a custom competition. True, he could hardly have assumed then that SKiP in this derby would be the first to be removed from the race. But first about the project itself.
The architects are deeply convinced that among the capital's embankments, Savvinskaya does not play a major role; rather, it has always been a background element in the overall structure of the architectural score of the Moskva River, and it seemed very important to them to reflect this in the appearance of the new complex. In other words, the stake was initially placed on restrained architecture and delicate methods of urban planning "implanting" a residential area into the development of the embankment. In particular, this dictated the setting of the main volume along the river and limited its height to the height of neighboring buildings. The color scheme of the complex naturally followed from this - it had to be light, like almost all the surrounding buildings. The architects also wanted to preserve the gap between the first and second lines of the embankment development, which has developed here historically, due to the existing rather strong relief drop. That is why the new volumes are concentrated along the perimeter of the site, and the whole composition is based on the dialogue of landscaping and the dense urban fabric, which is familiar to residents of the city center, with fixed boundaries of the quarter.
“We have identified on the general plan a conditional strip of embankment belonging and proposed to build it up as tightly as possible, collecting the volumes in such a way that a single facade faces the water,” explains the chief architect of the project, Andrey Nikiforov. - The second line of the complex is a house on Bolshoy Savvinsky lane. The space between the houses - the same gap - turns into a full-fledged landscape park”. On the diagonal of the site, from the embankment to the lane through the park, there is an esplanade, which is used as a recreational area, and also allows for the passage of fire vehicles. The park is closed for all other cars - this became possible due to the fact that the entrance to the underground garages is carried out only from the embankment and from the lane.
The park is completely hidden from the street thanks to the stylobate on which the building is oriented along the river. On the red line, this volume creates a difference of one floor - an art gallery, shops and cafes are located in the basement, and parking is located on the underground level. Above, the volume splits into four independent fragments. The fact is that the building depth set by the buildings flanking the site is quite significant, and without additional courtyards and openings, the new living space threatened to turn out to be the “Great Wall of China”. Therefore, the architects cut an imaginary parallelepiped into several parts of different shapes and "pulled them apart" in different directions - and this is how a composition appeared that resembled the figures of the computer game "Tetris". Such an arrangement of residential volumes inevitably deprives some apartments of views of the river. And this is exactly the point of the technical task that the architects deliberately violated. “It seemed to us that the view of the park is no less valuable and that among the future residents there will be many who would prefer a cozy courtyard to heroic views of panoramas,” admits Andrei Nikiforov.
The solution of the main facade of the building overlooking the embankment is emphasized restrained, even neutral. This effect is achieved due to the brutal horizontal of the stylobate, the "sinking" ground floor and the wide strip of the technical floor. And although now there are four free-standing volumes on the stylobate, the theme of the "beam", once invented for this place by Sergei Kiselev, is still guessed in them. It sounds a subtle echo, reminiscent of the industrial past of the area, and of the strict nature of its surroundings, and of what will never be …
Against the background of other projects that participated in the competition, the work of the workshop "Sergey Kiselev & Partners" at first glance seems really modest. The architects directed their many years of experience in exploring the territory to develop a concept not so much spectacular in appearance, but really necessary and suitable for this particular place. The SK&P project thoroughly takes into account the real state of the soil (and who, if not the workshop that built a high-rise building here, should know everything about them!), And the presence of an integrated security zone, and, of course, the nature of the embankment development. Where other participants in the competition acted rather intuitively, based on their feelings about the site, Sergey Kiselev & Partners used all the baggage of accumulated knowledge. Perhaps it was precisely this thoroughness that ultimately prevented the project from reaching the second round, losing to more effective competitors.
