As you know, very stringent technical and economic requirements are imposed on the projects developed within the framework of this competition. Specifically, architects must design a range of low-rise residential buildings, from free-standing cottages to block-out townhouses and apartment blocks. Houses should be arranged in quarters “maximally revealing the possibilities of their use in the development of rural and urban settlements”, and the maximum total area of individual houses and townhouses (per block) should be no more than 150 sq. M. m. One of the distinctive features of the competition "House of the XXI century" is that it is tied to a specific area. Last year, the participants were offered a territory in the Moscow region of Istra as a conditional option for the layout of residential settlements, and this year a land plot located on the eastern outskirts of the village of Leningradskaya, Krasnodar Territory, was identified as a "model" one. Such a significant geographical spread is not accidental: the climate and landscape inevitably impose their own requirements on planning projects, and, according to the organizers, over time this will create a catalog of various architectural solutions for each region of the country. In addition, new economical housing will not hurt the village itself: Leningradskaya is one of the largest rural settlements in Russia.
In her work on the PTAM competition project, Vissarionova in many respects started from the South Russian landscape. And the search for an architectural image of a "house of the XXI century" quickly led the authors to the theme of a traditional hut. After all, if you think about it, what is not a classic example of energy-saving technologies: a warm high thatched roof, a canopy, adjacent utility rooms, small windows, additional winter insulation of external walls … In modern terms, all this in a harsh winter really ensured a rational balance of energy consumption. In general, they decided to design the hut, giving it a modern look with the help of materials and technologies of a new generation, as well as the active use of color accents.
The architects placed their eco-town around the existing "environmental accent" - a memorial with an airplane. The general plan does not have a strict, geometrically verified drawing - the authors tried to get away from the rigid orthogonal grid of streets, preferring the natural and picturesque alternation of buildings of various types: estate, blocked, sectional. There is also no stamp of “closed” planning imposed in our teeth, when townhouses are placed along the outer perimeter of the village and work as enclosing walls - on the contrary, “lines” of blocked houses flank some inner streets of the projected area, actively interacting both with detached houses apartment buildings.
The economy housing genre inevitably involves the use of prefabricated modules. For Vissarionov's PTAM, such a module was the already mentioned hut - a five-walled hut with a gable roof. Its area is about 100 square meters, and the layout includes all the premises necessary for living. But then a virtuoso designer begins, because architects either "grow" a full-fledged manor house from this simple house (supplementing it with all kinds of storerooms, verandas, terraces, awnings, windproof walls), or so intricately arrange them, "folding" them with heated volumes, it is the cold rooms that make townhouses with very dynamic silhouettes. You can compare this with purchasing a standard car model, which the owner can supplement with various options depending on his needs and capabilities (from fog lights to a transparent roof and a trailer).
The image of the traditional streets of the Kuban stanitsa is supported by picturesque broken roofs, "whitewashed" walls of the lower floors and wooden trimmings of the upper floors, pergolas and verandas. However, this resemblance to traditional buildings is rather arbitrary, because architects put multi-colored squares of windows on top of white walls, make extremely bright balconies, garage blocks and interiors of entrance areas.
According to the competition, the cost of building one square meter should not exceed 25,000 rubles, and the architects managed to fit into the budget. Savings are provided through the use of energy efficient technologies (for example, solar collectors combined with southern roof slopes, domestic boilers with a water circuit) and inexpensive materials. In particular, the project provides that the lower floors of the houses are made of aerated concrete, which is then covered with plaster (the cost of building a house from such turnkey block houses is about 15,000 rubles per "square"), and the upper floors are a warm attic with a wooden frame. As a heater, the architects suggested using a local, cheap and environmentally friendly material - frame-reed polyurethane panels (KKP). Sectional buildings also use open stairs to the apartments on the second floor - in this climatic region this is justified and also allows you to significantly save costs on materials and heating.
Vissarionov's PTAM project was not included in the number of laureates of the competition. According to the architects themselves, one of the reasons is that the externally designed houses by them do not look economical. However, this is precisely what seems to be one of the main advantages of this project - having an emphasized bright appearance and modern structure, it offers a full and comfortable home at a very budgetary cost.
