The construction site is located between Kronstadt Boulevard and Golovinskoye Highway, converging at an acute angle near the Vodny Stadium metro station. In this alignment, between two noisy highways, there used to be an industrial zone, the growth of which on one side was prevented by the metro, and on the other - the Golovinskoye cemetery. In recent years, the factories existing here have no longer worked, and their many buildings are largely dilapidated and are intended for demolition. Talks about the need for complex development of this area have been going on since the mid-2000s. In 2007, the architectural concept was commissioned by the workshop "Sergei Kiselev and Partners" (Archi.ru told about this project in detail), but the economic crisis prevented its implementation. Last year, when the investor nevertheless took up the first stage of construction, he decided to change the function of the complex, replacing part of the offices with a hypermarket. Several bureaus were invited to develop the new concept, incl. and foreign. As a result, the project accepted for implementation combines layout solutions from Swanke Hayden Connell Architects, CBRE and the Atrium workshop. But the architectural part was completely developed by Russian architects - Vera Butko and Anton Nadtochiy, who were joined by Gennady Nadtochiy, who has extensive experience in designing large shopping malls. They also completed the "Project" stage.
The architecture of the complex was determined by the high-rise dominant, which is undoubtedly needed in such a faceless area. The tower houses the offices, while all the shopping and entertainment functions are grouped in a 3-storey block spread over the site. At the same time, the volumetric-spatial solutions of the office and retail parts are united by a common theme. The architects masterfully combined the two blocks, interpreting the multifunctionality of the complex as the interaction of different, but equally active in terms of their plasticity, forms. “We have got a kind of spatial tetris, in which the individual elements are so precisely matched to each other that they make up a single whole,” says architect Anton Nadtochiy. “Despite the integrity of the overall form, we tried to articulate the plasticity of the interaction of volumetric elements.”
The high-rise part of the complex is located closer to the metro and the Leningradskoye Highway passing behind it. The visibility of one of the facades of this 100-meter tower from the side of the highway leading to the international airport "Sheremetyevo" caused special attention to its elaboration. In addition, oriented to the southwest, it needed protection from the direct rays of the sun. From the combination of two circumstances - the need to give a huge plane a memorable appearance and provide it with effective sun protection - the architectural image of the tower was born. First, the architects "re-molded" the glass parallelepiped itself in such a way that it seems to be composed of several complex volumes. Secondly, the transparent body of the office skyscraper is protected by thin slats, with one half of the tower dressed in white “blinds”, and the other in dark ones, which gives the facade an additional volume and emphasizes the dynamism of the interaction of its parts.
The ends of the skyscrapers look even more fascinating. Here the issue of the scorching sun was no longer so relevant, and therefore the side facades were combined of fully glazed elements, only around the perimeter of the "encircled" solid structure. But even they, with their complex geometric shapes, resemble the figures of "Tetris". Moreover, having collected them in a rectangle, the architects gave them different thicknesses, as a result of which the facades received a deep dimension. The consoles hang over the terraces, which in the future are supposed to be landscaped and turned into a recreational space for office workers.
At the ends, it is best seen how the high-rise block interacts with the horizontal line of the shopping and entertainment complex. The tower literally grows into the bottom plate - the office facade continues unchanged inside the mall and becomes a part of it. “The interior of the sales areas is acquiring a very unusual element, but at the same time a strict office wall clearly marks the border of two different zones - entertainment and retail,” explains architect Vera Butko. For the convenience of office workers, the tower on the third floor level is connected to the shopping center by a special bridge. It leads directly to the food court area, which is housed in a spectacular semi-oval atrium.
The facades of the stylobate part itself are made of conventional sandwich panels. Along their entire length will be placed fasteners for advertising posters of any format - from almost a square to a highly elongated rectangle. Thus, the volume of the shopping and entertainment center will be made up of many separate segments and thus unambiguously declare its relationship with the high-rise building that has grown into it. This is the same "Tetris", only assembled horizontally. Combining such dissimilar volumes, the theme of the famous computer game gives them a bright and recognizable look, which is so lacking in today's surroundings of the Water Stadium.
