Archi.ru: The lion's share of ABD Architects' projects and buildings have always been offices. How is the company's work going today, when the city has actually made a decision to stop the construction of new office complexes?
Boris Levyant: Competitive projects prevail now - over the past year we have participated in a huge number of architectural competitions, winning some and losing some. It also happened that formally the victory was awarded to another company, but after some time the customer contacted us again and expressed a desire to cooperate with ABD Architects. At the same time, I want to emphasize that today competitions are most often held specifically for sketches, initial ideas. In fact, architects receive a TK and must issue a sketch and a price in response as soon as possible. Previously, no one agreed to such conditions, but the crisis has radically changed this situation. Unfortunately, most often this turns into plagiarism of interesting planning ideas: the sketch that the customer likes is then handed over to the architect who named the lowest price.
Sergey Kryuchkov: In general, we see a clear trend in the fact that competitions prevail over all other architectural activities today. Customers, obviously, probing the market, organizing competitions for any reason?
Archi.ru: Is this due to the fact that the new rules of the game in the city have not yet been formed?
Sergey Kryuchkov: I think so. I would call this the Great Shopping Period. Without hurrying anywhere, customers go and see who and what else to try.
Boris Levyant: The problem of the developers is clear: they got the sites at unimaginable prices, and now this nullifies any efforts to develop them. Even zero is impossible to play. Therefore, all that they can now do without loss for their business is to assess the possibilities of potential development, relying mainly on the architect's intuitive experience in relations with the city, and, having received figures from him, try to sell this project. In general, real construction is not assumed in principle, therefore, design is becoming more and more conventional, "divorced from life".
As for the ban on the construction of offices, I personally strongly disagree with it. There are not enough offices in the city, and this can be seen with the naked eye: rental prices have already reached pre-crisis levels. A total ban will only aggravate this situation. Another thing is that when mastering each separate site, it is necessary to very carefully discuss which offices and how many of them can be built. If you do not try to shove one hundred thousand square meters on any patch of land, but limit yourself to fifty or even twenty, in general, if you put urban planning expediency at the forefront, then you can and should continue to build offices. But, I repeat, since the developers have spent too much money to obtain the plots themselves, this is hardly possible.
Archi.ru: And that is why many experts perceived the current "lull" as a blessing - a number of odious projects from the point of view of urban planning were stopped or even canceled.
Boris Levyant: Of course, there are positive aspects in the current situation. In particular, the territories that could have been built up in the investment heat with the devil (the most oppressive example, in my opinion, this is a skyscraper under construction in Oruzheyny Lane), now actually got a chance for a second birth. In particular, this is the territory of the so-called Big City, where we also had several projects. In my opinion, the development of such a huge area requires a more intelligible and reasonable ideology. I think that now the Big City has a year, or even all two, to create one …
Archi.ru: Today, the professional community and the press are discussing the issue of introducing European standards for the design of building structures, the so-called Eurocodes, in our country. Do you share the position of many of your colleagues that this poses a real threat to the profession and the Russian architectural school as a whole?
Boris Levyant: I would answer like this: talk, talk and calm down. In my opinion, this does not jeopardize the profession. After all, we are talking, first of all, about buildings that are being erected using prefabricated structures supplied from abroad. Previously, developers were forced to do a full feasibility study on them, now, fortunately, this will not happen. Is it bad?
Sergey Kryuchkov: In general, it would be good to remember that this is not the first time we are faced with this issue. So, for example, in the early 1990s, when there were no offices in Moscow yet, the first of them arose in prefabricated houses brought by the Germans from sandwich panels and finished with vinyl siding. And they still exist - on Seleznevka, for example, on Sergei Makeev Street. Did it interfere with the profession? Or, on the contrary, did she teach her a lot and make her master a fundamentally new genre? Personally, I am convinced that one of the main problems facing domestic architecture today is the low level of architecture itself, and first of all it is necessary to solve it.
Boris Levyant: With a very high level of self-esteem!
Sergei Kryuchkov: If it were not so, then there would be no need to invite foreigners and bind ready-made solutions. Unfortunately, domestic architects discredited themselves very much - during the heyday of the so-called. Moscow style and serving the predatory interests of developers. Investors were ready to build millions of square meters, and there were colleagues who brought these plans to life, not thinking about the environment, or about the city, or about their own professional responsibility.
Boris Levyant: If we return to the question of the norms, then what really needs to be revised is the fire safety norms. Take, for example, our standards related to the design of parking lots, which stipulate that in the event of a fire, not only people must be rescued, but also cars!
Sergey Kryuchkov: Well, on the other hand, the developers of these norms can also be understood. They proceed from the assumption that any systems at any time can fail with us. Unfortunately, the main problem of domestic norms is their vagueness and high potential for corruption. The ability to interpret them no less broadly than the Talmud interprets the Torah increases the ranks of dishonest officials. And since officials also continue to change the norms, there is little hope for a successful outcome. However, now a testing ground for advanced rule-making, Skolkovo, has allegedly appeared. Let's wait to see how effective the work started there will be.
Archi.ru: Boris Vladimirovich has repeatedly expressed the opinion that the issue of conducting a state examination of projects also requires a cardinal revision.
Boris Levyant: Personally, in this sense, I was very encouraged by the information that the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Kozak, at one of the recent meetings with builders, personally raised the question of why an examination is needed. For me, the mere fact that a state official at least assumes that expertise may not be needed already sounds like good news. I really believe that all examinations can be canceled, with the exception of those appointed by the insurance company. After all, the main paradox of the current state of affairs is that the examination itself is not responsible for anything! Criminal responsibility is borne by the one who caved in to the requirements of the expert, that is, the architect.
Sergey Kryuchkov: This situation reminds me of the hardships of passing a technical inspection at the traffic police … Plus, as a rule, people who are not in great demand in commercial design go to the examination. Personally, I doubt very much that they can know more about design than specialists who are daily and densely engaged in this area.
Archi.ru: Do I understand correctly that at the exhibition dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the company's activity, which will take place in Moscow this September, you intend to formulate all these pressing questions most acutely and give your answers to them?
Sergey Kryuchkov: We will formulate our position indirectly - through the projects that we have developed and were able to implement over the years. ABD Architects have never been non-conformists, on the contrary, while working for business, we have worked and continue to work with people who are trying to comprehend the existing reality and fit into it as effectively as possible. So, in a sense, of course, we are opposed to the architectural majority and the establishment that it serves, but this is a joint opposition with the business, which also suffers from the system.
