So what is archnovation? As the name suggests, it should be something most important among all kinds of innovations that are intended to change our lives for the better. It's just like nanotechnology: you get a given structure through controlled manipulation of the components.
The components for the architectural competition are buildings and projects for five years (2006-2011). However, the founders of the new award had to choose such a way of “manipulating” the material so as not to immediately turn into a territorial analogue of Zodchestvo or another competition-festival, whose goal is to select the best works for the autumn show at the Manezh. It is enough to look at the map of the Volga district to make it clear how ambitious neighbors have gathered around, and Nizhny - somehow from the side, towards Moscow, an administrative pretext for gathering architectural forces is clearly not enough, and myths from the 90s about Nizhny Novgorod - capital of architecture - have long lost their charm.
However, the correct choice of the basic principles of "Archnovation" saved the project from geographical formalities. That is why it turned out that during the journey the tasks were able to grow. The regional level has grown by two heads.
It turned out that Archnovation is about sustainable development. They have been talking about it for a long time, at the Nizhny Novgorod University of Architecture and Civil Engineering even created a local program "Agenda 21", a conceptual document on the spatial optimization of the city of Nizhny (by the way, fully consistent with the doctrine of the ONN). This document was an exclusively public initiative, so there was no talk of changing the strategy based on it. In everyday practice, Nizhny Novgorod architects were optimizing their relations with the customer and officials, not really looking back at sustainability.
However, there were hopes for a "reset". When in the fall of last year the initiator and founder of "Arhnovatsiya" architect Sergey Tumanin - the head of the regional self-regulatory organization, workshop and gallery - came up with a competition, it was important to feel new moods. It seems that the final of the Luzhkov era made the strongest impression on the architects: this fact, as well as the creation of the Council for Green Building in Russia, were mentioned most often at the first press conferences of “Arhnovatsii”. “The paradigm has changed,” explained Sergei Tumanin.
As a result of reflections, the criteria for evaluating the competition works were quite specific principles of sustainability, which are set out on the website "Archnovations" in the section "objectives of the competition" Culture is in the first place there, the economy is modest, the last, and health and ecology are cozy in the middle, like beloved children.
Where will sustainable development come from if there seems to be no programmatic ambitions around? Domestic system of "green" certification - at the stage of registration, and foreign - have different national priorities? Answers, it turns out, are. Firstly, foreign firms are oriented towards "green standards", whose representatives have become partners of "Arhnovatsiya". For them, the fight for sustainability is the norm. Secondly, the system of indicators is not an absolute fixed value, but a relative one - as a percentage of the ideal. List of criteria, opposite each - points …
I'm not sure that the Expert Council of "Archnovatsia", which for several days ranked 187 entries, had such a list. And even then - the members of the jury, who determined the best out of more than 60 nominees. However, there is hardly any reason to doubt the choice of professionals (the chairman of the jury of the competition is Sergei Tchoban). Without going into the details of the discussions, it is easy to believe that the Russian pavilion in Shanghai (Levon Airapetov's Workshop) is the best completed object according to the results of the competition in Nizhny Novgorod. One can imagine, peering into the daisy of the plan, that the emotional component, microclimate, technology have made this building friendly and stable enough to have enough impressions for a long time.
The largest number of nominees was in the "Projects" - eight. There competed Kiev and Saratov, Kirov, Veliky Novgorod and others, in the range of multifunctional centers - housing. The equestrian center with a hotel in Pirogovo near Moscow was declared the winner. It is possible that the victory took place long before the competition - in the minds of all those who saw numerous publications about this artistic work of Nikolai Lyzlov. Indeed, there are many good ones - no equal. Strict discipline in the choice of expressive means and such vivid romantic allusions - this will captivate the imagination of any architect!
The most convincing illustration of what a green building is - fingerscape (master plan of a mansion complex in Jurmala) by Sergey Kiselev & Partners, recognized as the best work in the Urban Development category. Waste from the dismantling of industrial buildings is used a second time to create new forms of relief, and the planning drawing of the future residential village was formed depending on the location of the trees.
In "Private architecture" and "Projects of an individual dwelling house" there are also well-known names. Alexey Kozyr received an award for the "wicker" house and the interior of the Studio 24 cafe, Totan Kuzembaev - for the "Firefly" House project. And only in the nomination "Private interior" architects from the provinces broke through: Elena and Sergey Timchenko from Samara.
Perhaps the results of the competition will appear more intelligibly in the fall - at the same Zodchestvo, where the Archnovations pavilion is planned. Popularization of the results is a separate work, for which the organizers simply did not have enough energy and time. However, it is important to remember that for half a year - during the preparation period for the creative competition, lectures, exhibitions and meetings were regularly held. The chairman of the Union of Architects, Andrey Bokov, spoke about the world experience of architecture, Oleg Konovaltsev (ATM "Arst", Moscow) explained how green approaches helped to find an extraordinary solution for the construction of the school. The stages of "Archnovation" were also marked by round tables: the organizers, partners and participants of the project did not hesitate to learn to understand each other and think on a common topic along the way, and at the same time to bring some clarity to the idea of what the harmonious development of the environment is.
At the end of May, an exhibition and awarding of laureates took place in Nizhny Novgorod. The exhibition at the House of Architects, which filled three floors to capacity, lasted only three days, but will be returned in July as highly educational for the local community. At the ceremony of awarding the winners in the Arsenal hall, there were many perplexed why there are no Nizhny Novgorodians among the main prize-winners? Basically - Moscow, one nomination - Samara, and only among young people the best are students of NNGASU. Despite the fact that the competition was organized by "their own", and in the number of applications, Nizhny was second only to Moscow and Kazan.
But even asking such questions can be useful … If you can't handle it yourself, you'll have to go to Zodchestvo for answers, go to the Archnovatsiya website. Although with students - the story is clear. The authors of the projects - Dmitry Baranov, Kirill Brosalin, Sergey Zenkov - trained in the Netherlands. And the theme was appropriate - a home with zero energy consumption. They talked about their work back in the fall, during the "Days of Architecture": how the sum of physical, aesthetic, psychological factors turns out a house with an area of one hundred square meters, covered with shingles and stuffed with systems for obtaining energy from alternative sources. At the same time, the guys got acquainted with one of the representatives of the manufacturer of building materials, designed a showroom for her, also marked at the "Archnovation". It turns out that in the Netherlands you can learn how to design the right house for Vyksa, so that later in Nizhny you can come up with an object for a Japanese company … This is probably the context of "Archnovation".
