Our recent report on the presentation of the SPEECH: magazine began with the words “it is difficult to imagine a more“summer”topic than“Water”and a more suitable place for the presentation of an issue dedicated to it than the Strelka Institute on Bersenevskaya Embankment”. It’s a bit embarrassing to remember this now: it’s like it’s not good to do auto-plagiarism, but, on the other hand, Strelka is also the best choice for talking about green technologies: in the center of the noisy gas-polluted capital, it’s almost the only one really eco-friendly man-made corner. So the addiction of the SPEECH Choban / Kuznetsov bureau to this site is more than understandable: the authors of one of the first buildings in Moscow preparing for LEED certification (The Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, translated as "Leadership in energy and environmental design") Apparently, they feel an ideological kinship in the appearance and principles of Strelka's work.
The building in question is the headquarters of Novatek on Leninsky Prospekt, completed at the beginning of this year. Now the interior finishing work is being completed in it, and at the same time, the object is being certified as a "green building" This work in many ways prompted the architects to hold a specialized round table. “In the process of working on the Novatek project, we encountered a large number of problems associated with the unwillingness and inability of other participants in the architectural and construction market to introduce green technologies,” explains the managing partner of the bureau Sergey Kuznetsov. "And then we decided to initiate an interprofessional discussion in order to identify the reasons for this state of affairs, to understand whether we are dealing with systemic problems or with a particular case."
At the very beginning of the evening, Sergey Kuznetsov promised the audience a relaxed and frank conversation, and it really took place, despite the storm warning and frighteningly gloomy clouds that walked that evening over the Moskva River. The first to speak to the audience was Alexey Polyakov, CEO of Prosperity Project Management and a member of the Board of the Green Building Council, who gave a short introductory lecture on the meaning of concepts such as “sustainable development” and “green buildings” that exist today in the world of energy efficient certification systems. buildings. In general terms, Mr. Polyakov outlined the situation in Russia: while there are already thousands of eco-friendly buildings in Europe, we have only one LEED-certified facility (SKF's bearing production plant in Tver, about which the audience in detail told Roman Feoktistov, chief architect of AECOM projects) and several others who are going to do it. Among the latter are the aforementioned Novatek, the Barkli Park residential complex on the street of the Soviet Army (the Atrium architectural studio), all facilities on the territory of Skolkovo, as well as Olympic facilities in Sochi, which, as the speaker put it, “will be certified by a strong-willed decision” … This formulation caused ironic laughter in the audience, which in itself outlined the main problem of "green technologies" in Russia. The topic of environmentally friendly architecture is being discussed very widely today, including at the government level, from where the central authorities descend on the mandatory introduction of innovations into everyday construction practice, but, alas, there is no need to talk about the fulfillment of these requirements, so the only hope is for image objects, in the creation of which both federal will and private capital are equally involved. However, the presentation by Olga Gvozdeva, project manager for planning and regulating engineering infrastructure of the Skolkovo Innovation Center Development Fund, showed that even the most ambitious undertakings have a very thorny path to a green future.
In this context, it was especially interesting to hear the stories of designers about what really makes investors spend money on "green technologies". As it turned out, humanistic principles by themselves have nothing to do with it. So, according to Anton Nadtochy, one of the authors of Barkli Park, the ideas of environmental friendliness and energy efficiency appeared in their project after the investor decided to upgrade the class of the object. “Promotion in the market was much more interesting to the customer than energy efficiency, but this allowed us to implement a number of innovative solutions,” says the architect. "These are energy-saving ventilation and air conditioning systems, and partial use of secondary water, and control of the degree of air pollution in parking lots, and the use of green roofing and vertical landscaping." However, Anton Nadtochiy emphasized, the main efforts of the authors of the project are aimed at the quality of architectural solutions: "Not a single certificate, in our opinion, can justify the absence of high-quality architecture."
Sergey Kuznetsov completely agrees with his colleague: “It is no secret that the most energy efficient building will always be a blind parallelepiped, but not only environmental friendliness sets the high quality of the living environment, but, above all, the beauty and expressiveness of the objects under construction”. However, in such an unsettled and aggressive city in terms of the environment and ecology, like Moscow, the main argument for "green technologies", according to Kuznetsov, can be exactly the comfort that they are able to provide. These considerations, according to him, were guided by the Novatek company. The limited capacity of the networks in the Russian capital also played a role: "Investors willy-nilly have to think about saving electricity, because otherwise they will very soon be unable to implement their projects at all."
In other words, the most reliable "allies" for environmentally friendly solutions are the lack of communications necessary for the normal functioning of newly built facilities, and, as Sergei Kuznetsov put it, "the general slop of life in Moscow." At the same time, all interested parties - investors, architects and environmental experts alike - agree that innovations will take root in Russia for a very long time, and this process is hardly worth speeding up. The main thing is that precedents are being created, and we have energy-efficient facilities that are successful in terms of architecture. Even today they can still be counted on the fingers of one hand, but nevertheless, thanks to them, our country is already on the verge of a "green era".
