The central zone of the innovation city occupies about one tenth of the four hundred hectares of its total area. This is a kind of entrance gate through which every guest who gets off the train will have to pass (it is expected that the main flow of people will arrive at Skolkovo by rail). So the architects had to not only find a place for all the necessary functions (a transport "hub" - a transfer hub, hotels, trade, entertainment, a media library, parking lots and an observation deck), but also take care of the symbolic component of this place.
The role of the symbol went to a dome of 100 meters in height - performed by the Japanese architect Ishitake Tanase, Kazuyo Shojima's colleague in SANAA. The dome, made, according to the author, of thin steel threads and glass, will cover the railway station, the entire public area adjacent to it, and even the observation tower with an observation deck included in the project.
“We have several options for the structure of the dome,” said Ishitake Tanase at the presentation. - We tried to ensure that the material attracted the viewer's attention as little as possible, we tried to create the feeling that the dome exists, but without a shell. Inside it will be a public square, a place for recreation, where it will also be possible to hold various events. In the entrance area, we have also provided for a large space that will symbolize innovative technologies and special attention to the environment in Skolkovo - we have not yet decided how it will look. The transparent thin structure of the dome will create a special microclimate - on cold winter days it will be quite comfortable there (at least plus 5) due to the use of the heat of the earth. In summer, the heat will, on the contrary, go into the ground.
To escape the heat, the architect proposes to use special climatic effects - for example, artificial clouds, which should soar under the dome at a height of 50 meters and protect the space from the summer heat. True, he did not decipher who and how will make these "weather anomalies". On the practical question of how it is planned to clear the dome from snow and dirt, the architect also answered vaguely (“this issue needs to be investigated”), but promised that in any case “the dome will be clean”.
Upon exiting the dome, the guests of Skolkovo will enter the central part of the innovation city (if the dome, by analogy with the house, is the main entrance, then the zone following it serves as a living room). The “living room” area provides a link between the Technopark and the University and concentrates all possible social functions. It is supervised by the OMA bureau, which proposed to create a network of pavilions here - a chain of hexagonal volumes connected by aisles. They, in particular, can accommodate a theater and a hotel. In the place where the chain of buildings meets a natural obstacle - a pond, it is planned to place the largest object, code-named "Rock".
“The Rock is a cubic volume with cut corners and triangular windows,” explained Rainier de Graaf, who presented the project in the House of Architects. - Triangles are not random: the building contains another cube - the atrium. Thus, a cube in a cube is obtained. When two cubic shapes are superimposed, triangular notches are created. One of them can be used as an entrance by installing escalators in it.
Inside the "Skala" there is a hotel, a cinema, a gallery, in the lower part there is a large public area, including a media library. In a word, what now exists in the development environment under the name "shopping and entertainment center". Water is used as a signature Skolkovo "feature" - for example, it is proposed to preserve the pond in frightening proximity to the foundation of the "Skala" and place a cafe on its bank.
The artistic part of the presented projects of the guest zone caused a storm of positive emotions among the audience - as one of the discussion participants commented, “as if Leonidov and Melnikov had met on the same site”. This is a beautiful, but dangerous analogy: everyone knows that many projects of the greats remained on paper. However, in order to understand whether the SANAA and OMA projects are not threatened by the fate of the avant-garde artist Ivan Leonidov's lost fantasies, we just have to wait for the start of construction. Or the beginning of adapting the proposed ideas to reality - after all, so far only concepts have been shown to us.
