The first "Green Project" took place a year ago at the Information and Computing Center "Infospace", and then the chamber hall on Ostozhenka barely accommodated all the objects selected for display. There really were a lot of them then, but mainly due to the work of foreign bureaus, which ate the dog on innovative technologies and against which the Russian developments looked, for the most part, very modest. This year, the accents were set in a fundamentally different way: the site was chosen spacious and well-known, and mostly Russians were invited to participate in the competition “Eco-sustainable habitat”. The exposition itself is designed more concisely and no longer shimmers with all shades of green (last year all the tablets were marked with this color, which is why they frankly rippled in the eyes), and much more space was allocated for it, so the current Green Project is literally filled with air … However, moving from stand to stand, you catch yourself on the fact that there is somehow too much free space - in the main exhibition hall of the Central House of Artists much more clearly than in the cramped "Infospace", there is a general lack of innovative technologies that is characteristic of domestic construction and with which the festival, in fact, fights.
The structure of the exposition is extremely simple: the hall is divided into two approximately equal halves, one of which houses the manufacturers' stands, and the other contains tablets with the works of the participants of the show. At the same time, the stands of companies (including the general sponsors of the festival, such generally recognized leaders in the field of innovative technologies as Knauf, Holcim, Velux) are pavilions that form a whole mini-city of "houses" of different designs and colors, while all tablets are mounted on thin metal supports and, as they say, from the threshold call for severity.
However, the works themselves, submitted to the competition, cannot be caught in excessive seriousness. Yes, there are also very pretentious large-scale undertakings, such as a comprehensive reconstruction of park areas or the improvement of the territory of a mosque in Grozny (LEDs were used in the illumination, which, apparently, became a sufficient basis for presentation at the Green Project), but there are also charming chamber objects as well as witty concepts that clearly demonstrate that eco-innovation is a fertile field for effortless creative expression. Of course, there are more projects and conceptual developments in general than buildings (at least two or even three times), but it is important that the buildings are represented quite widely. I repeat, last year, almost exclusively foreigners competed in this section of the competition, while now it is filled with works by Russian architects. Among the undisputed leaders are the office building on Leninsky Prospekt in Moscow (SPEECH Choban & Kuznetsov), Gorka-Hall in Yaroslavl (DK architectural bureau) and Active House in the Moscow Region. In the latter, for the first time in Russia, the concept of an active house has been implemented. The house uses various energy sources that are integrated into a single network - solar collectors, a highly efficient heat pump, and a ventilation system with heat recovery are installed here, an important role in the energy balance of the house is played by its architectural solution, in particular, an asymmetric slope facing south facing, and thoughtful arrangement of windows.
At the same time, both the “Buildings” nomination, and even more the “Projects”, revealed how vague the very criteria of ecological architecture are in our country. Objects can be classified as "green" both for the fact that they use engineering equipment that saves resources, and for the fact that, say, one of the walls is completely glazed and this gives a feeling of unity with nature. The "Buildings" also has its own house of architects Lobanovs - designed as an "open structure", gradually overgrowing with "meat", and built using environmentally friendly materials, it has every reason to be called "green", although it was built in 2001-2003, when no one has really heard of innovative technologies in Russia.
In general, Projects this year leads to proposals for the improvement of recreational and park areas, as well as redevelopment of apartments, designed to make the living space as environmentally friendly as possible. But frankly futuristic and fantasy projects, unlike last year, this time there are only a few. And yet, it was not without green UFOs at all. Rillen Bureau presented a project of modular high-rise housing, in which 16-20-storey buildings are located on wide green platforms in several tiers, A-2 showed the Dubrava residential complex, sections of which branch out like young oak trees, Arch Group again demonstrates There is a Russian religious center in Paris, and the company "Tsinko RUS" is a project to green the roof of the Moscow Architectural Institute and create a green lecture hall above the "White" hall. On the other hand, this year not only the "Concepts" section turned out to be quite extensive, but "Landscape Architecture", however, in order to complete the latter, the organizers of the festival took the works from the student competition "Smart Park", which were presented a month earlier at the "Landscape Architecture. A View from Home”. Also within the framework of the "Green Project", a review competition of children's and youth creativity "Emerald City" is held, and shortly before its start, the results of the competition for the development of the design of the main award of the festival itself - AIST statuettes ("Architecture, Innovation, Construction, Technologies") were summed up … The technocratic bird of architect Dmitry Alexandrov was recognized as the best of 22 projects. About which projects will be awarded this award, Archi.ru will tell you separately.
