Section 17-18, in question, is bounded by Testovskaya Street, 1st and 2nd Krasnogvardeisky passages and is an almost perfect equilateral triangle. This is where Lord Norman Foster was going to erect the record-high tower "Russia" by 2016 - construction was canceled in the midst of the economic crisis, and since then the site has been vacant. Since 2006, when the star of British architecture designed his 600-meter skyscraper, much has changed in the fate of Moscow City: some skyscrapers have been completed and put into operation, other projects have been frozen forever, others have given way to parking lots, and in general the business center has managed establish itself as a disastrously inconvenient and overloaded area with vehicles. But the site is not empty, all the more so! Section 17-18 is the part of the Moscow International Business Center that is closest to the Third Transport Ring and, in theory, should serve as a front signboard for the entire conglomerate of skyscrapers. True, now the investor, taught by the experience of his predecessors, understands that a record-high building is not needed here - rather, some intermediate volume in terms of height, which would be visually perceived as a “near line” of office giants. That is why, within the framework of the competition, the architects had to come up with an object that would be radically different from everything that had already been built in Moscow City, and, moreover, could radically improve the image of this district of the capital.
The height of the future complex was limited to 230 meters, but after carefully analyzing the silhouette and panoramas of the Moscow International Business Center, Sergey Skuratov came to the conclusion that this is quite a lot, and cut off another 40 meters from the projected volume. Thus, the architect received a building that would be significantly higher than all the overpasses of the Third Transport Ring and did not get lost against the background of skyscrapers, but at the same time did not strive to compete with the latter. As for the space-planning solution, Skuratov pretty much broke his head over it. “At first, of course, a tower was drawn - one or several, and we moved it around the site and combined it with various other volumes,” says the architect. - But all this did not meet the main task - to come up with an object that, on the one hand, would be visually perceived as flesh and blood of Moscow City, and on the other, was a completely independent architectural unit, about which it is immediately clear that it was designed for ten years later than skyscrapers. In the end, I got tired of these rearrangements, and I decided to act on the contrary - to build up the site along the perimeter."
In fact, Skuratov reproduces the original configuration of an equilateral triangle, however, rounds and slightly bends the corners of his "figure", thus imparting to it an obvious plastic relationship with the skyscrapers located in the neighborhood. However, this does not mean that the complex is designed as a single monolithic volume - it is by no means an impregnable fort that protects the approaches to the MIBC. On the contrary, the architect strove to create a structure that is moderately permeable and open (why “moderately”, I think, is understandable - the proximity to such a highway as the Third Transport Ring does not at all dispose to complete transparency). A functional program drawn up by the customer came to the rescue: the complex should have included retail and office space, as well as a spacious parking lot and housing. The parking lot predictably went underground, and Sergey Skuratov distributed shops, offices and apartments in layers: retail occupies the first floors of the complex and the space between the parking lot and the landscaped courtyard,and workplaces and apartments form two volumes of the same size, which the architect places on top of each other. Each of the triangles, in turn, is made up of several buildings - 3-4 on the "side", with the upper and lower ones alternating in a checkerboard pattern. On the one hand, this allows vertical communications of housing to pass through the offices, and on the other hand, it helps to avoid that very feeling of a fortress wall. Visually, the border between different functions is also indicated with the help of a wide belt of the technical floor, along which the complex can be bypassed along the perimeter (or you can run around - the architects suggest placing a treadmill here, among other things). Another similar end-to-end corridor is located at the level of the roof, which unites all the upper buildings.
As already mentioned, the area of the courtyard is supposed to be landscaped. However, the creation of an ordinary lawn on the roof of the parking lot seems to Skuratov to be a completely insufficient measure - Moscow City is completely devoid of greenery, therefore, at least in the last building of the Moscow International Business Center, the architect wanted to approach this issue in a fundamentally different way. The design of his workshop provides for the creation of full-fledged gardens not only at ground level, but also between offices and apartments, as well as on the roof of the latter. As for the vegetation of the courtyard, it spills out in wide waves outside the complex - green ramps surround it practically along the entire outer perimeter, allowing you to enter the courtyard, bypassing trading floors and office lobbies. Skuratov himself jokes that he tried to make one more "Garden Quarters", only this time in the style of the City.
Indeed, a certain kinship with the architecture of the business center can be seen in the solution of the complex, although Sergey Skuratov did everything to ensure that it was not bloodshed. The architect proposes to clad the facades of his MFC with white metal - a large number of French windows turn their planes into an openwork mesh with a strict geometric pattern. On the one hand, there is a large amount of glass - as in the neighboring skyscrapers - and on the other, here it is enclosed in thin but reliable frames, due to which the building is not perceived as a gelatinous mass, but looks very ceremonial (merit of the snow-white color) and strictly …
The side ends of the buildings are also painted white, but the windows here are much smaller and they are all arranged in the same checkerboard pattern, which makes these planes look even more "Skuratov" than the main facades. However, there are even more surprises in the courtyard: in order to make this space as bright and warm as possible, the architects propose to revet the facades facing it with aluminum panels of a golden-terracotta shade. With such a solution, even on the most cloudy days, the inhabitants of the complex will feel that the sun's rays are gliding along the surface of the building. “Remember the movie McKenna's Gold, where the heroes of Gregory Peck and Omar Sharif end up in a golden canyon? - smiles Skuratov. "So I wanted to create something similar in the City - a lot of light, a lot of greenery, a lot of warm colors, thanks to which this complex would become a kind of oasis in the middle of a very harsh urbanized environment."
Much more eloquent than the words about the grandiose idea of "Sergey Skuratov Architects" is the film made by the studio for the presentation of its competition project.
