Starocherkasskaya Riviera is located 17 kilometers from Rostov-on-Don, in the area of the architectural reserve Starocherkasskaya stanitsa, the picturesque surroundings of which have long been chosen by investors. The settlement, being sold by the Azov-Don development company, is located in the spacious floodplain of the Don River and is actually part of a whole agglomeration of private households. In particular, the site on which the Starocherkasskaya Riviera is being implemented is closely adjacent to the 1st stage of this project - a village called Riverside.
It must be said that the majestic river for the Asadov architects also became a key factor in the development of the general plan of the future settlement. In particular, the fact that the site has a rather narrow shape and stretches along the Don dictated the creation of several "lines" of development, gradually moving away from the water surface. The plots on the resulting first line of development directly overlook the well-maintained embankment of the river, and between the second and third lines, the architects located the central boulevard of the village. However, not only a smoothly curving river bed, but also an artificial marina gives active plasticity to the general plan - architects take away a water arm far inland, resembling a loop or a large inverted comma in its shape. Accordingly, all longitudinal streets in the village, including the already mentioned central boulevard, turn out not to be straight, but obediently bend, bypassing an artificial reservoir. Thanks to this, the architects manage to avoid the monotony of the planning, it would seem, originally set by the very configuration of the land plot.
“Starting with the general layout and ending with the typology of houses, we tried to develop ideas of total diversity in architecture,” says Andrei Asadov. - And since the layout of all plots was originally supposed to take advantage of the location of the village by the river, we planted the cottages with a shift by one plot. Thanks to this simple technique, each of them gets their own sector of visibility on the water."
Having seen a lot of different cottage settlements during their practice, the father and son of the Asadovs understood that the main enemy of such a development is monotony. And although the first and main means of combating this ailment is the master plan, architectural solutions developed for the cottages themselves are no less important, and here the authors of the project tried to do everything possible. “We have developed several types of houses, each of which was supposed to have multiple variations in decoration, so as a result, it turned out that almost all housing in the village is somewhat different from each other,” explains Andrei Asadov.
In this very description, one can catch a methodological similarity with the concept of "Patch", which the architects submitted to the very first competition "House of the XXI century". The main idea of "Patchwork" was that many residential combinations can be made from several basic modules, and various options for finishing facades and roofs will further diversify the visual environment and give each volume an individual character. The designers do not hide the fact that this very principle of creating a "catalog" of houses, of course, with an amendment to the suburban typology, was used in the "Starocherkasskaya Riviera" project. The architectural design of the cottages is based on the image of a "shell" that protects neighbors and passers-by from prying eyes and, at the same time, opens the house towards the river. Each house in the plan resembles a bell, and the wide "hood" of its roof allows you to organize a large terrace, oriented to the Don. And although in fact there are only 4 types of houses designed in the village, due to the variety of palette and finishing materials, the architects manage to achieve the effect of true variegation of buildings.
The hallmark of the entire complex is the building of the entrance group. It was conceived by the architects both as a kind of "beacon" at the entrance to the village, and as an observation deck from which a view of the future land tenure and the endless expanses of the Cossack steppes opens up. The latter is located on the upper level of the tower, and you can climb it both from the building itself and directly from the street. Accordingly, the complex itself is an asymmetric composition, one wing of which rises like the bow of a ship. In this part of the complex there are a minimarket, a pharmacy and an entertainment center, in the opposite wing there is a beauty salon and a sales department of the developer company, and in the arch-gallery, which connects the two volumes and turns them into full-fledged entrance gates, the architects have provided a children's center and a cafe. The building is lined with dynamic glass horizontals of windows and faced with beige-sandy Baku stone, the color of which rhymes perfectly with the southern architecture in general, and with the restrained color of the steppe surrounding the village.
This year, Starocherkasskaya Riviera has entered the implementation stage. True, as often happens with regional projects, the development of working documentation and architectural supervision were entrusted to a local architect. As Andrey Asadov says, in the end, houses are being built according to the projects of Rostov designers, although the development of the village was based on the master plan developed by the Asadovs. “In fact, from our concept here, in addition to the general plan, only the building of the entrance group remained, which was implemented strictly according to the draft design and fully corresponds to it,” the architect comments on the situation. - And I must admit that with all the disadvantages of such an implementation, it has one interesting advantage - when a sketch of one of the well-known architectural bureaus is taken as the basis for a future "landmark" object and is implemented through the efforts of local specialists, the project is carried out in all the freshness of the original solution not having time to "dry up" in the process of working out. The reason is very simple: local specialists are given a strict order from the customers to exactly match the sketch, right down to the design of the bindings. This happened with our entry group, and we are generally satisfied with the result."
