It hovers six inches above the ground. Does not hurt
not a single tree, not a single flower, not a single blade of grass.
Made of anti-gravity metal. Its purpose is
isolate you from this world of the past, so you don't touch anything. Keep to the Trail.
Don't leave her. I repeat: do not leave her.
Under no circumstances!
Ray Bradbury. A Sound of Thunder
The territory intended for the construction of the resort complex is located 23 km south of the Moscow Ring Road, near the village of Nikitskoye, and one should pay tribute to the builders of socialism - a truly mesmerizing landscape place was chosen for the rest of the young pioneers. On the site, the relief of which gradually decreases from the upper glade to the river, there are birch and oak groves, picturesque ravines, hills and lowlands. The total area of the territory under development is 43.64 hectares.
The architects keep the existing entrances to the territory (from the side of the Nikitskoye village), uniting them in a circular movement at the main entrance to the main building. Between the entrances along the western border of the site, there is an economic zone of the complex with a water intake station, a hostel, a boiler room, and the southern border is "held" by a long building of a multi-tiered parking lot. Thus, infrastructural buildings serve as a kind of screen that protects the main objects of the resort complex from the eyes of passers-by. The only exception is the building of the entertainment and conference center, which is designed right next to the main, northern, entrance and is designed to serve as the hallmark of the entire complex.
The authors located the main volume in the depth of the site, on the edge of the slope, orienting the building of complex shape along the north-south axis. However, it has so many branches that it is possible to talk about orientation to the cardinal points only in relation to the sanatorium building itself: on the general plan, for example, it is clearly visible that an S-shaped wing of the medical block branches off from its southern wing. On the same side, the dormitory building is docked with an oval dining room and an aqua center hanging over the slope.
The building so branched in plan arose at once for several reasons. Firstly, the architects wanted to collect in one volume all the main functions of the future resort: it is clear that this is especially important given the climate near Moscow - on too cold winter or chilly autumn days, guests will be able to move from their rooms to the dining room and spa without going outside. Secondly, the height of the buildings should not exceed 3-4 floors, and this also contributed to their elongated shape - the buildings seem to spread above the ground. As conceived by the architects, by doing so they echo the winding forest paths and allow tall trees (which, of course, also had to be bypassed) retain their dominant position on the site. It is also important that due to the low number of storeys and the surrounding trees, the nearby buildings will not be visible from the windows of the sanatorium. But the villas, which by definition are designed to provide their guests with even greater privacy and seclusion, are being designed in the depths of the site - behind the conference center along the northern border and below the main building, closer to the river.
The horizontal orientation of the main building is emphasized by the three-part structure designed by the architects. The lower, basement floor is faced with slabs of white stone (a kind of memory of the place - once limestone was mined in these places), the second and third floors are decorated with wooden slats that set a small rhythm and especially successfully emphasize the figure of rotation - the "oval" of the restaurant - and the uppermost level, on the contrary, has solid glazing, making it akin to the image of a lightweight deck superstructure-gallery. Perhaps the elongated volume, which visually disintegrates into separate "layers", would have looked too monotonous if it were not for the funnel of the main vestibule, a developed two-story trapezoid, wedged into the building exactly in the middle. It houses an entrance group of premises - a reception area, a bar, a living room, shopping kiosks and an Internet cafe. And this combination of volumes - emphatically laconic and, on the contrary, super-dynamic - predetermined the architectural solution of all other buildings on the territory of the complex.
Particular attention is drawn to the boomerang-shaped water park, complemented by fully plastered free-standing "thermal" capsules, and the conference center, which is curved in the same way as the main building. In the latter volume, the architects combined the functions of a business center and a leisure complex: in addition to a conference hall and meeting rooms, there is a bowling alley, a cafe, an amusement hall and a dance class, and in order to prevent them from interfering with each other, the second level of the S-shaped building is shifted relative to the first.
The complex shapes of public buildings balance the laconic volumes of the villas - one- and two-story houses with flat or gable roofs. Thanks to them, as well as the low number of storeys of the "branchy" buildings themselves, the complex as a whole does not give the impression of being too far-fetched. On the contrary, the organic forms of the main buildings and the natural materials used in their decoration make them very in tune with the picturesque territory of the future resort.
