The development of this project began several years ago, even before the economic crisis, when Dubna was named one of the most likely locations for the country's largest IT technopark. An area of about 500 hectares on the left bank of the Volga was allocated for the creation of the "silicon valley": it was assumed that the Russian Programming Center would occupy about 200 hectares, and the remaining 300 hectares would be allocated for housing construction. The general development plan for the entire territory was developed by British architects and then adapted to Russian standards; before the crisis, they also managed to build the administrative center of the future technopark, create many of the necessary infrastructure and lay roads. Local and Moscow developers eagerly rushed to the land plots provided with networks; in a short period of time, several different projects of multi-storey buildings of the "business" and "premium" class were developed. Naturally, the crisis that broke out then severely moderated both the appetites of developers and the solvency of potential home buyers. It became clear that low-rise housing and one- and two-section economy class houses are much more suitable than elite high-rise buildings on the left bank. It was at this stage that the PANAKOM bureau was invited to participate in the project.
The site, on the development project of which architects Nikita Tokarev and Arseny Leonovich worked, is located as close to the Volga as possible, therefore, from the very beginning, they included a comfortable embankment in the new quarter, and it was to this that they oriented their residential buildings. Since the requirements of the developer and various administrations have been seriously adjusted several times, PANAKOM has developed a number of completely different project options. Arseniy Leonovich says that the project has evolved incessantly, slowly but surely drifting towards the ultimate budget and rationality.
However, the economy of future housing from the very beginning was almost the key point of the technical assignment, therefore, the architects directed their main efforts to ensure that the modesty of the budget did not affect the aesthetics of the projected complex too much. To solve this problem, they, in particular, came up with a residential building, consisting of two low towers, "set" on a single axis of communications. Simply put, two rectangular sections are shifted in such a way that one corner becomes common for them, and it is in it that the elevators and stairs are located, with which the apartments of each residential wing are connected by means of short corridors located at different levels. The architects called the resulting "residential unit" a "binomial", which not only very accurately reflects the typology of the house itself, but is also close in spirit to the historically formed physical and mathematical structure of Dubna and its population. By the way, such “binomials” can not only be erected separately, but also long “formulas” can be composed of them, and within the framework of one block the architects try both the one and the other scenario.
The trapezoidal shape of the site, one long side of which faces the Volga, and the other, respectively, to the center of the future technopark, prompted the architects to have a simple and rational layout of the quarter in the form of the letter "A". It is its authors who accurately fit into the boundaries of the site, laying internal footpaths along the main "sticks", and placing a sports ground with a tennis court on the crossbar. On the outer perimeter of the trapezoid, the houses themselves are built - separate "binomials" along the narrow sides of the site and assembled in a chain-comb along the road leading to the administrative center. As one approaches the embankment, the number of storeys of buildings noticeably decreases: along the river, the architects propose to place six duplex cottages - also a kind of binomial, but with a higher class. By the way, the two-part nature of all building elements is elegantly emphasized in their architectural design: both cottages and sectional houses are a combination of yin-yang, when light colors prevail in the design of one half, and the other, on the contrary, dark.
Unfortunately, the romantic idea of combining different types of housing within one block was quickly rejected, and the architects had to replace the cottages with sectional houses. This is how option "B" appeared. We see here the same "comb" along the roadway, reliably protecting the courtyard from the road, and the same twin turrets along the narrow sides of the site, but along the embankment now grow the same "binomials", spaced from each other at the maximum distance for in order not to block the view of the river from the rest of the houses. Forced to build up the entire quarter with one type of houses, the architects approached their appearance even more carefully and tried to diversify it as much as possible. Now a variety of colors are woven into the facades, open balconies with glazed loggias alternate more intricately, somewhere forming a strict checkerboard, and somewhere, on the contrary, setting a complex rhythm of honeycombs.
Alas, even the replacement of cottages with apartment buildings did not satisfy the customer to the end, so the building density had to be increased again. In option "B" the architects actually create two within the boundaries of one block. The site is being built up almost along the entire perimeter, and the chain of houses is partially bent into the quarter, accentuating the main entrance to its territory. Here we are no longer talking about any kind of gaps, and in order to somehow compensate for this, the architects repeatedly vary not only the facade cladding of the volumes, but also their height. Keeping the modernist style of the houses, the authors make it more plastically complex and rich: square bay windows and deep niches-hollows of loggias appear on the facades, and the dark lines of the balconies are here and there unexpectedly interrupted by the laconic white dashes of the windows. Not everywhere retained their positions and "binomials" - in most cases, architects were forced to replace them with more traditional multi-section houses. And yet, even in this form, the project of a residential area on the left bank of the Volga is humane in relation to both future residents and the surrounding buildings. Having relied on the practicality of the planning and the laconicism of the architectural solution, PANAKOM has created an area that surprisingly accurately corresponds to the spirit of Dubna - a young intellectual city looking to the future.