For the chief architect of the project, Vladimir Labutin and his team, the landscape design of the courtyards of the "Italian Quarter" became the second experience in the field of landscaping, since before that he was mainly engaged in volumetric architecture. However, it was not this circumstance that caused the architect some caution at the very beginning of the work on the project. Labutin considers himself an adherent of modernist forms, while the Italian Quarter performed by Mikhail Filippov is a typical example of Neopalladianism for the latter. Labutin found a clue in resolving this contradiction in the work of the Italian architect Carlo Scarpa, who integrated modernist forms into the historical space of Venice with incredible elegance.
In addition to the general stylistic predetermination, Vladimir Labutin had to reckon with the fact that all the buildings and courtyards of the "Italian Quarter" are named after the cities of this country. So, the central courtyard is called "Florence", two side ones - "Rome" and "Milan". In the end, it was these names, or rather the historical architecture of these cities, that served as the starting point for the search for a landscape solution. The planning of each courtyard was based on … the famous monuments of the Renaissance, which is important, without resorting to direct copying.. Thus, a fragment of the facade of the Florentine Church of Santa Maria Novella became the basis for the plan of the central courtyard, where its individual parts acquired materiality: a window - the rose turned into a round pool, at the bottom of which a cover is laid out with a mosaic, the volute became a retaining wall of a smooth shape, the pediment became a pergola, etc. As conceived by Vladimir Labutin, looking at the courtyard from above, from their windows, the inhabitants of the quarter will see exactly the image of a fragment of the facade in all the magnificent harmony of its proportions, drawn by Leon Battista Alberti.
For the other two courtyards, the architects chose the works of Donato Bramante, who worked in Milan and Rome, thus uniting both spaces thematically. Milan represents Bramante's first architectural work, the Church of Santa Maria presso San Satiro, while Rome is his most famous building, Tempietto. Here the solution is based on a different principle: the architects start from the genre of ruin parks, popular in the 18th century, and “destroy” Tempietto, leaving only the bases of the columns and a fragment of the wall with a niche from it, providing in return the opportunity, as if in a visual aid, to see the plan of the famous building life size. “Destroying” Tempietto, architects immediately create a museum around its ruins, laying wooden walkways, along which visitors usually bypass such monuments so as not to harm them - here they serve as benches, ramps and bridges across a small pool, arranged in the form of a round moat. Reservoirs, by the way, are present in all three courtyards, and everywhere they are arranged according to the principle of dry fountains, i.e. their depth is minimal, but there is a characteristic soothing noise of water and the effect of mirror reflection, which seems to the authors of the project very important for the feeling of comfort in green areas.
The architects paid great attention to the choice of materials for these small landscape buildings - as a result, it was decided to make all the volumes of architectural stone that has sufficient stability and the correct color scheme. Cool shades were chosen for "Florence", warmer ones for "Rome". The paving is supposed to be made of clinker tiles, patinated stone and - fragmentarily - from mosaics. Since the terms of reference provided for playgrounds everywhere, each courtyard splits into two parts, in one of which a play area for children is created, and in each of the courtyards it is designed for its own age group. A particularly interesting structure has been designed in the central courtyard, it is an allusion to the Ponte Vecchio, and a special safe rubber covering under it will imitate the murky waters of the Arno River.
If three courtyards will serve only the residents of the quarter, then the green area in front of the main entrance to the complex from the side of Dolgorukovskaya Street will become a public urban space. It fixes the starting point of the fan-shaped structure of the entire quarter, designed taking into account the dominant of the bell tower of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Novaya Sloboda. The architects are transforming this small square into a conditional amphitheater with one staircase oriented towards the building's entrance. The upper part of the amphitheater will become a platform for summer tables of cafes based on the first floor of the complex, two semicircular steps, as it should be in the amphitheater, will be benches. Landscaping of all courtyards is complicated by the fact that they are located on the roof of an underground parking lot, so the authors chose a low-growing decorative linden tree as the main plant, which grows quickly and lends itself well to molding. An exception will be the green area adjacent to the complex from the side of Fadeeva Street. A birch alley already exists here, which in the context of the new quarter will also be rethought in the spirit of the Italian Renaissance. The existing axial composition will be supported by two lines of low fountains; this space will be fenced off from the noise of the street by an extended pergola, and a well will become the compositional accent. This typical attribute of small - "ordinary" - squares of historic Italian cities will have an exclusively decorative function here.
Thus, the green areas of the complex, although they are local in nature, provide a connection between the new quarter and the city and prepare the townspeople to enter a stylized habitat so rich in quotes and allusions.
