The village, located 15 kilometers from the Moscow Ring Road along the Rublevo-Uspenskoe Highway, was almost completed by the ARCHSTROYDESIGN ASD workshop. Roads were laid in it, and houses were erected to the roof. The cottages were supposed to be designed in a chalet style, and their area was - no less - 600 square meters. But during the construction period, the fashion for the chalet finally passed, and the village turned into an illiquid stock, and did not reach the stage of commissioning. The developer resold it to another investor, who immediately began reconstruction and rebranding. This is how the resounding name of the settlement got the name Rubin Estate, and Aleksey Ivanov was invited to work on changing its appearance.
Work on the reconstruction project began with a rethinking of the master plan. The territory of the village in the plan is an elongated rectangle, one of its narrow sides adjacent to the highway. Its central part is outlined by a smooth loop of the central road, along the outer and inner perimeter of which houses are placed. The difficulty lay in the fact that the cottages were arranged more than freely - in fact, the entire village was "cut" into private households, so that there was no talk of any improvement of the territory, let alone the public zone. The architects moved one house closer to the edge of the village - thus a free space appeared at the base of the loop, which was used to create an artificial pond, “entangled” with footpaths and picturesque bridges. And although this reservoir is not located exactly in the center of the village, but closer to its distant border, it undoubtedly becomes the main focus of attraction, a public space that defines the face of the entire settlement and gives its inhabitants the opportunity to walk at least a little inside the village. The architects also corrected the plans of the households, giving them deliberately different shapes, which brought additional variety to the panoramas of the village. Well, the main attention, of course, was paid to the new architectural solution of the houses.
In total, it was required to reconstruct 24 houses, changing both their area and style. And here the architects again found themselves in very cramped conditions - they had to use the already existing foundation and floors, in fact, “put on” a new shell on the existing frame. In all cases, the reconstruction was carried out due to the dismantling of the roof and the complete dismantling of the second floor - somewhere this allowed to reduce the total area of the cottage, but somewhere, on the contrary, to increase, adding an attic floor to the two-story volume.
“A few years ago, I was a staunch supporter of the mono-style architectural solution of cottages within the framework of one village, it seemed to me very important to create a verified habitat in the settlement with a clear uniform style,” admits Aleksey Ivanov. - But now, when the market is oversaturated with such offers, it seems more important to us to offer the buyer a small but diverse settlement. A variety of architectural solutions removes the risks of dictates of subjective taste and expands the range of potential clients. However, when speaking of “diversity,” an architect, of course, does not mean the entire possible range of solutions, but a win-win combination of two or three of the most popular.
In this case, the architects combined two directions in the village: the architecture of the Tuscan Renaissance was chosen as one prototype, the second source of inspiration was Wright's Prairie House - a style that is commercially popular throughout the world. Relatively speaking, more modern houses and examples of European tradition appeared in the village, which will be dearer and closer to lovers of old cozy Europe.“It is important for me that both of these solutions are distinguished by restraint, good quality and are well combined and complement each other,” the architect explains his choice.
Within the framework of each "style", the architects have developed 5-6 types of houses, differing not only in area, layout, garage and terrace capacity, but also in the set of applied decorative and finishing solutions. The houses, which Aleksey Ivanov calls Tuscan, received attic floors, low square towers, open galleries on stone pillars, and bow arches. As well as round windows and serliana windows - rectangular openings with an arch in the middle at the top, first described by the 16th century architect Sebastiano Serlio and therefore named after him. "The attractiveness and solidity of these houses is emphasized by the powerful walls and solemn entrance portal, the use of natural materials and soft natural colors, which allows you to almost completely abandon decorativeness and, at least in this sense, not follow fashion," says the architect.
Echoing the Italian theme, the entrance group received a square clock tower similar to a bell tower.
The second part of the projects, which pays tribute to the memory of the "prairie house", reinforces horizontal instead of vertical. Slightly flatter and more distant slopes of tiled roofs, as well as a more contrasting combination of light plaster and dark brick make up the distinctive features of this group of projects.
The reliance on the memory of two historical eras allowed the architects to achieve the desired diversity. Behind transparent lattice fences, galleries and arched porches, dark and traditional red bricks replace each other, houses appear from different angles, their silhouettes, somewhere restrained, somewhere bizarre - with towers, do not let the eye get tired. The conservative texture of bricks and plaster, large but not excessive windows in conservative light frames, calm proportions of volumes - all this works for the impression of good quality and comfort, and the pond and mini-square make the space of the village a little more friendly and attractive. All this, coupled with a fairly large "fork" in the area of houses - from 450 to 740 square meters - should make the village attractive to buyers. Actually, it has already done - the houses are being successfully sold.
