This village somehow immediately breaks the established stereotypes. It is enough to look at its master plan - and you are already starting to be surprised. For example, where a neat central square ("like Europe") or an equally small neat lake is usually projected, the "Riga Quarter" has a huge reservoir. Its area is quite comparable with the building area, and since the architects tried to distribute townhouses almost evenly along the shores, the unconditional primacy of the lake in the spatial hierarchy of the village is obvious. It is this that sets both the general planning structure and the style of the housing being created here.
By the way, the site itself, allotted for the construction of the "Riga Quarter", in the plan has a completely "thematic" shape, most of all reminiscent of a fish: its triangular nose is facing south, its wide tail is facing north, and its fin looks to the east. An almost round reservoir is inscribed in this figure exactly in the middle, and since the “fish” caught the developers is quite slender and long, only two of the four banks were wide and spacious enough for building.. And if in the east the “fin” comes to the rescue - an elongated one the rectangle, which the architects are diligently building up, then the narrow coastal strip of land in the west remains largely empty. “There has always been a beach here, and we decided to keep this function, especially since, according to the terms of the land allocation, the developer had to create conditions here for public recreation on the water,” explains Vladimir Bindeman, head of the Architecturium workshop. “In addition, the terrain here is very swampy - you won't be able to build anything close to the lake, not only houses, but you won't be able to build a solid embankment here. So we immediately made a choice in favor of lightweight structures - boardwalks, almost weightless walkways. In general, something Scandinavian or something like the Baltic - so they decided on the general style, subordinating it to three qualities: naturalness, good quality, simplicity."
And if a comfortable pedestrian zone appears around the lake itself, then along the border of the site, the architects start up a road that goes around the reservoir in a wide loop and connects separate segments of the building. They are very clearly visible on the general plan: one group of houses is located at the entrance to the village, between the highway and the lake, the second is the rows of townhouses that have filled the already mentioned "fin", and the third is the massif on the other side of the lake. By the way, this forced disunity of the quarters turned out to be only in the hands of the developer - it became easier than ever to break up the construction into separate stages: now the North Coast has already been commissioned, the East Coast is under construction, and by the end of 2013 it is planned to build the South shore".
This village does not have the usual central street, on which capillaries of internal driveways and households are strung - unless the already mentioned promenade around the lake can be considered as such - no matter which quarter you leave, you will definitely get to a comfortable coastal zone. And the layout of each individual segment taken directly depends on where in the village it is located relative to the lake. On the "South Bank", for example, the houses are maximally exposed to the water and actually stand in front of it as a united front, while on the "North Coast" the sections, on the contrary, are lined up with ends with a slight offset relative to each other. However, the architects did not want to banal corridors of view from the entrance group to the lake, so the central alley near the water is flanked by two houses of six sections each, and in the future its perspective should be closed by the elegant completely wooden volume of the boat station. “Thus, we make the lake the property of only the village - it is almost impossible to notice it from the road, but the development itself from the side of the highway acquires a certain depth and multidimensionality,” says Vladimir Bindeman.
The area of houses gradually increases as it approaches the water: if the "North Coast" is mainly built up in sections with an area of 200-210 sq. M., Then the footage of housing on the "East Bank" is already approaching 240 "squares", and on the "South Coast" coast”is all 270. But the architectural solution does not undergo fundamental changes from quarter to quarter - on the contrary, the authors strove for the unity of the environment, therefore they operate with the same arsenal of means. It is based on a laconic combination of three materials: dark brick, white plaster and wood. This theme is set by the entrance group - a powerful rectangular arch, faced with a wooden lath, rests on two square volumes, light and dark. The side of the main street is decorated in the same way: on one side of it there are sections dominated by white surfaces, on the other - dark brown ones. However, in fact, both colors are present in each section, just one of them dominates the street facade, and the second one dominates the back, facing the house area. It is also important to note here that the streets here are laid in such a way as to bypass and thereby maximally preserve the wedge of the Opalikhovsky forest park invading the site. In fact, the pines end up in the backyards of townhouses - the architects emphasized the proximity to the forest with the use of completely wooden dividing walls. Houses, on the street facades of which are dominated by solid bricks, face the forest with a defenseless wooden seamy side.
Vladimir Bindeman recalls that for several years of work on this project, his workshop managed to complete dozens of solutions for townhouses. The architects painted completely wooden houses, and finished with natural stone, and even lofts, but in the end the restrained "Scandinavian" style won. Rhythmic displacement of houses relative to each other, alternation of extending and sinking planes, balconies and terraces, lean-to roofs that look like flat, rectangular portals and smooth canopy cuts - all this is really instantly recognizable as "Finnish" or "Baltic". However, not only architecture makes this village look like a corner of Northern Europe - a strictly dosed combination of materials and artistic means, which the authors of the project carefully adhere to, is fully revealed precisely in combination with pine trees, the water surface of the lake and a generous supply of public spaces.
