In both cases, the work began with the assignment to design a purely utilitarian facility - the center of Arkhangelsk needed a new underground parking lot, a cafe in Sochi needed reconstruction - which the architects used as an excuse and opportunity to create something more.
In Arkhangelsk, the architects of PTAM Vissarionov got a plot located in the very center of the city - on Chumbarov-Luchinsky Avenue, not far from the city administration building and Lenin Square. In plan, it has the shape of a rather narrow and long rectangle stretching along the avenue between Voskresenskaya and Karl Liebknecht streets. With its north-western border, the site adjoins the territory of a high-rise administrative building - a characteristic modernist "candle" closes the perspective of this space, and the south-western border - with a banking complex, which, like the city, needs parking. Now on this rectangle there is an open ground parking, which is always densely packed with cars - the fact is that behind the intersection with Karl Liebknecht Street, Chumbarov-Luchinsky Avenue becomes pedestrian: a few years ago, the city authorities decided to bring the buildings of wooden Arkhangelsk here and turned part of the avenue into street museum. The result is a very picturesque walking area surrounded by houses of the 18th-19th centuries, but so far it actually ends in nothing - it breaks off, running into a spontaneous parking lot. So the idea to extend it by removing the parked vehicles under the ground suggested itself, and Vissarionova's PTAM, in agreement with the chief architect of Arkhangelsk, interpreted the freed up space as a transitional link from a chamber historical building to a large-scale skyscraper.
In addition to wooden mansions and a concrete vertical, there is another building next to the site, which is difficult to ignore. This is a multi-entrance residential building located on the other side of the avenue and is almost comparable in length to the building-up rectangle. Eight residential floors are raised on triangular pillars characteristic of the 1970s, behind which are the entrances to shops and services, which occupy the first floor, and above the only decoration of the extended facade are triangular balconies-bay windows. Thus, the site, which is supposed to be converted into a city-wide landscaped space, is adjacent to a covered pedestrian gallery at street level. Probably, it would be possible to build up the continuation of the pedestrian street with vaudeville mansions or limit ourselves to standard landscaping in the form of benches and lanterns, but the architects of Vissarionov's PTAM considered that such a decision would inevitably be discordant with an impressive plate of silicate brick, as if bristling with triangular "thorns". Therefore, designing the volumes, in terms of their dimensions, commensurate with the historical development, the authors of the project sought to find for them a form that would be simultaneously consonant with both it and the modernist heritage. …
A few compact low-rise buildings (maximum two floors) with pitched roofs became such a compromise. On the one hand, the slopes make these volumes related to the "great-grandfathers" on the continuation of the street, on the other hand, the architects replace the traditional ridge with a flat piece, and the slopes themselves are extended to the ground, thanks to which the houses acquire a characteristic technocratic silhouette, which in spirit and geometry is already much closer a high-rise building hanging over them. The authors are not afraid to interrelate the new space with the existing pedestrian gallery with the help of a color scheme: one of the project options assumes that massive pillars will be painted in bright colors, which will then "flow" over the asphalt directly onto the roof. A less radical option chose a monochrome, almost black-and-white solution of the houses - it seems to be not flashy, but it stands out noticeably against the background of silicate bricks. The modern "origin" of the volumes is also emphasized by the fully glazed main facades facing the pedestrian zone being created. Since these houses play the role of trade and exhibition pavilions, in project proposals, transparent facades are interpreted as showcases, which in the dark will provide the city space with additional light and comfort.
The former parking lot is supposed to be partially greened, and the former roadway will be eliminated altogether, so that the pedestrian space, which used to be modestly huddled under the console of a residential building, now becomes the sole and rightful owner of the territory. The entrance to the underground three-level parking lot, from which it all began, is located on the opposite side - between the complex and the territory of the bank - and is designed as inconspicuous as possible.
In Sochi, as already mentioned, the starting point of the project was the need to reconstruct the existing cafe. It is located on the Black Sea embankment, directly behind the beach strip, and is surrounded by a green park. This section also has a rectangular shape and stretches from west to east at an angle to the coastline. Now the cafe is a small building with an open veranda on the second floor - it does not cope very well with the flow of visitors even in the "low" season, so the owners decided to expand it.
At the same time, the only territory that could be expanded is its own green courtyard, so the architects faced a difficult choice - new construction or preservation of greenery. However, the designers found a compromise in this case too. For this, various sun-protection structures have been chosen as the main building material - awnings, awnings, even blinds.
“We ourselves define the typology of this small but functionally rich object as“a trading house-cafe with pavilions-gazebos,”the authors explain. Reconstructing the existing cafe building (the architects replace its upper floor and cover it with a complex roof, as if borrowed from origami masters), the authors complement it with a whole series of light glazed pavilions, and the space between them is filled with plants, benches and dining tables.
The new structures are laconic cubes, the walls of which are made of blinds, so that, depending on the position of the lamellas, they become either solid or permeable through and through. They are connected to the main building by a tape of awnings. And so that the volumes do not look like train cars, the architects give tents different geometry - some continue the theme of the roof of the building being reconstructed and are likened to paper cranes, others are designed as awnings. Together they form an intimate, but complexly organized space, corresponding to the spirit and climate of the resort town.
