At the beginning of June, at the MARCH architecture school, the projects completed by the students of the school in the second semester were defended. We bring to your attention the best works of the studio under the direction of Evgeny Ass. Let's remind that the theme offered to the students of this studio sounded like “Body. Feelings. Architecture , and baths, they are also terms, were chosen as the object of design.
He talks about how the work on the projects went and the projects themselves
Evgeny Ass:
“Students were asked to design a bathhouse in Moscow. It seemed to us that the bath is most consistent with the stated theme “Body. Feelings. Architecture . We offered a choice of several areas of different properties and sizes, but did not put any restrictions on the design program. Its development became part of the project. The work began with a variety of studies and, first of all, with the study of the sensitivity of the students themselves, their reactions and perceptions to certain events. For them, we organized a trip to the baths, the purpose of which was to record all their experiences. After that, it was necessary to study and analyze the world experience in the construction of baths. Without fail, students explored the Roman baths and baths of Peter Zumthor, they could also familiarize themselves with other modern baths of their choice.
The topic “Body. Feelings. Architecture”was also proposed by me in order to try to overcome the traditional for architects thinking with drawings and come closer to thinking with real spaces, materials and sensations from architecture. Of course, we could not completely abandon the drawings, but most of the projects have largely retained the freshness of perception and the transmission of potential feelings. As a result, we got some absolutely outstanding projects, although, of course, all were interesting.
For example, one of our students, Anya Shevchenko, made a project based on the image of a traditional poor Russian black bath, where ash and soot were the main attributes of cleanliness. She came up with a three-layer bath. The first level, the underground, is a layer of hell, where everything black is actually concentrated, above it there is a layer of purgatory where you can wash, and above it is a layer of paradise with an open pool and the opportunity to contemplate the world and the high sky. Anya made very good drawings, which in a sense are even more meaningful than drawings, because they have much more emotional content.
A very unusual bathhouse was designed by Vanya Grekov, turning it into a pure attraction. This is a vertical bath, in which there is no horizontal level, except for the water level. The main motive of the project is convection and air circulation, used as the basis for engineering solutions, heating and ventilation. All the warm air rises upward, and visitors to the bath also climb up the ramps. And as it rises, the air temperature becomes higher and higher. Going down, people, on the contrary, gradually cool down. This is a very extravagant work, but thought up to the end, this is not just a concept, but a project worked out to constructions - experimental, radical, but, oddly enough, it could well be implemented.
The work of Masha Tyulkanova, who began with her Siberian memories of bathhouses standing alone in the middle of a snow-covered field under a black dome of the sky, deserves a special mention. This image she carried through the entire project and, in the end, turned it into a giant closed atrium at the spa hotel, which is located around the perimeter of the atrium. Thus, the project has acquired additional functionality. A rather strange but fascinating theme has been proposed, when from the gallery of the hotel you can see a pool with dark water, clouds of steam and the shadows of bathers wandering among them.
I would also like to note the project of Anya Kozlova, who proposed to build a bathhouse on the site in front of the Lefortovo Palace from the Yauza side. This place is lost and hopeless. It was rather difficult to come up with something worthwhile there. But Anya found an interesting, even city-wide, solution. She organized the entrance to the bathhouse along a ramp through the Lefortovo Palace, which now houses a closed military establishment. The parterre of the palace, according to the project, faces a landscaped square with a swimming pool and a bathhouse in the form of a large cylinder. You can imagine how beautifully illuminated steam pours out of this cylinder in winter. And in the summer this volume is supposed to be used as a fountain.
Maxim Zuev, our student from Odessa, also surprised us with non-standard solutions. He came up with a bath of water sensations. It is a large, unified space with rain and fog zones, and water fills the multi-level pools. A very complex water-temperature environment was created, packed in a cloudy glass box, which is half buried in the ground. Maxim got very beautiful interiors, in which indistinguishable shadows wander in the fog and drizzle. At the beginning of his research, he cited footage from Stalker and from the films of George Lucas as prototypes, which have a similar indefinite rainy atmosphere. And it seems to me that such a strange idea could well become the subject of practical discussion.
During this semester, students have developed many wonderful projects. In any case, we did not have a single bath as just a place to wash. The bathhouse was viewed primarily as a public space, sometimes as a cult space, a bathhouse as a forum or a bathhouse as a temple. The task was formulated in such a way as to create a space in which all the senses and perceptions, tactile, tactile, olfactory, temperature, would be extremely sharpened. And, as it seems to me, the students coped with the task. After defending the projects, I talked with the students, and one of them expressed a precious idea for me that she would never be able to design otherwise”.
We asked Evgeny Ass to name several of the most successful, in his opinion, projects, and we publish them with the author's comments.
Smoke bath. Author: Anna Shevchenko
The site is located on Kotelnicheskaya embankment, 10 meters from the pier and not far from the Taganskaya metro station. The relief has a significant height difference. Anna Shevchenko's bathhouse is a three-level volume, consisting of simple geometric shapes. The author chose the black Russian bath as a prototype. And the lower, underground level of the building just plays on this theme - black, burnt walls, ash and metal boilers for bathing on hot coals. The second level is occupied by the bathhouse itself, and an outdoor swimming pool is arranged upstairs. The structure of the building is made of reinforced concrete, sheathed with fired wood panels. In view of the lack of greenery in the area under consideration, it is proposed to surround the bathhouse with a small green garden.
Vertical bath. Author: Ivan Grekov
The site chosen for the design is located on Sadovnicheskaya embankment. Ivan Grekov's bathhouse has a simple form in the form of a vertical glass volume with a two-layer translucent facade and a "palisade" of a constructive skeleton brought out to the top. The entrance to the building is from the side of the embankment, and the exit is from the opposite side, to Sadovnicheskaya Street. The main idea of the project is vertical movement up and down, and not only visitors traveling along the ramp, but also the air constantly circulating inside due to the temperature difference. Convection is the main shaping principle in the project. The layout of the functional spaces required in a modern bath (dry bath with a plunge pool, sauna, hammam, massage rooms, swimming pools, steam rooms, hot stones, relaxation baths, etc.) resembles a thermometer, where extremely hot temperatures await the visitor at the top. but it gets colder as it goes down.
Bath-atrium in the spa hotel. Author: Maria Tyulkanova
The spa hotel occupies a long stretch along the Vodootvodny Canal on Sadovnicheskaya Embankment. This is a multi-layer volume with differences from low to high, from narrow to wide, from blank walls to open spaces. The texture of the building is constantly changing - from ribbed concrete to warm wood and transparent glass. The bath, according to the author, is a center of energy accumulation, immersing one in a meditative state. The main theme of the project is a dream, a dream, childhood memories of a warm and fragrant country sauna with dim light. The interior space of this bath, interpreted in its own way, surprisingly fits into the atrium of a modern spa hotel, becoming its main component, the core.
Lefortovo lighting bath. Author: Anna Kozlova
Anna Kozlova has developed a bathhouse project on the territory of the Lefortovo Palace, the central courtyard of which is currently surrounded by warehouses and is not accessible to visitors. The author proposes to open access to the square through the main arch from the 2nd Baumanovskaya street, and to set up a park around the palace. The entrance to the bathhouse, which is located closer to the Lefortovskaya embankment and is mostly underground, is supposed to be carried out along a ramp that starts directly from the center of the palace square. The part of the bath, visible above the surface of the earth, has the shape of a cylinder, placed in the center of a large rectangular pool. However, the volume brought to the surface does not allow one to get a complete picture of the internal structure of the entire building, which has a strict rectangular shape in plan. The main functional block is divided into two halves - male and female - and includes all the benefits of a modern bath. Light plays a special role in shaping the interior space.
Bath of atmospheric phenomena. Author: Maxim Zuev
The site is located on the Kotelnicheskaya embankment, on a steep relief. The volume of the bath is planted on the relief, partly going underground, and the main facade facing the river. The bath is designed as a glass volume with right angles. The facade is formed by large glass blocks of various sizes, imitating a layered rock texture. The main idea of the project is to present practically all atmospheric phenomena inside one building. The space is divided into zones of rain, fog, clouds, which smoothly flow from one to another. Water is presented here in almost all its states - in the form of hot and cold steam, fine drizzle, condensation. The rooftop pool features an outdoor pool with a public area surrounding it, accessed by stairs from the waterfront.
