The head of the studio talks about how the students of MARSH coped with the topic "Long-term housing"
Vladimir Plotkin:
“I proposed to my students a topic called“Long-term housing”. The work took place in two stages. The first stage is a research module, during which students had to understand and figure out what housing is, what it can be and how long it can exist and play. My colleague Vladimir Yuzbashev and I did not set any rigid framework for the students. The term "long-term play" could be understood as absolutely everything - the service life of a building, its development over time, a stage-by-stage operation process, a change in functions, etc. At first, when I just mentioned the topic, I assumed that it would be about the possible assimilation of housing in the temporary process, and I assumed that all attention should be focused on social housing. However, then we decided to expand the topic somewhat, but still focus on housing for ordinary people, not elite.
Students could choose their typology on their own. As for the site, we offered them two sites to choose from, both of which were from the practice of my workshop and were located in the border zones - between the peripheral and central parts of Moscow. As part of field research, it was possible to go to the sites and get acquainted with the situation. Some students have visited the sites on several occasions. For example, Tonya Khlyzova, who several times illegally entered the territory of the closed area at night, even had to be released from the hands of overly vigilant guards.
The research module also included some pretty interesting exercises. Let's say there was an assignment to write a legend, fairy tale or emotional plot, about what the long play of a residential building is. In my opinion, this was one of the most interesting moments of our practice, and some of the students came up with completely charming stories. There were exercises on the analysis of analogues of world experience in the field of transformation and metamorphosis of a residential building, we studied a variety of methodologies and types of housing. I invited Russian and American specialists in the field of residential construction to lecture at MARSH.
The second stage involved the actual design of housing. It was proposed to start with the development of a minimum housing, a module that could exist and change in space and time. This cell was supposed to form the basis of the final project.
Zhenya Bakeeva decided to consider the topic of long-playing from a slightly different angle. Instead of investigating changes in the house in time and space, she, on the contrary, decided to find the most stable, permanent form, taking as a prototype the model of Coco Chanel's little black dress, which, once invented, has not lost its relevance today. Having developed a form that is comfortable, beautiful and of high quality, Zhenya proposed such a model, when the building, while remaining unchanged from the outside, easily changes its function depending on the requirements and needs of society, time, city. A very rational design module was proposed, allowing the building to be used not only as a dwelling, but also as an office, a museum, a church, whatever. In terms of the purity of the idea and the proposed approach, we all liked this project very much.
Eternal dwelling house. Author: Evgeniya Bakeeva
Mikhail Sergeev followed the principle of a possible transformation of the inner space of a living cell. He has a rather modest housing with the help of a highly detailed system of transformable modular wardrobes and partitions, which can be transformed depending on changes in the demographic composition of the family and the needs of residents. Moreover, he developed a socio-economic model: when purchasing an apartment on credit or on a mortgage, a person in the course of his life has the opportunity to gradually change its dimensions. While he lives alone, you can rent out the main space, then when he starts a family, the living space can be expanded. All this was meticulously calculated and worked out right down to the designs.
Convertible housing. Author: Mikhail Sergeev
Dmitry Stolbovoy proposed the topic of excessive vertical space. The building is divided into floors with a height of about five meters, and residents, purchasing such residential cells, pay the cost of an initially small area, but in the future they have the opportunity to increase it, developing upward. This project was about free planning in its purest form. Various, sufficiently flexible facade modules were invented, which could be used depending on the needs of the owner. It could be a space divided into two floors, an apartment with a second light, or with a mezzanine floor. Dmitry worked out the system of structures in such a way that the tenant could independently assemble all the floors and partitions inside his apartment. Corridors and elevators were designed wide enough to carry bulky building materials. The project turned out to be stylish, detailed and with very good graphics.
Vertical apartments. Author: Dmitry Stolbovoy
Asya Kotenko proposed a green house project. She fully revealed the ideas of green building and the topic of urban agriculture, which is quite fashionable today. It was assumed that this house would be inhabited by lovers of the garden and vegetable garden. The entire façade system consists of rows of hydroponic beds and flower beds; some of the greenhouses are located inside the building. The result is an introverted house that works for itself. This was the main idea of his long-term playing. The project was well thought out and beautifully solved, maybe only some questions arose about the planning structure of the building, it seemed to us too simple.
House-greenhouse. Author: Asya Kotenko
Another super-interesting project, which caused a lot of controversy and misunderstandings, was proposed by Tonya Khlyzova. It never came to the project as such, the process stopped at the stage of the research module. But the research itself turned out to be so exciting that we decided that it would be more than enough. Firstly, in this work I was attracted by the chosen form - absolutely incredible, very artistic and emotional, formed from simple but sophisticated drawings. Tonya focused her attention on the territory of an industrial enterprise, which was not adapted for any use, on old booths and sheds, to which more than one normal person would not pay attention. Her philosophy is that each object has its own history and this history must be preserved in its fullest form. Even a building made of iron and corrugated board can be considered as an element of housing - say, the dwelling of a bohemian artist or philosopher, Diogenes of our day. Such housing can develop, transforming into something incredibly beautiful. All this is shown on the example of the Art-play space, in the arrangement of which Tonya actively participates.
Long-term housing. Author: Antonina Khlyzova
Yegor Korolev had probably the least curious project. However, he showed a very confident approach. Egor is a student with a very strong creative start, and we expected some fancy things from him. This student wrote, perhaps, the most interesting fairy tale about "long playing" - lyrical and beautiful. But in the project itself, I decided to be a rationalist, for him real long-term play is a properly and high-quality housing, well-drawn, proportioned. This is a quarter with comfortable courtyards, self-sufficient due to its quality. And the quality guarantees its long life. Egor also suggested using this housing as a rental one, but, in my opinion, the form of ownership does not affect the typology in any way. The result is a project that you can take and bring to the council even now. This is a very professional and adult job.
Rental housing quarters. Author: Egor Korolev
I myself was very interested in this topic and, to be honest, I thought (although I least wanted it) that most students would work with open plans, suggest their transformations and redevelopment. But for me personally, this is a very controversial topic that has been studied and researched a lot. I wanted to see other approaches, a different vision. This is probably why I liked the project of Zhenya Bakeeva, her clearly expressed proposal is simple and at the same time universal: a confident shell and different scenarios for its use. This brings to mind the now elite districts of New York's Soho. At first it was a completely marginal place, the factory buildings of a tobacco factory. Then bohemian people settled there - artists and designers, because of which the place became more and more fashionable and expensive. Then the buildings had a different function, expensive lofts appeared in the place of the prom, and expensive art galleries and shops appeared in the place of cheap artists' studios. Of course, this region did not have any scenario of such a development in time. But there were high quality and durable buildings built to last.
The topic was very difficult for the students. It is difficult in itself. I know from my own experience that creating an interesting home is incredibly difficult. There is very little of it in the world, and in Russia it is not at all. Over the entire recent history of the last 30–40 years, we have not built a single innovative residential building in terms of typology. This is paradoxical and surprising given the opportunities and volumes of construction that we have. But social housing provides tremendous opportunities to fantasize, to offer incredible models. We all admire the architecture of Holland, and these are experiments with social and inexpensive housing, with different spatial systems, apartment typologies, interaction schemes. We always have a standard typological set. The slightest attempt to apply something new is faced with the opposition of the customer, who supposedly knows everything about the demand for the housing market, and, unfortunately, the boring internal controller within ourselves: they say, this is not the topic where you can artistically realize yourself, everyone and everyone knows about housing … It is difficult to find a new impulse here, but at the same time it is incredibly interesting. It seems to me that I was initially able to ignite the students with this, arouse their interest in coming up with a new housing model and a version of its implementation.
And I must say that all the students showed themselves very well, in addition to the named works, there were many other interesting projects. For example, there was a very unusual and very feminine project of a house for divorced people, where all the conditions were created to improve their personal life. There was a model of an initially formed condominium, when tenants select neighbors for themselves even before the start of construction, and others.
