Dubrovka is a rather impressive village located along the Kaluga highway. From the highway, those passing by can see mainly long rows of townhouses, which evoke not the most optimistic associations with barracks, but multi-storey buildings being built in the neighborhood. But in fact, behind these quarters there is also a spacious territory of private residential development - completely hidden from the eyes of strangers, cottages exist as if on their own, turning away from more densely developed areas. The order for the design of one of them back in 2007 was received by the architect Roman Leonidov. The only wish of future tenants, in addition to the modern look of the house, was precisely isolation from neighbors - it should have had nothing to do with three-storey townhouses, designed in a kind of averaged European style with pitched tiled roofs, brick-lined window openings and numerous bay windows. Actually, the very words "simplicity and tranquility" were first pronounced by the customers, and Roman Leonidov translated them into the language of architecture.
The cottage is located at the end of a rectangular plot in such a way that, firstly, it preserves a fairly large area adjacent to the house, and secondly, it is corny to turn away from the superdense mass of blocked housing. Like a real introvert, the house looks straight ahead - from the street running along the long side of the site, the architect closes it not with a fence (which, according to the requirements of the general plan, should have been relatively conditional here), but with a screen-wall. And although its length is more than 30 meters, it is possible to get rid of the feeling of monotony. Firstly, due to the rectangular portal designating the entrance to the house, the tape of the overhead light of the pool hidden behind it and the narrow through slots of the summer veranda, and secondly, of course, with the help of the material.
For facing this wall, Leonidov chooses a natural wood of a rich terracotta shade, which looks bright even in the most cloudy weather. “On the one hand, I wanted to somehow soften the severity of our introvert, and the tree coped with this task perfectly,” comments the architect, “and on the other hand, the name of the village itself suggested the choice of material. I wanted to somehow beat Dubrovka, especially since the bulk of its buildings has nothing to do with the theme of the tree. The name Leonidov eventually gave to the cottage is more than eloquent: Oakland is the same “Dubrovka”, but in an “advanced” Western manner, and the house really differs from its surroundings in about the same way as a resident of a European metropolis from an inhabitant of the Russian hinterland.
The main living space is perpendicular to the wall, while the pool, as already mentioned, is located directly behind it. Such an L-shaped composition made it possible to orient all living quarters inside the site and to break out a quiet lawn in front of the house, isolated from the outside world. Moreover, this space remains just the "air" that this house breathes - to ensure the complete privacy of the Leonids, it does not even put out the terrace in public: one of them is designed as a continuation of the pool, the second is located under the balcony of the master's bedroom.
Having given preference to a laconic, horizontally oriented composition, Leonidov enriches it with decoration. And if the house is separated from the street by a wooden screen, because of which only the plastered parallelepiped of the second floor is visible, then it is turned to the site by a dress that is more refined and complex. Here and large-scale glazing, which reflects the landscape, and wide textured friezes from natural stone, and wooden inserts, and expensive brick, which is faced with the "private" part of the house, balcony supports, as well as a spectacular pylon. The latter was deliberately placed by the architect on a plastered facade and looks like a decorative sculptural element, but this impression is deceiving: in fact, it is a load-bearing wall into which a fireplace is built in the interior.
The materials declared on the façade are becoming trendsetters in interior decoration. True, here the customers had one additional wish: the interior should not only look absolutely modern, but also allow for quite tangible ethnic allusions. The fact is that the owners of this house are collectors of works of art from African and Asian countries and intend to "exhibit" part of their collection. Taking this into account, the designer Anastasia Leonidova, who developed the interior design, relied on a combination of natural wood and stone, using rosewood, slate, travertine.
The relatively small area of the living room was compensated for by the full glazing of the wall between it and the owner's office, as well as with the help of a large aquarium built into the opposite wall. The designer introduced colonial motifs into the design of the bedroom - in addition to precisely matched furniture, a very unusual ceiling was made here: Anastasia Leonidova inserted wooden beams into narrow shallow niches cutting through the ceiling along the entire length of the room, resembling either a necklace of a leader of a tribe, or a skeleton prehistoric animal. The pool is also interestingly solved, where the same orchestra of materials is supplemented with unfinished concrete of the ceiling and honest metal of ventilation pipes, which the architects decided not to hide, but to decorate this large bright space.
