Driving along the Kievskoe highway past the town of Aprelevka near Moscow, it is now difficult not to notice the giant letters Vesna, which glow at night, placed along the highway - this is the real estate name of the new district, built according to the project of the Ostozhenka bureau. It is located south of the highway, among summer cottages in a former field - the city's part of Aprelevka, built up mostly with five-story buildings, is located on the opposite side of the highway, but now, after the installation of high noise barriers, it is almost invisible, cars are driving like a tunnel, not noticing cities. Meanwhile, the newly built area is a major step of the Moscow region city into the area of the "dacha" zone.
However, an urban area was not always planned here: "Ostozhenka" has been involved in the project since 2009 and then, in the midst of the financial crisis, the investor bought this site, planning to build a large cottage community. But Moscow's borders have changed. The general plan of the city has also changed: now, multi-apartment housing was supposed to appear in this place.
The architects faced a difficult task: on the one hand, on thirty-two hectares, it was necessary to create a dense urban development with a large number of residential buildings and all the accompanying infrastructure, on the other, the location of the site had to be taken into account: in fact, outside the city, without any transport, street, visual, etc. connection with him. In fact, another city without a city: around fields, ravines and summer cottages …
But in a crisis situation, everyone acts differently: some freeze and wait "when a normal life begins," others work tirelessly, not being distracted by whining and trying not to pay attention to anything. Ostozhenka is one of the last. As a result: the crisis is not a crisis, the boundaries of the city have not changed, but within two months a concept was born that appealed to the authors, the customer, and the city - it turned out to be akin to the “spirit of the place”.
Eight pairs of residential buildings of variable number of storeys - from six to nine floors, are freely placed around the site. Due to the complete initial absence of streets, they do not follow the geometric lines of "building a transport network", but the movement of the sun, and resemble a pair of dancers who have taken their positions in the middle of a large and bright hall and are about to start waltzing. Each pair, made up of two long L-shaped buildings, forms an almost closed courtyard, free from cars and saturated with greenery. In the logic of quarterly planning, this is a space for “insiders”. A well-equipped and logically organized public space with a system of pedestrian routes, green squares, sports and playgrounds fills in the gaps between the “couples”. And this is a place “for everyone”.
One of the main ideas of the project is the separation of residential and public areas. That is why it is so quiet on the territory of the complex: there is no fuss, parking or rushing cars, scurrying residents, hastily shopping. “Strangers don’t go here” - all active public life in the city has been brought to the outer border. Schools, kindergartens, an indispensable passage of a public shopping center and parking lots have been moved to the perimeter of the site, to the new ring street. It is she who allows you to avoid the transit traffic of cars across the territory. One of the authors of the project, Valery Kanyashin, claims that "this ring, equidistant from each residential building and connecting the new district with the city, was the urban planning basis of the project, which formed a semi-urban, semi-suburban environment, immersed in greenery."
Fits perfectly into this concept and the solution of the facades. For decoration, Russian bricks of two shades were used - dark brown and light ocher. The pattern of the walls in large spots, smoothly flowing one into another, as if the result of diffusion mixing of particles, is somewhat reminiscent of hunting ammunition - it merges with the colors of freshly dug reddish soil and pastel autumn forest. And you can also remember wooden houses, unevenly drying in the sun after rain, and spring thawed patches, and freshly laid woodpiles.
The next element, which distinguishes the buildings of the complex from the constructor of standard residential buildings, is the flat trapezoidal glass bay windows. Reminiscence on the theme of the classic glass bay window-lantern. Replacing either the loggias that are subject to immediate glazing "to your taste and color" - or the terraces of country houses, they protrude from all the outer walls in straight vertical lines - "thermometers". Apartments are different, but bay windows are always the same - "in a bay window, everyone is equal!" Glass from floor to ceiling, in rooms they become the main expressive accent, filling the interiors with light penetrating inside from different angles. Outside, their voluminous protrusions transform a simple flat wall into a continuous, dynamic, undulating canvas that reflects the blue sky and multiplies the sun's rays. And only the end walls of the "dancing in pairs" buildings are devoid of glass surfaces. Nothing here destroys the mimic hunting pattern. Such a giant spotted "panel" might seem somewhat heavy, but this entire massive end part, violating the laws of gravity, is raised above the ground to the level of the first floor and placed on a metal V-shaped support.
And we must honestly admit that when looking at the panorama of a recently built area, there is no feeling of its foreignness in this half-city or half-country. Had a string of white-brick towers - monumental and far from the mimicry of wildlife - appeared in this place, the impression would have been completely different.
