Aleksey Ivanov:
“The project of a small shopping center in the Moscow region, the area of which does not exceed one and a half thousand square meters, we developed in a fairly short time. The customer, with whom our workshop has been closely cooperating for a long time, asked us to prepare a working project on the basis of an already available draft proposal. But as soon as we got down to work, we realized that the sketch proposed to us did not at all correspond to the design standards and did not fit into the boundaries of the allotted area. As a result, the building had to be developed practically from scratch.
The site is located on the Kievskoe highway and faces a busy intersection, where there is a constant congestion of cars. The place itself, in principle, could be considered good for placing a shopping center: there is a building materials market nearby, on the contrary, there are small shopping facilities, and there is a parking lot right there. But the surrounding buildings themselves are too chaotic, and the town-planning fabric has not been planned in any way. The only more or less conscious space here can be considered a small cottage village, located at some distance from the site behind a high stone fence. Perhaps, only he forms a certain building line in this place.
Considering such a deplorable urban environment, we immediately had a desire to design not just a shopping center, but a dominant that could fix the intersection. It was supposed to be a powerful landmark capable of giving this place support, making the entire surrounding unorganized space revolve around itself. I must admit that this is a very rare tactic for our workshop: as a rule, we carefully analyze and take into account the context, but we decided to ignore the environment like this completely. Which also implies an attitude to the context.
This is how the idea of a bastion was born - a solid, unapproachable and dominant volume. Its rounded corner facing the highway looks like a fortress wall. We deliberately made the outer border of the building almost deaf, and only small window openings are designed to show that its own life is boiling inside. Rem Koolhaas had an entire study on New York, in which he wrote that windows are relevant for boutiques and passages, but a shopping center does not need them as a typology. And in this sense, our facade fully reflects the functional purpose of the building, attracting visitors, but at the same time deliberately fencing off the noise and bustle of the road.
It was supposed to use ceramic bricks or tiles for finishing the facades. But in an effort to give the building additional impressiveness and power, we decided to make the walls of variable thickness. The easiest way to achieve this is by using foam concrete blocks with a width of 1000 to 500 mm, which would make it possible to obtain a greater depth of windows and thereby enhance the image of the fortress wall.
For all the inaccessibility of the external appearance of the shopping center, its internal area in front of the main entrance is designed as the most friendly and comfortable space. From the outside world and the chaos of the motorway, it is hidden behind the fortress wall of the complex, which visitors must go around in order to get to the square. The construction of a playground is envisaged in front of the building, the entire territory is landscaped and landscaped. Also, a zone of cafes and restaurants is opened on the inner square, in the warm season there is an opportunity to take tables outside. In addition, for the construction of a summer cafe, you can use an exploited roof, where, if necessary, it is easy to make a canopy that protects from precipitation, and even build on an additional heated floor. The fact is that at first this shopping complex was designed as a one-storey building, but we offered the customer to include in the project the possibility of further development of the volume without prejudice to its structural frame and architectural image.
Another important point that we took into account when designing a shopping complex is the concept of advertising. Advertising signs always look more aggressive and vibrant than building facades, attracting much more attention than architecture. As a rule, the architect has two ways - either to make the placement of advertising on the facades of his building impossible, which is extremely rare, or to immediately foresee the most painless scenario for its placement. This is always a difficult task, especially when it comes to a curved surface, as in our case. We offered the customer to place advertisements on the frieze of the building, as well as on a free-standing stele, as is customary in American cities.
Whether this project will be implemented is not yet clear. Despite the fact that the task to prepare working documentation as quickly as possible was completed, today the project is frozen. Like all. Will there be a thaw?..
