Six bureaus participated in the final round of the competition; all works can be seen here. We asked the jury members to share their impressions of the competition and their opinion on the winning project.
Alexey Muratov:
Partner of KB Strelka, co-founder of Project Russia magazine
“Sergey Skuratov offered a very convincing and at the same time rational solution. The location of the complex in multi-storey towers, on the one hand, allows to fix the boundaries of the site without fencing off an irregular polygonal shape, which, in particular, Atrium tried to do, and on the other hand, to preserve a certain transparency of the building, to smooth out the overwhelming effect that dense neighborhoods. At an important intersection of Rublevskoye Shosse, an urban planning dominant with a bright author's architecture appears, which contains signs of the creative handwriting of Sergei Skuratov, organically integrating into the master's general search line on the theme of composition from tower volumes (Garden Quarters, Housing and office complex in Kiev, etc.) … Among other things, the tower structure is characterized by a high degree of flexibility, allowing to vary the technical and economic indicators of the building. In this case, it is also important, because the GPZU has not yet been issued for this section."
Vladimir Yudintsev:
head of the architectural studio "ARTE +"
“The place for the construction of a residential complex is very advantageous in terms of the urban landscape. This is a high point at the intersection of the edge of the Krylatsky Hill and the direction of Yartsevskaya Street of the Moskva River floodplain. The viewing conditions are by no means limited to the Rublevskoye Highway route, but include the entire Krylatskaya floodplain, part of the Stroginskaya and Nizhnie Mnevniki - that is, an extensive fan-shaped set of distant points. Hence, the main silhouette requirement for building on this site is the maximum transparency of the solution and the exclusion of all types of blind screens. In my opinion, these requirements are best met by the project of Sergei Skuratov with four towers of different heights. And since in the absence of a GPZU, a slight decrease in the area of the complex is possible in the future, a small synchronous decrease in the height of the towers will not particularly affect the overall composition of the project.
Nikolay Shumakov:
President of the Union of Moscow Architects, Chief Architect of JSC "Metrogiprotrans"
“I would like to note that all the recent competitions have yielded positive results: the winning projects in almost all cases demonstrate a very high architectural and professional level. The same can be said with full confidence about this competition. I really liked that all six finalists presented high quality, excellent work - one better than the other. I think that any of them could be safely implemented. But Sergey Skuratov took part in this competition, and where he participates, the victory, as a rule, remains with him. This competition was no exception. Sergey is a master of the highest class, one of the few Russian architects on an international scale. For Rublevskoe highway, he presented, at first glance, a rather simple, modest solution - a composition of four residential towers with a delicate use of red and white on the facades - but these towers were made so skillfully, delicately, beautifully and boldly that the jury did not have doubts. The decision was taken unanimously, there was no reason for any debate.
The main advantage of Sergey Skuratov's project is precisely in the simplicity of the compositional solution, which is ideal for a given place. The site is located at the entrance to Moscow and at the same time at the intersection of Rublevskoye Highway with Yartsevskaya Street, and from whatever side you look - the silhouette works successfully, the towers look very impressive from everywhere. It would seem that the technique found by Skuratov is tested and seemingly not new, but this is the author's skill - to achieve maximum effect with minimal means."
Nikolay Lyzlov:
head of the architectural workshop of Nikolai Lyzlov
“The competition left me very pleasant impressions - both in terms of organization and conduct, and in terms of the level of competitive works. This competition found a great response: a lot of interesting applications were at the qualifying stage, six finalists were selected from among all applicants, who presented their vision of the residential complex, and from these works it was necessary to choose one winner. Despite the fact that all the projects turned out to be good and interesting in their own way, the winning project looked an order of magnitude better than the others, so none of the jury members had even a shadow of doubt in this matter. The fact that Sergey Skuratov's project is the winner was noted by everyone at once. As a result, the work of the jury was unusually easy.
I liked that Skuratov's project was worked out at a slightly different level than it was favorably different from the rest, it looked extremely convincing, and in addition, this is perhaps the only project that answered all the questions posed by the competition task and fully met the requirements of the site from the point of view of its location in space”.
Evgeniya Murinets:
Head of the Office of the Architectural Council of the Moskomarkhitektura
“The competition can be considered successful, primarily because this is the first competition in our competition practice to address the topic of housing. The participants had to offer a volumetric-spatial solution of the residential complex and fully think over its architectural and urban planning concept. The customer of the competition was the PIK group of companies, a serious and large organization that has been operating in Moscow for a long time. It is important that the customer liked the results of the competition, and we hope that in the future, given their volumes of design and construction, PIK will continue its competitive practice.
As for the winner, Sergey Skuratov's project turned out to be really the best in all positions. Its advantages were so obvious that all members of the jury, without exception, gave the first place to this project. Firstly, the active silhouette of the complex is interesting, which looks good from different points of perception and, moreover, significantly diversifies the nondescript surrounding buildings. Secondly, it was very important to be able to change the volume of the complex based on the results of the passage of the GZK. The fact is that if, after receiving the GPZU, the existing TEPs are not confirmed, then the selected project will have to be corrected, therefore the jury paid attention to the fact that when the TEPs are changed, the main idea and compositional solution do not lose their qualities. In a number of finalists' projects, it was obvious that a reduction in the area or height of buildings would change the proportions of the courtyard, which could affect both insolation and the architecture itself. In this regard, Skuratov's bureau has proposed a project in which the height of the towers can be reduced rather painlessly. The bright coloristic solution of the facades also seemed interesting.
As for the rest of the works, the second and third places had almost equal chances. At Vladimir Plotkin's work, everyone noted the spectacular composition of two plates, and the Atrium project attracted with an interesting idea of creating a small middle-rise “town” inside the complex. However, not all members of the jury found this decision justified for this site, where the entire environment is represented by large-scale buildings."
