This year Olga Aleksakova and Yulia Burdova headed one of two studios at the MARCH architecture school. They offered their students for their research a difficult but fascinating topic - "Lifestyle (s) / Lifestyle". Its essence lies in the study, analysis and search for their own typologies in the field of housing - from the usual apartments and private houses to floating houses.
Olga Aleksakova and Yulia Burdova, heads of the Buromoscow architectural studio:
“The study was designed to overcome the notion that housing is boring. If you are looking for an apartment in a Russian city to buy or rent, then the choice is usually extremely narrow: "odnushki", "kopeck piece", "treshki" of unified typologies with a standard set of equal-sized premises - kitchen to the left, toilet to the right, narrow corridor etc. An architect, when designing housing, very often turns out to be unable to overcome the prevailing idea of the customer that the space of an apartment should be just like that. The customer, like a potential buyer, creates a demand for a certain and rather commonplace product. Unfortunately, there is no demand for other, non-trivial solutions.
We know from personal experience what a typical housing in Russia is. And this experience limits our imagination."
The development of the proposed theme took place in several stages. As a first assignment, the students were asked to write a short memory of their childhood apartment / house.
From "Memoirs" by student Alena Zakharova:
“The memories of the apartment in which I lived my first 13 years of life seem to me the most intense in terms of lifestyle. It was a large (and then it seemed like a giant) three-room communal apartment, located in a nice brick building with spacious entrances for four elevators. For adults, a communal apartment was inconvenient, but for a child it seemed like a whole city with its own and someone else's territory … The variety of premises did not let them get bored: I perceived the pantry as a climbing wall, climbing up a huge number of shelves into the inviting darkness, the horizontal bar in the hall gave the impression of a whole sports ground. Looking back, I just can't understand how three large families got along in the same apartment. But this had its advantages and disadvantages - its own way of life."
The next step in the research was a detailed study of world experience. A question was posed to the students: what do typical apartments look like, say, in Beijing, Amsterdam or Philadelphia? For example, a study of the way of life in Eastern Europe showed that most of the population there lives in panel apartment buildings, which is especially characteristic of the countries that emerged on the site of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. At the same time, now this socialist heritage is being actively reconstructed for the sake of increasing comfort, thermal efficiency and aesthetic component. The result of the research work was a 350-page catalog of the world's dwellings compiled by students, which made it possible to analyze in the most detailed way both the most typical and some completely original national types of dwellings.
And already on the basis of the catalog received, it was possible to start designing your own residential building with additional infrastructure, intended for a specific group of people. The teachers proposed three sites on the territory of Moscow as sites: in the area of Ostozhenka Street, it was necessary to study the way of life in the city center, the gateway on the Yauza provided for a different perspective - life on the water, and, finally, the site in the Izmailovo area served to study life on the periphery.
Alena Zakharova. Coast of Anarchy. Floating housing units on the Yauza
Based on her childhood memories, Alena Zakharova in her project tried to solve the problem of the lack of living space for a growing family by means of additional modules "occupying" the embankments. The essence of the idea is that at any time a ready-made module can be added to an existing building without special costs for construction and supply of communications. Expansion of modules can occur both horizontally and vertically.
Ekaterina Rovnova. Community premonition. Residential building on Ostozhenka
On Ostozhenka, having researched the topic of co-housing in Sweden, Ekaterina Rovnova "organized" a new Moscow commune house, where an internal street that spirals up to the roof serves as a public space.
Fedor Sumarokov. Residential building on Ostozhenka
Fyodor Sumarokov occupied a complex from an urban planning point of view, located at the beginning of Ostozhenka, with two residential blocks that form a high-quality urban area behind the Red Chambers. The block overlooking Ostozhenka uses a typology of housing, which is unusual for Russia, with a separate entrance / entrance from the elevated courtyard level.
Polina Nenasheva. Floats. Floating houses on the Yauza
In the "Floats" project, Polina Nenasheva presents single-family floating houses-bridges, which take on the functions of not only a residential building, but also a mobile ferry across the Yauza. So, for a unique opportunity to become the owner of a house right in the center of Moscow, residents have to pay by providing the city with a public service. The yacht's profile is taken as an analogue of shaping. The wooden frame forms the thick walls, bottom and roof of the houseboat.
A similar theme of the house-bridge is revealed in his project by Hamid Taitsenov.
Hamid Taitsenov. House-bridge on Yauza