The Olympic Hall was erected at the intersection of Olympic Avenue and Samarskaya Street, on a tiny patch of land that used to be just a vacant lot and a spontaneous parking lot in front of the famous swimming pool. The new volume nestled close to the wide staircase of the sports complex, and in terms of urban planning, such a merger had an important meaning - the building of the business center was supposed to re-arrange the “back” square in front of the Olympic facilities, giving it intimacy and completeness.
With the context, which had to be carefully considered, the authors of this project were generally very lucky. Every object around is an icon of its time. This applies equally to both Olympic buildings - symbols of the 80s, and to the horseshoe of the Renaissance Hotel, a model of luxury of the 90s, and to the multi-level garage Lukoil - a landmark work of the 2000s. It is also noteworthy that each of these buildings has at least one emphasized curvilinear facade. In Moscow, as in any other metropolis, a rigid orthogonal grid reigns almost unchallenged, but it is at the intersection of Olympic and Samara that for some reason completely gives way to soft and plastic forms. Perhaps the reason for this was the smooth outlines of the local hilly landscape, or maybe the ellipse of the main sports arena of the Olympics-80 has a hypnotic effect - it's really hard to argue with the laconic self-sufficiency of this volume … One way or another, but all the younger buildings around bend and distort, and the Asadovs, finding themselves practically in the epicenter of the mysterious "magnetic field", were no exception. On the contrary, they willingly accepted the challenge of the context.
However, even such a non-trivial environment was taken into account only secondarily. The first thing the architects had to puzzle over was the function of the projected volume. The fact is that this object did not become a business center right away: it was conceived as a sports and entertainment facility, which, in general, better corresponded to the immediate environment. Initially, it was supposed to host a bowling alley - one of the largest in Moscow. The architects were able to squeeze 50 paths onto such a modest area by making 15-meter consoles on both sides of the building border. And so that the building in profile does not look like the hammer of Thor, the Asadovs first gave the stems a more sculptural sharp-nosed shape, and then split each console into two parts. After that, the roof was slightly bent, and its ends were brought to the console, rounding off the folds. This shape made the complex look like an inverted catamaran: as the architects themselves recall, the customer was delighted with such a proposal: a vivid image, a memorable silhouette, an obvious plastic and thematic relationship with the architecture of the nearest neighbors - the Olympic facilities.
By splitting each extension with a completely transparent insert, the authors not only gave the building a spectacular appearance and "fitted" the new volume to the scale of the surrounding buildings, but also provided the interior rooms with an excess of daylight. That is why, when, a few years later, the bowling alley shrank to the size of an ordinary club and moved to the basement floor, the customer decided to completely retain the originally proposed structure. It is hard to argue with the fact that it was ideal for organizing offices: the output of the squares is maximum thanks to the consoles, and the multi-lumen atrium gives these square meters comfort and bright individuality.
Strictly speaking, the building looks like a catamaran only from afar: on the main facade facing Olympic Avenue, the lintel is only conditionally recessed between the two hulls of the “ship”, while on the reverse side the “tails” are completely different. The wing that overlooks Samarskaya Street has been pulled in and pulled in, and the wing that hangs over the stairs, on the contrary, tends to develop horizontally. And this desire is supported by the second and third floors of the complex: in fact, the building is cut into the staircase, spreading over the steps by several glass blocks, which are themselves decorated as steps on the facade canvas. This facade is, perhaps, the most complex in general: it corresponds to the scale of the area more than the neighboring buildings, it consists of several chamber volumes, between which the architects make notches, notches, additional mini-consoles. The cladding was selected accordingly: glass predominates here, only the contour of the consoles is wrapped in greenish metal, while the lower floors are sheathed with beige travertine, visually making the new volume an integral part of the light staircase.
A completely different matter is the facade facing Samara. Here, the stained-glass windows of the consoles are lined with the horizontals of the interfloor ceilings, and the central part is designed as a rather massive stone canvas, along which rivulets of thin vertical windows seem to run down. The dark gray, large-size porcelain stoneware with a metallic sheen, chosen by the architects, gives a touch to the cladding. The Asadovs admit that initially they wanted to revet the roof and ends of the Olympic Hall with patinated copper, but gave in to the customer and agreed to green metal, believing that for this place, rich in plastic, but absolutely monochrome facades, the color is important, first of all. … The feeling of slight disharmony is brought about by the powerful diagonals of the metal beams of the supporting frame of the consoles, which for some reason are painted white and therefore are perfectly visible through the stained-glass windows, but this is the truth of domestic construction - structures that want to be honest do not always know how to speak in an undertone. In this context, it would be appropriate to mention the horizontal slats on the front facade overlooking Olympic Avenue: they are on the renders, and it is obvious from these renders that the "main" console takes on a finished look with them (for example, the vertical ribs of a rather rough substructure disappear), but, alas, the customer did not have enough money for the slats. However, for now, he promises to add them later.
The space of the central atrium, thanks to the use of wooden panels of two related shades, turned out to be both ceremonially elegant and very cozy at the same time. The architects also tried to emphasize this atmosphere with the help of the black gloss of the floor slabs and living trees in tubs. The space around the building has also changed: in the place where previously there was only a spontaneous parking, a chamber pedestrian square appeared, thanks to the console, reliably protected from precipitation and too bright sun, and the staircase, which was previously only a transit, turned into a self-sufficient public area.
