Residential complex on Malaya Pochtovaya is being built next to MSTU im. Bauman, the prestigious Moscow technical university, which defines the atmosphere of this part of the Basmanny district. There are many university buildings here, as well as companies that graduates open after graduation. That is, a portrait of the public: young, smart, active people, there are more boys than girls. You can even say that a creative class based on Richard Florida nests here, because a sociologist in his sensational book “Creative Class. People who change the world”meant, first of all, IT specialists, who are in great demand today in corporations. In the era of augmented intelligence, the technical intelligentsia feels confident and radiant with well-being. While technological progress is making leaps and bounds, urban planning in this quarter is decades behind.
An impetus for the development of the territory will be the opening of a new lobby of the Baumanskaya metro station. The flow of pedestrians will be redirected through the industrial zone of the former plant of automotive electrical equipment MZATE-2. Now the territory of the plant falls out of the life of the district. The architectural environment does not meet the needs of the townspeople. Endless walls and fences form labyrinths and dead ends of a loose, chaotic and faceless industrial zone. Residents of neighboring houses are forced to bypass the place as an exclusion zone, and students are forced to contemplate the ruberoid roofs of garages from the lecture halls.
The architects of the City-Arch workshop offer their own version of solving the urban planning problems of this area in the form of a multifunctional residential complex. The predominance of residential function will not only increase the housing stock in the city center, but also ensure safety and comfort in the quarter: the area will be under the supervision of "window eyes" 24 hours a day. The residents of the new complex themselves will receive a five-minute accessibility to the metro, a seven-minute access to Lefortovo Park and a functional saturation of the first floors. The road along the street Hospitalnaya before the new lobby of the Baumanskaya metro station, which is scheduled to open in 2020, will have street trade showcases, a landscaped sidewalk with art objects and recreation areas instead of a blank factory fence. Since the ground level drops from the metro to the university by a floor height, it has even been possible to make two levels for walking. Thus, the first New York association is formed - a kind of high-line, on which the public functions of the first multi-height floors are strung. The metro, the university, the residential complex itself and the park are points of attraction, the flow of people is ensured, which means that street retail will be in demand.
An irregularly shaped site on a relief drop made it possible to fit a semi-underground multi-level parking lot into the stylobate part. Thus, space for improvement was freed up. The customer "MZATE-2" - the owner of the land, as usual, requested a higher density - about 39,000 people per hectare. In accordance with this density and the permitted height, the architects first placed "square cubes" around the perimeter of the site, then deployed them, focusing on insolation and aeration of apartments and courtyard space. By playing with the number of floors in different sections (it varies from 7 to 18), the architects were able to achieve a varied silhouette and provide most of the apartments with panoramic views.
The complex consists of ten towers. Five towers stand along the street, three are deployed at an angle, one, seven-story, is located in the courtyard. one duplicates the street row, at the same time forming an arch into the courtyard. The street lane is continued by the existing office building, which belongs to the customer. A modern art museum is planned in this building.
To respond to the theme of the plant, the facades of the three towers along the street will be made of red clinker bricks - durable and warm, tactile material. The light towers will be faced with hollow ceramic tiles. Drawing narrow windows, combined into two or three floors - a technique that allows you to visually reduce the number of floors. Slender windows make the façade easier to read and correspond to the human scale. The towers along the street were orthogonal in the first versions, but then they decided to lighten and narrow the top, and emphasize in black. This is how terraces with penthouses were formed, which sharply increased the attractiveness and value of the upper apartments, compensating for the decrease in areas. Rooftop terraces lend themselves to the atmospheric, filmmaker-loved, bohemian penthouses of Tribeca, Manhattan. For my taste, it would be possible to make ledges from all four sides, and not just from two: there are never too many terraces.
The public spaces uniting the residential sections at the gallery level imitate the industrial architecture of the 19th century: squat arches with triangular pediments resemble entrances to factory buildings or warehouses, although Ladovsky's portal at Krasnye Vorota station is also remembered. Above one of the arches is a skylight that reminds of a factory chimney and gives daylight access to the high interior space. This part of the stylobate is connected to the office building, and if it becomes a museum, it would be logical to place large installations here.
The arches are made of concrete, and the bindings of the stained glass windows are made of black steel. The horizontal steel beam under the gable provides space for signs and advertisements. In the same style, from the same black I-beams, the authors of the project are going to make benches with wooden seats, lanterns and other outdoor furniture. And the main street accent is a metal arcade with a swing.
The first level of the stylobate is a space of great height - 6 meters, it is planned so that it can be used as a whole, or be divided between different tenants, and have a mezzanine. Presumably, it will house a grocery supermarket, children's goods store, bookstore and stationery stores, as well as one of the floors of a 3-level coworking space, with a flexible interior transforming for events. The upper level of the stylobate ("high-line") unites the first multi-colored floors with various functions aimed at both local residents and the transit stream "metro-university": bank, cafe, restaurant, pharmacy, beauty salon, dentistry, fitness center, exhibition gallery and rental space for entrepreneurs and startups, such as university graduates.
The courtyard space is conventionally divided into two levels by a terraced relief. The accent in the yard are playgrounds and sports grounds for different ages, for passive and active recreation. It is important that the courtyard is not deliberately closed off from the neighboring "Brezhnev" houses: the winding ramp lengthens the walking route and smoothly descends to the existing buildings, and in winter it serves as slides for skiing. Thus, the neighbors will receive bonuses from the emergence of a new residential complex with a thoughtful and spectacular recreational space.
Residential layouts are designed for market fluctuations - in particular, they allow, if necessary, to increase the number of small apartments. In a standard three-room apartment, the living room and kitchen are oriented to one side, the bedroom and the nursery to the other. Convectors are located in the floor in front of the window, so the windows are from floor to ceiling. It is unnecessary to say that French windows are beautiful and improve the quality of life.
The complex is designed to improve the quality of the environment and, possibly, set a new urban planning trend - "Manhattan", when it is convenient, safe and interesting for pedestrians among high-rise buildings. And all that is needed is a well-maintained public space, a well-developed infrastructure of the lower floors and an unusual silhouette of the tops of houses.
