Archi.ru: Vladimir Nikolaevich, let's start from the very beginning: how was “Architecturium” created? How did you come up with this name and what project was the first for the workshop?
Vladimir Bindeman: Architecturium was founded in May 2004. By that time, I had already stopped working at TsNIIP for Urban Reconstruction for almost ten years and, together with several like-minded colleagues, was engaged in private orders. In the spring of 2004, our team won the Modern House magazine competition for the NovoArkhangelskoye townhouse settlement, and this was the reason for the creation of a real workshop. As for the name, it can be said to be homemade, referring to the "solid" Latin terms ending in "ium". I would like the name of the bureau to include the word “architecture”, plus I was very fond of the work of Boris Grebenshchikov at that time … Now we like to explain to our clients and colleagues that “Architecturium” is a place where architecture and architects peacefully coexist.
In other words, “NovoArkhangelskoye” became a “starting” project for the workshop, from which its specialization in townhouse villages began?
- This project did not bring us any profit, but it really made us famous, thanks to which we subsequently received many orders for the development of projects for townhouse villages. And even our current "multi-part" project - the Olympic village "Novogorsk" - came to us thanks to "NovoArkhangelsky". As for the theme of townhouses, I plunged into it since the beginning of independent freelancing in the 90s and, one might say, continue to develop this topic, going along the path "from a cottage to a microdistrict." In 1998-1999, I literally "burned" with this topic, offering it to investors and convincing them that a townhouse is more promising and better than a cottage and is much more suitable for a suburb near Moscow. The result was the first 3 townhouses for MIEL in Romashkovo, designed and built in 1999-2000.
Then there was a competition with the same investor for "Barvikha-Club" and the already mentioned "NovoArkhangelskoye". In the latter, we did some serious exercise with planning blocking options and came up with 5 different combinations. Then came the settlements - "quarters" for METRA-Development -
"Ilyinsky" and "Rizhsky", where we improved our developments and architectural style. Well, the projects for the "Olympic Village" have combined all the accumulated experience.
What exactly attracted you to the townhouse?
- First of all, by its planning capabilities. The variability of layouts allows you to create the environment of a small, cozy town. The cottage community does not provide such opportunities. The concept of community could be applied to the development of townhouses, which cannot be said about “fence” cottages. Townhouses can be turned into streets, courtyards and even squares. It was infinitely interesting for me to do this.
- Are you talking about this in the past tense? But after all, "Architecturium" is still engaged in townhouses, take at least the third stage of the "Olympic Village Novogorsk" or the village
"Andersen", which, along with low-rise apartment buildings, also has townhouses.
- I hope that these two projects are our last statement on this typology. Now I am an absolute skeptic on this issue and I believe that a townhouse is not for Russia. At least at the current stage of development. Objectively, the townhouse is designed for tolerant communities, open and friendly. In addition, they are good-neighborly and law-abiding, because living in a blocked house presupposes respect for the neighbor and for the house itself. Living “wall to wall” on an average 9 meters wide plot makes you greet your neighbor and be calm about the fact that his children talk too loudly to each other. A respectful attitude also means that you will not build a gazebo the width of your entire plot, half shading the neighboring one, and you will not disfigure the common house with self-made extensions and alterations.
The fact is that the buyers of townhouses are a very specific stratum of consumers of suburban real estate. For many, a townhouse is “no longer an apartment, but not a cottage yet”, and since you still want to live in a cottage, then the attitude to the acquired house as an individual one. The redevelopment and redevelopment of these objects is simply off scale: neither we nor our other colleagues who have built townhouses can be sure that they will see them in their intended form six months after the sale. And the point is not at all that the layouts leave much to be desired - it is about the consumers and sellers of real estate themselves. I asked one of such customers: “If you want to remodel so much and add half of the acquired area, why didn’t you buy land and build an individual house?”. The answer was discouraging: “I've already built a house. Now I want a townhouse. No comments, as they say.
In general, from the pioneer of the townhouse movement, I have come over the years to a complete denial of it. Because in the end, the work on the project of semi-detached houses comes down to thinking in advance of everything that the tenants can then remake, and to prevent this from happening. After all, I can't even afford a flat roof: in the same Romashkovo, for example, all the chic flat roofs were built on …
Maybe the expansion of Moscow can somehow change the situation? As far as I understand, the same Andersen turned out to be a Moscow facility after the expansion of the capital, and it’s no secret that Moscow follows the progress of approved projects more strictly than the region does
- I cannot but admit: a certain order in this area was established after the south-west of the region became Moscow. And the same customer of "Andersen", for example, very much hopes that the constructed objects will be preserved in their original form, and we, in turn, hope that the improvement we have invented will be able to be fully implemented, which will give the project integrity and the comfort of a well-thought-out and habitable space.
If you finish with a townhouse, what typology is most interesting to you today?
- This is still a comprehensive development of territories, but already low-rise and mid-rise housing. In particular, I would very much like to break the current scarcity of apartments offered by the developer. It's a shame that in fact today only odnushki and kopeck pieces are being designed, which are the easiest to sell. The developer's reasoning is simple: "If someone needs more, he will buy two apartments." But we understand that the construction of the house is not made of rubber! A good three-room apartment is not identical to a combined one-room apartment and a two-room apartment: in the load-bearing walls, residents will, at best, be allowed to make a standard opening. That is why, by the way, now I always ask designers to think about such things in advance and design more columns, fewer pylons. In Novogorsk, for example, we had to move reinforced concrete pylons.
In one of your interviews you said that architecture has become a commodity - this, in my opinion, very accurately explains the situations that you describe …
- It is enough to listen to how modern developers and builders talk about architecture. What we do, they call nothing other than "product". And this "product" is considered successful only if it sells out quickly. In general, I must replace the fact that the influence on the project of sales departments and their creative leaders today is becoming simply total, and the final decision is made not by one person, but by the whole structure. In addition to the fact that it is terribly inconvenient and incredibly long in time, it also speaks of the level of trust in professionals: today there is practically none.
And if the main goal of the designer is high-quality architecture, then the goal of the developer is to quickly sell the “product”. Probably, during the formation of capitalism, this happens everywhere. I am now reading Rem Koolhaas's New York Beyond It: so, in the United States in the 1930s, the same thing happened, even the Rockefeller Center was redesigned many times to please tenants. I think that this can be resisted only with the help of constant personal communications and beliefs.
So, after all, there are customers who give in?
- Scattered units. There are many soulless managers who listen to you politely, but will do as their council votes. Now, unfortunately, there are no outstanding personalities in development. Authoritarian leaders have their drawbacks, but one thing is indisputable: creative personalities create a trend, and passive ones follow it, go in the channel, not "bothering" at anything.
How is work organized at Architecturium? Brigade principle or one large brigade under your leadership?
- Initially, of course, we had one team. Five of us did the same NovoArkhangelskoye. Now there are several brigades. But they are not constant in their composition: they are formed for a specific object. In total, the workshop now employs 30 people, including 4 designers, 4 office workers, and the rest are architects, of which five are chief executives.
How actively are you personally involved in the development of workshop projects today?
- On me, as always, a fundamental architectural and planning solution, the study of options and the choice of the optimal one. Since I am a “playing coach”, I do the sketches myself. This applies to both urban planning and architectural studies. At the same time, the chief executives and all the architects of the studio who want to propose their idea can always do this, moreover, I urgently ask them about it - it seems to me that this is the only way a really good option has a chance to be born. In general, the further, the more I am convinced that modern architecture cannot be based on the taste of an architect. Especially when it comes to urban planning. Let me give you a simple example. There was a period when I thought that the roofs of low-rise buildings should be blue. “NovoArkhangelskoye” was done just like that, a boarding house in Sochi too, and I always really insisted on this, forcing customers to follow and overpay for the relevant materials. And now I look back at that period and think: well, pure voluntarism! In general, where it is more correct to look for rational rather than emotional justification of architectural decisions.
Are there any orders that Architecturium refuses?
- We almost never have separate objects. It so happened that, basically, we work with territories, we make projects of complex development. Now it would probably be even strange for me to take a separate object into work. Well, perhaps in Moscow. And even then, we would definitely start working on the project by studying the town-planning context, and end with landscaping. But, by the way, if the customer is not ready to give us the improvement, we do not undertake the project. We are convinced that landscaping is the fifth facade of architecture, more important than the roof, and it should be a direct continuation of the ideas and images included in the design of the building itself.
What qualities should an architect have to be employed in your workshop?
- The main requirement for a person to love and understand modern architecture. And not to be omnivorous.
And if we talk about modern Western architecture, what examples would you like to transfer to the national soil?
- It seems to me that our architecture is already quite Western. Quoted classicism has ceased to be a mass trend, and this seems to me almost the main achievement of the last ten years. I remember when we exhibited "Romashkovo" for the competition "Under the roof of a house" in 2002, our tablets were surrounded by solid castles and chalets, and today, fortunately, you will not find a chalet with fire in the daytime. Therefore, if I would like to borrow anything from the West, it is the respectful attitude to the work of the architect - both on the part of customers and on the part of society.
