Designing a new residential complex in St. Petersburg, a city historically spoiled by block development, has never taken micro-district development seriously, is a difficult task. Designing on Vasilievsky Island is a doubly difficult task: the traditions of the place are too strong, and the influence of a regular layout is too tangible, the main axis of which is not a boulevard or avenue, but the bed of the Smolenka River. Namely there, on the alluvial Vasileostrovsky territories, not far from the Primorskaya metro station, the “I am a romantic!” Residential complex is to be built, forming one of the fragments of the “Sea facade” of the city with the facades of economy-class residential buildings. And this additional condition made the architectural task especially difficult. But the authors made every effort to ensure that the complex corresponded to its location - it was modern, bold, comfortable and looked from the water.
On the one hand, "Romantic" is one of a number of economy-class residential complexes facing the Western high-speed diameter of the city, on the other, it is the most unusual in this series. From an urban planning point of view, this is a system of volumes arranged along a ray scheme, collected in a closed trapezoidal quarter. And despite the fact that the block in the traditional sense of the word is not there - the fan-shaped houses do not always close their rows, nevertheless, everything together works exactly like a block, dividing city life into what exists inside the complex and what is outside his. And the isolation, even incomplete, even split into two by the future street, creates its own inner-complex world and allows to protect the inner-quarter spaces from the winds from the Gulf of Finland. This is an algorithm inherent in the town-planning structure of the city, where once each house was essentially a residential complex, in which each had its own front door, overlooking its own courtyard, from where it was possible to pass through its arch to the neighboring courtyard, due to its addressing it was also almost your own. And from the most extreme courtyard, through their arch anyway, they went out onto their street … The courtyards were protected from the sea wind, and any postman knew where to look “7th courtyard, 21st front door, apt. 137 ".
In "Romance" there are no yards extending into the depths of each other, but there is a system of interconnected and at the same time separate territories of kindergartens, playgrounds and sports grounds, schools, rollerblades, skateboarders and cyclists - a modern transcription of the same famous Petersburg "own yard". It even has its own observatory, but this is already from the fantasy projects of the Petrograd constructivists who dreamed of building a commune house "with a complete closed cycle of life" where it would be possible to raise "your heroes, your dreamers, your scientists." Although, probably, it was this observatory that gave the name to the complex … Who knows?
If we talk about a volumetric-spatial solution, then pragmatism and the ability to make excellent projects, combining practically incongruous things, work here. As a result, two separate functional zones coexist on a fairly narrow building site: residential and commercial, separated by a wide pedestrian alley-boulevard. Each visually and spatially works both for herself and for the surrounding quarters. Residential - 13 houses with a height of 6 to 20 floors with all the above social infrastructure and underground parking lots, which can only be entered from main streets. Commercial, occupying a site slightly away from residential buildings, is a multifunctional business complex, a hotel and a closed multi-storey car park.
Another thing is the image. There is nothing superfluous on the facades: only a very intense color and individual loggias for each residential building, ledges or stair railings. But, despite the seemingly modest arsenal of tools, thanks to the variegated palette of volumes, their slight displacement and the appearance of windows of different shapes and sizes, there is no monotony so characteristic of apartment buildings.
It is important that the rhythm, shades of bright colors and nuanced plastics are subordinated not only to the artistic will of the author, they are based on a harmonious theory that fills the spectacular image with additional meaning.
Here is how Sergei Oreshkin talks about his idea: “The main idea of the project was the ideas of Suprematism of the twenties of the last century, - Rietveld's research on color. Each color used in the project is non-monochrome, complexly composed of a set of pixel shades that create a special tone at long distances. Indeed, the motley mosaic of the facades of this project is quite significantly different from the already familiar pixel coloring, reminiscent of enlarged computer graphics: here the pixels are different, they more resemble a pointillist stroke than a digitized tone stretch.
Bright inserts create accents, play in contrast; in addition, the shades used are also quite unusual, or rather, unexpectedly many. Purple is added to the understandable "acidic" light green, orange, sunny yellow - the most dangerous color, which is given to one of the large cases and which, thanks to the many red, black, gray or yellow inserts, does not look gloomy at all, which could be feared, but rather tasty like a berry. There are a lot of options for combining colors, and among them there are many unexpected, or better to say - atypical, unpredictable. In the "Mondrian" white-black-red-yellow layout, for example, instead of blue, the already mentioned berry-violet invades; the spots thicken and grind, then they stretch out in rare stripes, somewhere they resemble a square-striped TV tuning table, an op-art composition experiencing sight; from time to time, the prevailing cheerful tone is inverted, the background shade becomes dark gray - bright spectral inserts against such a background begin to almost glow and become like sunbeams. A variety of combinations of color and rhythm are picked up by windows: ribbons are replaced by squares, windows of vertical and horizontal proportions at the ends of houses are lined up with unsteady zigzags - but all this, both color and shape, obeys an elusive rhythm, looks whole and harmonious, - it is possible that together they are supported by a certain, undoubtedly complex, code-principle based on the research of Rietveld mentioned by the architect. Needless to say, there is not a single identical body here, each volume is distinctly individual, although the related rhythm and intensity of color do not allow us to forget about their relationship as well.
Speaking "nothing superfluous", it should be noted that outside there are also no protruding balconies or loggias, which are often built in modern houses, as Sergei Oreshkin aptly put it, in glass vertical "thermometers" attached to the house. Here, all the loggias are recessed, leaving the role of a mosaic picture for the plane of the facade. In addition, the architects have dedicated separate studies to staircase verticals, optimizing their solutions.
Everyone has long been accustomed to the fact that when buying an apartment, we are actually buying square meters of concrete floors and external walls, which barely protect these meters from snow, wind and rain - there are no windows. We buy square meters of structures that still need to be converted into square meters of human habitation. The difference between "Romance" and other residential complexes in the city is the finishing of all apartments without exception "turnkey": with furniture, household appliances and even some decorative elements. One can argue about whether it is good that there are only three design options: "Classic", "East" and "Hi-tech", but they exist, which means, after all, we are buying a place where we can live. The design can always be altered for yourself: to break - not to build!
The architecture of kindergartens and schools requires a completely separate mention. We all remember the unimpressive and not at all joyful houses, where in the mornings our little sleepy parents dragged us. Schools were also not impressed. And it’s not even worth mentioning that most of us had to get to these gloomy houses and schoolyards by public transport: “As a child, my mother drove me / On three trams to a kindergarten, / Daleko - behind the AMO plant, / Where did Makar drive calves . Here, everything is not so: and the houses most of all resemble a set of elegant cubes, from which you can build whatever your heart desires. And these cubes are located right under the windows of their native apartments. Even from above, from your own window, it is pleasant and fun to look at them - the fifth facade - the roof - works. And the whole complex leaves a feeling of youthful energy, freshness and brightness, so necessary for cloudy Petersburg.
