What needs to be done for a good residential architecture to appear in Russia?
The architectural and urban planning community of Russia has been discussing the problems of improving residential architecture in the country for many years. I will allow myself to contribute to the solution of this noble task. So, in order for the newly built residential architecture to meet the elementary quality standards, in my opinion, you should:
1. To achieve a legislative reduction in the average number of storeys in new housing in cities to 5-6 floors (average, not minimum !!!)
2. Remember that multi-storey buildings (7–20 floors) can provide a good layout of apartments and a comfortable life only if they exist in the form of dots or meridional plates. They should not curl around closed courtyards.
3. Remember that there are no unique correct urban planning techniques. Regular “quarterly” development does not have the slightest initial advantages over the free “micro-district” one. And vice versa. The arrangement of houses in space is an individual creative task, in each case it has its own.
4. Remember that the optimal depth of a residential building is about 9 meters. With a depth of more than 12 meters, it is very difficult to make apartments good, but with a depth of 14–19 meters, it is absolutely impossible. Better not even try.
5. Remember that the apartment must receive a sufficient amount of sunlight, regardless of whether there are standards for insolation or not. This means that living rooms and children's rooms must be oriented south, east or west.
6. Remember that the premises of an apartment for different functional purposes imply different optimal orientation to the cardinal points. Southern cuisine is as much a disaster as northern children's cuisine.
7. Remember that the insolation standards existing in Russia do not determine the rate of sunlight entering the apartment, but the minimum below which the apartment is formally considered unfit for housing. That is, the fulfillment of these standards does not mean at all that the apartment is good in terms of insolation.
8. Remember that artificial inflating of unlit interiors and communication spaces in an apartment in order to increase the depth of the case and the exit of the squares is a fraudulent trick. This makes the apartments bad.
9. Remember that at a normal floor height, a room cannot be deeper than 6 meters without loss of quality and comfort.
10. Remember that there is such a thing as through ventilation. And that an apartment of 2–4 rooms cannot be good without it.
11. Remember that simply installing kitchen equipment in the living room against one of the walls does not at all turn it into something better, but just the opposite. The spatial combination of the living room, kitchen and dining area suggests more subtle planning solutions.
12. Remember that a balcony (loggia, winter garden) is an indispensable element of a good apartment of any size.
13. It is imperative to remember that a typical multi-storey panel housing construction is a long-lasting (for centuries) urban planning and architectural disaster. And that it is pointless to improve it. And that you need to strive to create conditions under which it will die off naturally.
