The project of four residential skyscrapers, comparable in height with the towers of Moscow City, was created by the architects of the ABV Group bureau under the leadership of Nikita Biryukov, commissioned by Nordstar Development for the territory between the Third Transport Ring and Kanatchikovsky Proezd in the Donskoy District. The site does not have any height restrictions, so the growth of buildings could be anything. On the other hand, the developer's wishes regarding the apartment design were quite tough: first of all, it was necessary to calculate the best views from the apartments, to amaze future residents with the city's panoramas, since the immediate surroundings of the houses cannot be called picturesque.
On a trapezoidal plot with an area of about 5 hectares, which united possessions 21 and 22, building 6 on Fifth Donskoy proezd, under the previous Moscow government it was supposed to build shops and hotels, but then the function was changed to a residential one, judging that another shopping center would complicate “the already difficult »The transport situation in this part of the Third Transport Ring. Several low-rise buildings, standing on the site now, will be resettled and demolished, but no beauty is expected around: a huge territory of a thermal power plant, an industrial zone, railway warehouses is very close - it remains, as Nikita Biryukov says, “to sell species”. For optimal zoning of panoramas, the designers even rented a drone in order to best take into account the picture when viewed from a bird's eye view; so the view of the CHP from the skyscraper windows is minimized as much as possible.
The project was inspired by an ultra-tall skyscraper called 432 Park Avenue, which has just been completed in Manhattan. The client offered it as an "ideal model" to Nikita Biryukov, but the architect had nothing against it: he sincerely admires the impeccable shape of the 426-meter tower of Raphael Vignoli, which the author himself proudly calls "an architectural breath of fresh air against the backdrop of bumpy Manhattan skyscrapers." If the square is the purest of geometric shapes, then Vignoli's project, let's say, builds it into a cube: around the perimeter of each of the square floors in the plan, there are twenty-four square windows measuring 3x3 meters, opening the breathtaking panoramas of New York.
Of course, from the point of view of ambitiousness, the architects of ABV did not plan to focus on the highest-rise condominium in the Eastern Hemisphere: if 432 Park Avenue with its fabulously expensive apartments even before the end of construction became a symbol of truly transcendental luxury, then the complex on Pyaty Donskoy was designed in a difficult environment. financial situation, and economic criteria played a decisive role. So there was no talk of any complications of the form either for economic reasons, which, incidentally, is quite consistent with the aesthetic credo of Nikita Biryukov, who prefers pure architecture, without "pop".
During the work in the workshop, about eighteen versions of the project were made, as a result - in full agreement with the customer - we settled on a complex of four towers, two with 58 floors and two with 74. Except for the number of storeys, the buildings do not differ from each other: such unification was also one of the original conditions. Rectangular towers are located along the perimeter of the territory perpendicular to the CHP and the Third Ring (again to optimize the view characteristics), framing the courtyard. The stylobate in its usual form - a two-story volume given for retail - is present only from the side of the Third Transport Ring and serves as a buffer that protects the adjacent territory from the noise and dust of the highway. Further, towards the center of the complex, due to the difference in heights, it goes to the ground level. The underground part is supposed to accommodate everything necessary for the functioning of giant houses: a two-level parking lot, technical and utility rooms, as well as a spa complex and a medical center. Separately, in the yard, the construction of a kindergarten is planned.
The plastic solution of the towers is rather laconic. The silhouette of a regular parallelepiped rising into the sky (the height of 58-storey buildings reaches 217 m, 74-storey buildings - 273 m) retreats from the vertical line only twice - it expands at the level of the fifth floors, forming a console slightly noticeable on the scale of the building, and tapers stepwise closer to the top, and on both sides the step is located at different heights. This solution, almost without complicating the shape, visually lightens the top of the skyscraper, making it expressive enough without adding unnecessary architectural details. According to Nikita Biryukov, "the main thing in this project was the plan, it defined the outline of the building, and the facades were already of a secondary nature." Nevertheless, in the solution of the facades, for the decoration of which it is supposed to use facing stone and decorative composite panels, the authors' passion for pure form was fully embodied. The combination of glass and panels of light and very light colors, the impeccable geometry of rectangular window openings, collected in horizontal groups on the sides of the facade and vertical at the ends, stained glass windows of the first floors extended upwards - all this gives the volumes lightness, emphasizing the aspiration of the towers to the sky. As for the more "earthly" tasks - in particular, the organization of a spacious courtyard - the "ABV Group" here remained true to itself, planning a comfortable, but laconic space with emphasized geometric zoning. The courtyard is open from all sides, except, as mentioned above, adjacent to the Third Ring: as Nikita Biryukov says, the architects did not want to "make a fortress."
If you look at the project from a bird's eye view, for example, through the eyes of a drone rented by architects, you can see how the elegant towers of Nikita Biryukov enter into dialogue with the not so far-away City skyscrapers, how the surrounding high-rise buildings are lost in their shadows, how shamefully they huddle to the ground there are wide CHP pipes (of which, by the way, there are also four). Despite the many interim approvals with the customer already carried out by the authors, the ABV Group project will not be implemented. “Well,” Nikita Biryukov shrugs, “we, of course, are not Ivan Leonidov with his high-rise building of the People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry on Red Square, but now we will have our own unbuilt skyscraper!”
