In the Russian regions, the "Archstroydesign" workshop works a lot and successfully. In Kirov - one of the most interesting programs, there are several projects in development now, and the ILand settlement in 2014 received the All-Russian award "The best business-class settlement". When a trusted partner - the same company that built ILand - invited Alexey Ivanov to take part in a closed competition for the development of another site, the architect, although somewhat surprised, took the competition seriously. And he won.
The construction area of 43 hectares is located in the west of Kirov, near the village of Perestorontsy (but already within the city limits). The relief here gradually lowers to the southeast, where there is a small forest and a swampy pond. Another landscape given is the already designed road, partly passing through the planning area. Alexey Ivanov in each of his projects sets the most effective use of existing conditions as one of his main tasks - in other words, he does not overpower reality, but makes it work for himself. So, the transit route for him is not only "evil" (that is, noise, deterioration of ecology and species characteristics), but also "good" - after all, good transport accessibility for a new area is always a great advantage. And the disadvantages can be minimized, for example, by fencing off the roadway with a green zone with social, cultural and sports facilities, which will have the honorary function of the main center of social activity of the district. An additional attraction to the park will be a system of ponds, into which a swampy body of water and a stream flowing right there can be transformed.
Having decided on the social "core", the architects built a planning scheme for the area on the basis of green rays radiating from the center, combining descriptive geometry with the natural lines of the landscape. The quarters, separated by boulevards and squares, are lined up in a slender composition, reminiscent in terms of an antique amphitheater. It was this working name that the future microdistrict received.
The development of the "Amphitheater" will be multifunctional: there should appear both multi-apartment 3-4-5-storey buildings, and blocked two-sided townhouses, and a plot for individual development is also envisaged. Aleksey Ivanov allocated the northeastern part of the territory for apartment buildings in order to somewhat level out one of the drawbacks of the site - a chaotic environment that includes the entire spectrum of suburban development, from six-hundred-high "birdhouses" to typical 17-storey buildings. The latter are just being built to the northeast of the "Amphitheater". As for the individual houses, they are "hidden" in the western segment. However, their construction is planned only at the last stage of the development of the site, and an experienced architect is not at all sure that the concept will not change dramatically by that time. “During the long construction period, customer demand fluctuates, approvals and reconciliation are underway, townhouses or high-rise buildings appear instead of individual houses, and if this system of possible changes is not foreseen, the whole project will die,” explains Aleksey Ivanov. In order to avoid this extremely undesirable result as much as possible, the architect divided the development into phases, each of which can develop more or less independently of the other, that is, at each stage of planning, the nature of the building can be changed - without prejudice to the overall picture. Even the construction camp is laid out in such a way that development and construction go towards each other and the equipment does not pass through the quarters where the settlement has already begun.
The architects also made sure that the first residents of the "Amphitheater" did not bear the unbearable financial burden of maintaining the park with all its sports, children's and social and leisure facilities: the arrangement of public areas was planned in such a way that they were put into operation in accordance with the settlement of residential quarters. By the way, public spaces for Aleksey Ivanov are important not only from the point of view of their social function: he views them as a kind of "development ridge", especially at night, when the lights go out in houses, and squares, parks and boulevards illustrate the architect's plan with a dotted line of light.
Already when the project was almost completed, it turned out that the plot of land, cutting into the building area with a wedge from the east side, also passed to the customer, which means that it became possible to include it in the microdistrict plan. Alexey Ivanov plans to build on this site an interesting quarter, which received the working name "Bastion": dense, oriented inward, and in height - from 6 to 8 floors, so that the transition to the neighboring 17-storey buildings will be even smoother. It is interesting that from an ideological point of view, this peripheral and, in general, a small piece of land can turn into a new "center of gravity" of the microdistrict: the architect compares it to the Kremlin, and the districts departing from it with houses of gradually decreasing number of storeys - with the villages growing behind the fortress wall …
The emergence of the new center is fully consistent with one of the basic principles of work of "Archstroydesign" - a polycentric organization of development, - which Aleksey Ivanov consistently adheres to in all his planning decisions. This project also provides for a number of points of attraction at the intersections of pedestrian and transport routes, and they are very functionally diverse, from bakeries to leisure centers. Moreover, building connections, the architects did not confine themselves to the "subordinate" territory, they considered it necessary to trace the walking routes from the planned area to the main cultural centers of the city: the Holy Dormition Trifonov Monastery, the hippodrome, the central cinema … It turned out that all this is within an hour's walk, which, with some improvement, can become both pleasant and informative. Aleksey Ivanov considers this work very important: in this way, the outskirts of the region are fully included in the urban fabric, and the city, with minimal financial investments, acquires a new humanitarian dimension.
