The complex of the cottage village "Golden Sands", which occupies an area of about 24 hectares, is located practically on the shores of the Mozhaisk Sea. It is separated from the beach only by a narrow forest belt, as well as the territory of an unfinished cottage village. Actually, it all started with this project, which was implemented only by a third. As Vladimir Bindeman recalls, at the beginning of last year he was approached by a representative of one of the Moscow financial companies, which bought an unfinished village in the Mozhaisky district of the Moscow region and decided to turn it into something more than a banal series of typical cottages. The ambitions of the new investor extended much further than residential development - on the territory that has every reason to be called a resort, he decided to create a unique sports and leisure center, where both children and parents could come to rest and study. In other words, the architects were faced with the task of, firstly, zoning the undeveloped settlement, isolating the territory of the center in it, and secondly, in fact, to come up with a new type of recreational complex from scratch.
It must be said that initially the village had an extremely rational, if not banal planning grid: from the road to the reservoir two trapezoids should have been extended, cut by parallels of internal passages, on each of which it was supposed to string along two lines of sections. The cottages themselves were designed with the same uncomplicated design, however, even in this form, not all of them were realized - due to the crisis, most of the plots were eventually sold without a contract, just to be realized. And yet they managed to fix the frame of one of the trapeziums, having built houses around the perimeter, and the architects, of course, could not ignore the existing residential core. The most logical solution in this situation was the development of the second half of the site in a fundamentally different grid of coordinates. At the same time, the authors of the project did not have the opportunity to organize a separate passage to the territory of the future center, so it will stretch from the village along the road: the architects placed open parking lots and technical structures along its entire length, and the turn to the new complex was designated by an entrance group. Embracing the reversal ring in a smooth half-arc, it seems to suggest: further on, the territory of a fundamentally different geometry and architecture begins.
The complex is separated from both the village and the road by buffer zones: the architects turned lines of twin houses to the residential area, and the territory along the highway was occupied by sports grounds, a football stadium, an eco-farm and a mini-zoo. The layout of both groups of structures is still linear, while the layout of the center itself is emphatically irregular. The main building, where all public functions are concentrated (from gyms and a swimming pool to clubs, a conference hall, a restaurant and a hotel), in the plan resembles the Latin letter G, the tail of which is the "head" of the covered gallery connecting the "headquarters" with the rest of the buildings … This gallery then stretches, curving, along most of the site, serving as a kind of thread on which the living cells are strung. The architects gave the latter the shape of elongated pointed triangles in the plan: some of them are oriented towards the road, some, on the contrary, towards the water, which gives the composition additional dynamism.
According to Vladimir Bindeman, from the very beginning he decided to design the buildings of the center entirely of wood, moreover, raw wood. “The complex is located more than a hundred kilometers from Moscow, and it seemed to me logical and correct that, coming here, city dwellers should find themselves in an environment that is radically different from the“stone jungle,”says the architect.“The customer immediately agreed with this, but set a condition to optimize the upcoming construction costs as much as possible, and we were able to find the most economical solution.” As Bindeman explains, we are talking about the simplest "market" lumber: no wood-glued structures, nothing specially processed on machines - only unedged boards with their characteristic rough texture and cracks. "We were not even going to paint them, but only to cover them with a bioprotective compound and leave them to age naturally, so that they gradually fade, acquiring a characteristic silver-gray shade."
It is also important that the use of the "frame, insulation, sheathing" scheme makes it possible to lighten the foundations and not use cranes - another significant item of savings. By and large, the only thing that was not going to save on is high-quality stained glass - a large amount of glazing in combination with deliberately rough wooden surfaces of the facades and their expressive geometry and sets the characteristic architectural appearance of the complex. It is complemented by green, fully inhabited roofs - for each of the buildings it is "pulled" to the ground on one side and due to this it serves as a gentle hill inviting for walks and games.
Green roofs also play an important metaphorical role - they serve as a visible connection with nature, which has become the central part of the entire project. For the same reasons, by the way, the architects abandoned the standard landscaping of the territory: instead of neatly paving paths with tiles or using asphalt, they came up with a system of wooden walkways through which grass, gravel fillings and log curbs make their way. The roof of the main administrative building is also completely greened: due to the variable number of storeys, the architects manage to liken it to a gentle hill, a kind of green ramp, which you can climb directly from the entrance group and then walk through the entire complex on the roof. By the way, this exciting journey is just one of the many activities invented by architects and the customer for the young guests of the center. It was also planned to create a children's yacht club, a rope park, a swimming center, the already mentioned eco-farm and a mini-zoo in which the children themselves would look after the animals. And although this project remained in the concept, its “green” component was highly appreciated by professionals: at the Zodchestvo festival last autumn, it was awarded a special diploma for architecture with a humane living environment in the Eco-Sustainable Architecture nomination.
