Difficulties stimulate creative thought, and the most interesting solutions are born in especially difficult situations - these postulates are probably familiar to every practicing architect. The residential complex designed by Sergey Estrin's workshop as part of a closed competition for one of the quiet districts of Moscow is an excellent proof of these truths. On a small plot with an area of slightly less than half a hectare, densely surrounded on all sides by five-story buildings, it was necessary to build an apartment building of a fairly high density - the customer intended to place 8,000 m2 here2 housing, plus rental space on the ground floor. Probably, if all this were to be implemented in an open field, even on such a small piece of land, it would be possible to do with "little blood" - to build a tower or a rectangular volume around the perimeter of the allotted area, and then there would not be that unique sculptural image that gradually developed among the authors of this project. And it was not even so much about the need to visually correspond to the context - to follow the path of greatest resistance was forced by technical standards, first of all, ensuring the necessary level of insolation for both the new building itself and nearby houses in accordance with the current SanPiNs. Any building that grew above three floors here would obscure the houses already existing around the site. The customer provided the authors of the project with an insolation map, with which they checked during the design.
The infographics show how the volume was born: having chosen the optimal height of the object as a starting point, the authors began to change the height based on the shadow that each specific area casts on other houses approaching it at different hours. The same applies to the insolation of the building itself. The design calculation was carried out literally for each apartment. And they achieved that during daylight hours each apartment receives the maximum amount of sunlight at certain times. The house is alternately beautifully illuminated from all four sides as the sun moves. The result is a complex volume with multiple height cuts. It was divided into two buildings with an inner street passing between them. Each building has a kind of diagonal branch in the plan - this is especially clearly visible if you look at the complex from a height. On the cuts - exploited roofs with terraces.
Due to the fact that the insolation conditions on each of the four sides are different, the whole residential complex turned out to be different. It resembles a giant art object: if you walk around it in a circle, with each step a new, unexpected perspective opens up. The lowest number of storeys is two, the highest is ten. It is interesting that the internal facades of the complex, the facades of those same branches, are placed at small angles - in order to avoid looking from window to window.
The final image of the house was created on the basis of graphic sketches by Sergey Estrin. The outlines of houses growing on the mountain slopes are guessed in them. Indeed, the volumes of different heights, from which the complex is grouped, could produce such an impression. Sections, ledges, multilevel, terraced - all these are attributes of a compact settlement somewhere in the vicinity of Amalfi, on the Ligurian coast. Although the author himself assures that when designing, he imagined a silhouette of a tiger lying with his head raised, and a second smaller tiger lying at the feet of the first, such associations arose, since not far from the building site there is an embassy of one of the Far Eastern countries. As a matter of fact, the complex of themes is unique in that its imagery is polysemantic and capable of evoking a variety of associations - from symbolic and subtle ones to quite specific ones. Ultimately, everyone chooses what is closer to him.
A special dynamism to the appearance of buildings is given by irregularly located multi-format - mostly rather narrow and elongated, but in some places and, on the contrary, horizontally oriented and in any case vaguely resembling loopholes - windows. Large-format panoramic window-screens, sometimes with balconies, covering two floors at once, play an important accent role; although there are not duplexes behind them, but ordinary one-story apartments, separated by ceilings. The seeming arbitrariness of the location, irregularity - these techniques evoke voluntary or involuntary associations with spontaneous, historically evolving buildings, although at the same time we perfectly understand that the complex was designed and built at the same time. But the image of a psychologically and physically comfortable and human-proportionate environment has certainly been created here.
At the same time, the authors of the project did not want to excessively enhance the effect of spontaneity and did not strive to make the complex look like a group of densely composed multi-format volumes. On the contrary, I wanted to avoid variegation and achieve the feeling of a single block. Therefore, the architects emphasized the unity of the elements: all the facades are faced with red bricks. Suspended ventilated facades made of solid bricks perfectly correlate with the surrounding red brick five-story buildings. The complex is visually perceived as holistic, but at the same time it does not seem to be monolithic, it does not overwhelm, it conveys the feeling of a comfortable urban environment, and not only in the courtyard area, but also on the terraces located above the apartments - they are like small city squares in a medieval city, are surrounded by approaching two-three-storey houses, and in fact - by the walls of the upper floors.
A comfortable environment has been created on the inner territory, based on centuries-old principles of organizing space in small European towns. There is a winding street between the sections - with flower beds, lawns, trees, benches, places for rest and communication. There are also two courtyards connected to the street and to the outer streets by aisles on the ground floor level. In essence, an urban mini-system of cozy courtyards and a lane with covered passages between them has been created here.
On the ground floor of both buildings, in addition to covered passages to the inner territory, rental premises for retail, services, as well as a children's club and a fitness center are located. Under the entire territory there is an underground garage with access from the outer street.
Both buildings are arranged according to a sectional principle: each section has its own entrance, an elevator group and a minimum number of apartments per floor. According to the terms of reference, there are 4 - 5 apartments on each floor. The apartment mapping is rather shallow, as the current market situation requires. Presented one-room apartments with an area of about 50 m2, two-room apartments 65 - 70 m2 and three-room apartments, about 90 m2… B about Most of the apartments have access to an exploited roof with a private terrace. The proportions of rooms are approximately one to one and a half. There are duplexes on the last floors.
Any terms of reference are just numbers and technical data, and the standards are the same numbers and requirements, and reading them it is impossible to imagine what the creative decision of the project authors will be. And although the project of Sergey Estrin's bureau did not win the competition, it became an example for the authors for working out approaches to design in cramped conditions: on a small plot surrounded by long-established dense buildings, one could expect the simplest and most uncomplicated answers, but the authors carefully worked with the volumes and architectural forms and found a non-trivial image, however, of course, without disregarding the entire calculated background and the pragmatic side of the project.
