It is not the first time that Archstroydesign has been designing for Yekaterinburg: the first experience of the bureau for this city was the project of an elite cottage village on the bank of the Ilyinsky pond. Despite the fact that the development of expensive private individual and block houses has not yet been very popular in Yekaterinburg, the project received the city's approval and a positive expert opinion. In the wake of this success, the architects were again invited to Yekaterinburg: to design a multi-apartment residential complex.
The area in which the building site is located, border, is behind the station. Quarterly Stalin's development of the city center ends relatively close and the station's industrial zone begins: fields of Russian Railways repair shops, a dense bundle of railway lines - sedimentation tanks for trains. However, nearby, to the east along Strelochnikov Street, there is a chain of two-story wooden houses from the beginning of the 20th century - a typical example of the urban environment of that time, while on the west side there are two residential towers of the 1970s, close to the border of the site. At a distance, closer to the city, there is the office tower at the Sverdlovsk supermarket and the glass Transportation Control Center of Russian Railways. Nearby there is a railway station and a bus station, and to the station "Uralskaya" of the only line of the Yekaterinburg metro - 10 minutes on foot. However, the transport infrastructure is underdeveloped - say the authors of the project.
The area of the rectangular plot is seven hectares, but almost half of its territory is not suitable for construction: from the west there are residential buildings that cannot be shaded, the security zone of the railway approaches the northern border. A little less than four hectares remain, where, in addition to housing, it was necessary to place a kindergarten, offices, shops and gyms. During the design process, the complex had to be grouped even more in view of laying a new route along the edge of the site. After that, the height of the buildings increased to 25 floors and the stylobate.
In contrast to the dispersed environment, the authors proposed a rigid composition and the most clear structure. Only such a solution, in the opinion of the designers, is capable of somehow collecting and fixing the territory. “In such an ambiguous environment, rigid architecture with minimal detail was the only possible one,” says the author of the project, Aleksey Ivanov. - We tried to create a clear composition capable of "holding" the surrounding space. Yekaterinburg-Sverdlovsk is unique for its rich constructivist past. For us, the uniqueness of constructivism and rationalism solutions lies in compositional diversity. Therefore, instead of the proposed three identical towers, a solution of two and a plate appeared, located on a powerful horizontal podium. The composition includes a two-storey "anti-element" protruding beyond the border of the stylobate. Thus, the complex receives a variety of view solutions: from the center it is a wall with volumes opening behind it, from the region to the city - the entrance towers are in the foreground, the facade gives a monotonous rhythm of single-height buildings. From the level of passing cars, this is the rhythm of powerful columns that form the street, for a pedestrian it is a variety of squares and volumes, public spaces hidden under the stylobate."
So, the complex consists of two square towers and one extended house-plate. All buildings have the same height and grow out of a common stylobate, which occupies almost the entire building site. The 25-story plate house is like an impregnable wall that marks the boundaries of the lot and forms the front of the street.“The existing development in this place is very scattered, so an attempt was made to create, albeit a local, but street border, counting on the fact that with further development of the territory, this line will be picked up by other developers,” adds Aleksey Ivanov. Two towers stand perpendicular to the extended house and, together with its narrow end, give the street a certain direction, marking another border of the site and forming a separate courtyard inside.
The yard is settled on the exploited roof of the stylobate. Sufficiently high fences along the entire perimeter of the stylobate part make the space safe. It is proposed to organize here tennis courts, recreation areas, playgrounds. Separately, on the left, there is a space for a built-in kindergarten with its own landscaped enclosed area. The volume of the kindergarten rises above the stylobate, but is made with it in the same style. At the first floors of residential towers - attention! - on the roof of the stylobate, there are front gardens for their residents, with direct access from the apartments.
The architectural image of the complex is based on the author's interpretation of classical traditions. On the laconic facades of tall buildings, classical divisions are clearly visible - the basement, the mezzanine, the private floor and the attic. The role of the basement floor is played by a stylobate faced with gray tiles. Large glass showcases on the ground floor invite entry to shops, pharmacies, offices and a fitness club - all planned to be located in the basement. In addition to public functions built along the street, there is a three-level overhead parking lot inside the stylobate. There is no underground parking due to the high cost of earthworks.
The grids of the facades of the towers and the extended house are similar, but not the same. The extreme tower adheres to the classical laws most strictly. In it, the conventional mezzanine is well read, indicated by the visual unification of four floors above the stylobate. The main part of the walls is occupied by a grid of window openings and loggias, alternating with blind brick lintels. And only at the top is the technique repeated again with the union of the floors. The top in the form of a brick "cap" with a row of small square windows is the same for all three buildings. Meanwhile, the central tower, like the end of the house-plate, looks noticeably lighter and more transparent than its neighbor on the left. In them, the proportions are changed towards vertical, despite the uniform step of wide horizontal brick cornices. Windows on all floors merge into long vertical groups of two and four. A similar pattern with a lightweight and predominantly glass upper part is repeated on the extended side of the plate. Thanks to the pronounced vertical pattern, the volume does not look massive, despite the flat silhouette.
The plastic of multilayer facades as a whole looks very restrained and is subordinated to the warm chocolate-terracotta scale. The brick forms the base, the frame, under which the second, slightly deeper layer of the facade is hidden, given to the lattice fences of the loggias of a soft coffee shade. They give the window design an accentuated subtlety. The picture is completed by the backing of the dark glazing of the windows.
Although the residential complex is visually fenced off from the city, it nevertheless does not refuse to interact with it. The building can be accessed directly from the street, for which through entrances are provided. Also, at ground level, the main entrance to the stylobate part is organized, from where you can go to any of the buildings of the complex. Separately, the concept of pedestrian crossings, public transport stops and sidewalk improvement is being worked out, which will connect the new complex with existing buildings and those under construction in the neighborhood. Thus, as the authors of the project themselves believe, it was possible to create an optimal economic model that can satisfy both the customer and the city, as well as give impetus to the development of the territory.
In the course of the pre-concept work, the city proposed to work out a construction scheme for the neighboring site, the RHD industrial zone adjacent to Chelyuskintsev Street. Archstroydizayn ASD put forward an elegant idea of a square overlooking the existing buildings and new residential buildings on Heroes of Russia street. Aleksey Ivanov notes that the park promenade unites residential buildings on both sides of the street, and the square becomes the central recreation for both new and existing residential buildings and, to paraphrase Zarathustra, we can say that “the park is a rope stretched between the city and the Garden of Eden.
