The huge microdistrict "Baltic Pearl", consisting of several residential areas of different density and level of comfort, emerged in the southeast of St. Petersburg through the efforts of St. Petersburg architects and Chinese investors. Its location is extremely successful: the Gulf of Finland is very close, to which the houses descend with a barely noticeable slope. The Duderhof and Matisov canals pass through the complex, and the South Primorsky Park adjoins it from the east.
In the middle of the building is the main plastic dominant: the administrative and development center for the development of the territory and sales - a curvilinear building with a spherical glazed volume of a winter garden, similar to an open shell with a pearl and literally consonant with the name of the microdistrict. The technique is based on the opposition of strict geometry and arbitrary curvature: vertical walls and a faceted ball are cut in contrast into a streamlined bionic body. Curved walls are clad with decorative aluminum panels; in combination with glazed surfaces, they create a bright and dynamic image that matches their role as the main accent. The compact volume accommodates four floors behind unusual facades; an additional underground floor is used for parking.
The center of the volumetric composition is a spacious two-story lobby with service and information services, recreation areas, a winter garden and exhibition premises. On the ground floor there is a VIP reception area, exhibition halls, meeting rooms and a recreation area. The main expressive accent is a spherical winter garden with rich vegetation, waterfalls and streams.
On the second floor, office and service premises have been added to the same functions. The third and fourth floors were originally intended to accommodate offices, sales departments and directorates of the Baltic Pearl complex, but in the future it is planned to use them as club premises with a floor-by-floor division into ordinary and VIP zones. Vertical links are provided by two lift groups and three staircases. The steel frame supports the monolithic reinforced concrete slabs. The building is surrounded by a public area with a swimming pool reflecting the "pearl" of the winter garden and, which is quite surprising for our pragmatic times, with a sculpture demonstrating an attempt to revive a forgotten synthesis of arts.
“I was happy to work at this facility because it changed my understanding of development,” says Sergey Tsytsin, head of the team of authors. - Then, at the beginning of the 2000s, no one was involved in projects for the integrated development of territories - they are so financially capacious and long-term. And here for the first time I saw just such an approach to the development of a territory of three hundred hectares. The building was originally created as a center and a starting point for the entire microdistrict, while usually we are faced with the opposite practice, when a kind of temporary building for the sales department is erected on an empty territory, which is gradually overgrown with utilitarian residential buildings. In this case, an expressive, interesting object set a high standard for all subsequent development."
The design and construction process for the Pearl was extremely stressful. According to Sergei Tsytsin, only one year passed from the moment of signing the contract to the solemn cutting of the ribbon. To embody the unusual shape of the "shell" the workshop had to make one thousand four hundred drawings only for the main frame! The constructive, bearing role of the curved surfaces of the shell required, among other things, additional financial costs. Nevertheless, the investor went for it in order to obtain the desired artistic result.
“It turns out that the design and construction of an expressive object is not so much more expensive than it is sometimes imagined,” continues Sergei Tsytsin, “by about one and a half times. At the same time, I am sure that these costs are fully paid off by the image effect that the investor receives as a result. This is the first step towards creating the high quality environment that a certain category of consumers is looking for."
The Baltic Pearl microdistrict with the business center of the same name is a rare example of interaction between the city, investors, urban planners and architects. The position of the main dominant set by the master plan provided the authors with the necessary creative space when a bold experiment is appropriate, and freedom of self-expression is for the benefit of the common task. It would, however, be even more pleasant if our compatriots acted as professionally in the role of Chinese investors, and such an approach to development became the general rule.
