The multifunctional complex "Danilov Plaza", about which we wrote about the project in 2009, is located on the banks of the Moskva River, which is relatively close to the city center: almost nearby are the Holy Danilov Monastery and Serpukhovskaya Zastava. However, this area was historically industrial and therefore not very welcoming, and only at the beginning of the XXI century it was affected by reconstruction. Among the new and reconstructed office buildings, occupying an advantageous position by the water, Danilov Plaza has found its place: its two 13-storey buildings are facing the ZIL Peninsula, where many tower cranes are now working on the Zilart construction site (in SPEECH bureau also participates in this large-scale project).
Danilov Plaza stands out among the neighboring buildings, bringing a noticeable variety to the predominantly brick environment: the object of the SPEECH workshop is flanked by Sergey Skuratov's Danilovsky Fort and the historic Danilovskaya Manufactory reconstructed by Valery Lukomsky into an office complex. Among their dark red multipart forms, Danilov Plaza is immediately noticeable due to the laconicism of its almost regular rectangular volumes and light facades with a metallic sheen. The building closest to the embankment is sheathed with silver aluminum composite panels, receding inland from the river - panels of a golden hue. Their surface - and with it the whole complex - changes its appearance depending on the lighting, but this visual "responsiveness" is no less dependent on the relief pattern covering all the facades of "Danilov Plaza".
The theme of ornament has always been of interest to SPEECH architects, and in this case they seemed to let vertical meander snakes, silver and gold, run along the facades. They encompass square window openings like small “perspective portals” with which the authors of the project compare them: each snake seems to consist of three layers, which steps away from the glass. This relief gives the wall surfaces a textured, tactile richness, which is effectively set off by the simplicity of the complex's silhouettes - although a small ledge from a rectangular plan in each of the buildings creates additional perspective views with the "overlapping" of facades and their meanders on top of each other.
The ornamental surface of the walls is visually completed by the “attic”, as the architects call it: a row of narrow window openings two stories high. The boundary between the floors in each of them is marked with a horizontal strip of glass. The lower two tiers are fully glazed; they are slightly smaller in area than the rest of the hull; here, the floors are also separated from each other by a glass strip hiding the ceilings, thus maintaining the clarity of the appearance of the building, where the rational internal structure is reflected in the facades. For the convenience of Danilov Plaza users, its buildings are connected by passages at the eighth and eleventh floors.
The space around the buildings is open, smoothly flowing into the territories of neighboring office complexes (the parking lot is located underground). Thus, not only in the future, but also in the vicinity, Danilov Plaza is perceived as an independent, effectively presented object, quite capable of standing up for itself in such a diverse environment as the renovated Novodanilovskaya Embankment.
