A large residential complex, named "Megalit" for its monumentality, is located in the Nevsky District of St. Petersburg, on the embankment of the Neva River. The building, close to the water, was erected according to the project of the workshop "Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners" in a very heterogeneous environment, on the site of the old river station and the hotel "Rechnaya", designated for demolition. Near the site is the Kurakina Dacha park. A little in the distance, a giant cable-stayed bridge spread across the Neva. Such a large scale of the surroundings, coupled with large open spaces of streets, the embankment and the river, allowed the architects to realize a rather impressive 23-storey volume with the simplest, evenest silhouette. As the designers explain, in this way it was possible to fill the gap in the development, to organize and balance the front of the embankment.
The residential building, which has the shape of a regular square in the plan, is located on a convenient rectangular area. A small courtyard is organized inside, protected on three sides by the high walls of the complex. At the base of the complex there is a stylobate lined with natural dark gray stone. An open terrace, raised almost 2 m above ground level, encircles the basement along the perimeter. Parking, offices and technical rooms are located inside the stylobate. Also on the ground floor there is a kindergarten for 60 children with its own playgrounds, organized in a landscaped and landscaped courtyard of a residential building.
A laconic facade, endowed with unique architectural features, looks at the embankment. When viewed from a distance, the structure and scale of the building, as if made of giant stones, are not immediately clear. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the walls are formed by tall and elongated 4-storey blocks, painted in different colors and separated by deep light niches. Vertical niches up to six meters deep are offset, staggered. They are provided for natural illumination of sectional corridors. Stained glass from ceiling to floor offers a beautiful view of the Neva and the city. This architectural technique works especially effectively at night, when lights come on in the corridors: niches begin to light up from the inside, bringing the entire facade to life.
The building was decorated with porcelain stoneware produced by at the Ural Granite plant … Today this plant is the leading manufacturer of porcelain stoneware in the Russian market. The shape, color palette and texture of the material are quite diverse, which allows you to realize any architectural ideas. For the complex on the Neva, large-format slabs of 1200x600 mm in size were chosen, laid in a special way - with large dressing of seams, imitating masonry. From the rich color palette offered by the manufacturer, the authors chose natural shades - from pale ocher to earth and dark wood. A very harmonious transition from dark granite in the stylobate part to a lighter and softer material on the facades, formed a complete laconic image, so it approached the granite embankment of the Neva.
