The residential area "Baltic Pearl" in the south-west of St. Petersburg is one of the largest Russian-Chinese real estate projects. Its investor, Baltic Pearl CJSC, is a subsidiary of Shanghai Foreign Joint Investment Company CJSC. The project, which started in 2005, included not only the construction of residential areas, but also the reclamation of the territory, strengthening the coast of the Gulf of Finland, restoration of the Matisov and Duderhof canals with the idea of constructing bridges across them. The total building area is 1,760,000 m², and the investment amount exceeds $ 3 billion.
And it is no coincidence. The location of the Baltic Pearl is unique in its landscape characteristics: the territory overlooks the Gulf of Finland, it is crossed by the Duderhof and Matisov canals; to the east is the South Primorsky Park. The microdistrict that emerged on the outskirts, nevertheless, is involved in the history of St. Petersburg: Peterhof highway passes by to Strelna with its pearl - the Konstantinovsky Palace; Trinity-Sergius Hermitage is being restored very close by.
Good transport accessibility is provided, among other things, by the proximity of the ring road and the recently commissioned bridge. In one of the publications, we have already talked about the building of the Baltic Pearl business center, which has become the emblem and locomotive of the entire development. Its author, Sergei Tsytsin, is also one of the developers of the general master plan for the area. “At the first stage, the customer held an international competition for the development of the territory, the results of which remained mostly on paper,” says Sergei Tsytsin. - Then there was a closed competition with the participation of our workshop and two more teams, without determining the winner. The projects were transferred to the customer along with the copyright. The project for the integrated development of the territory, which formed the basis of the development, is “collective”, incorporating the ideas of different authors”.
Divided by roads and water channels, the area of the microdistrict includes several residential complexes designed by different architects. The authorship of one of them also belongs to Sergei Tsytsin. The residential complex was named "Dudergoff club", referring to the name of the imperial dacha, and later - a popular recreation place for Petersburgers. Located on the banks of the Matisov Canal, directly opposite the park, it is conceived as an elite condominium that combines the advantages of urban and rural life. The territory of the quarter has the shape of a rectangle with an area of 800x200 meters, elongated in the direction from south to north along the Duderhof canal. Two-five-storey houses are grouped in the form of mini-blocks of perimeter buildings with their own courtyard.
The coastal line of houses consists of detached cottages and townhouses. Further, the rows of buildings rise up an amphitheater, providing maximum disclosure of views from windows, balconies and terraces, from exploited roofs and penthouses. All apartments have deep glazed verandas with an area of up to fifteen square meters. The upper floors of the penthouses have large outdoor terraces. The ends to the canal are sectional semi-detached houses with their own plots. In the center of the complex there is a kindergarten combined with an elementary school. The courtyards are designed as a system of enfilades strung on compositional axes - through arched pedestrian zones.
“The Dudergoff club is a strip of land along the canal and the pedestrian embankment, oriented to the east, open to water and a park,” says Sergei Tsytsin. Ninety percent of the apartments had to face the water. The scale of the patios veers between coziness and our standards. I wanted to create not closed courtyards, but a “club”. The courtyards are connected by a system of parallel and perpendicular arches, inspired by the famous house of Tolstoy Fyodor Lidval. The most expensive apartments are close to the water and face south. The owners of the first floor have their own front gardens. Not everything turned out to be carried out, since good ideas always "move out" a little in the process of implementation. However, the main thing was conveyed, including the excellent general improvement."
The architecture of the complex is modern, light, with a wide variety of geometric combinations and a dominant terrace leitmotif. It is obvious that the authors strive to create a living, mobile silhouette and to maximize the architecture of nature - not only functionally, but also figuratively, making it "transparent", reflective and seemingly penetrating into the landscape. Strict, rational forms are not alien to grace, arched enfilades of courtyards and "Pompeian" motives of the upper open terraces are woven into the general modernist palette. The organic nature of the landscape is achieved, among other things, due to natural materials: brick, stone, ceramics, as well as abundant glazing.
The main attraction - Duderhof Canal - is decorated with a pedestrian embankment, although, unfortunately, it never reached the bridges. In the future, given the presence of canals and the proximity of the bay, it is planned to develop recreational water transport. Of course, this will enrich the Duderhof idyll with new colors.