Archi.ru:
Sergey, over the past few years, T + T Architects have developed a number of notable land improvement projects, this direction can be called one of the main activities of your bureau. What do you yourself associate this trend with?
Sergey Trukhanov:
- Let's start with the fact that the widespread approach to the improvement of territories in the sense that we attach to this word now appeared in our country not so long ago, literally three or four years ago - before that everything was limited to square-nesting trees and the observance of the “balance of the territory . Now, in the wake of the high saturation of the real estate market with various objects, complexes of various classes, developers have an urgent need to surprise a potential buyer with something, to stand out from competitors. And everyone understood that a beautiful and comfortable environment is a great advantage. Numerous competitions and tenders for improvement projects have begun, in which we participate with pleasure and periodically win.
But working with an already designed territory entails certain difficulties …
- Of course, in this case you are dealing with certain constants tied to the existing transport and pedestrian system, to the landing of buildings, other environmental factors … There are, of course, situations of some conflict when we bring our vision of modern requirements and the needs of future residents. In such cases, we always try to find arguments, not always even 100% project ones, from the field of statistics, psychology, or just logic, when you look at an object from the point of view of the consumer. We analyze traffic, highlight the main points of interest, reflect on what psychological factors can affect human actions. Although we try first of all to delve into the existing design logic, sometimes we have to change a lot in order to create a more human and comfortable environment.
They don't seem to teach psychology in architectural institutes
- It's not even about the knowledge of psychology, but about the ability to analyze, study the future consumer of your project. A lot of this has to be learned on the fly. Often, by the way, the customers themselves suggest important nuances that relate to the peculiarities of human behavior, and how this can affect the layout of functional areas. We learn from our own mistakes, when, say, tall spreading trees are taken into account in the project, the species characteristics of individual zones are built for this, and the contractor buys thin seedlings within the budget, and then wait twenty years, when they will grow to the visual characteristics that we laid into the project.
One of your largest projects today is the improvement of the territory of the "Savelovsky City" residential complex. Where is he now?
- We have been working with this object for several years. We have completed the improvement of the first stage of construction, decorated the interiors of the entrance groups of the office buildings - both have already been implemented. The second stage improvement project is now ready. The territory is not easy: a lot of functions need to be placed, and the area itself is not only small, but also scattered, spaced apart in pieces that are distant from each other. Therefore, it was very important for us to link all logistics into one whole so as not to violate the logic of the territory. We have built a promenade that runs along the freestanding parking lot and connects 2 construction stages. Having strung all sorts of functional areas and points of interest on it, such a solution additionally visually breaks up a long promenade, making it more comfortable for perception. Also, we specially installed the islands with landscaping from the side of the multi-storey parking, which were taken into the retaining walls, in order to visually separate from it a little, to create a green area at eye level. In principle, we paid a lot of attention in this project to what the future resident will see from different points. So, for example, for those tenants whose apartments will face the parking building, we, together with gallery owners, proposed to decorate it with an art installation in the form of neon inscriptions with quotes from great jazzmen.
Given the scattered territory, it was absolutely necessary to also highlight a certain area as the center of the composition. We found such a site and made a central square there, emphasizing it with artistic paving, landscaping, saturating it as much as possible with a variety of additional functions. There will be bicycle parking lots, a long bench, like in Park Guell, and small compositions of small architectural forms, where, for example, you can hold some themed events. Retaining walls with sloping lawns to further highlight the area not only in the plane, but also in volume. The result is such a territory flanked from all sides, closed from the carriageway, at the same time attractive for all categories of residents.
The artistic component is very strong in this project. The main theme is the era of jazz, and the scope for imagination here, of course, is huge. There are a lot of ideas: in addition to neon quotes from a book about jazz, place thematic sculptures at the entrance, decorate the fences of playgrounds with voluminous installations. We have developed a whole concept of saturating the territory with art objects, we want to create a slight hint of a sculpture park. It is assumed that all of these works will be performed by contemporary artists. In this sense, the experiment with the interiors of the entrance zones of the first stage of construction with winged human figures soaring under the ceiling turned out to be very successful - such a powerful emotional charge turned out. I would like to achieve the same effect on the territory.
Among your improvement projects are not only courtyards, but also full-scale public spaces. What's the difference in approaches?
- Until recently, working with public space solved for us rather applied problems within the framework of the architecture of an object, and we did not come across this as a separate category. Nevertheless, we took part in the competition for the embankment of the “River Park” residential complex, where we took 2nd place, designed for Mosproject-3 the endorsement of the territory improvement along Bolshaya Akademicheskaya Street, as well as the concept of adjacent territories to the Shelepikha metro stations and Victory Park. And now a certain experience and understanding has already accumulated how to work with them, what to start from and what to pay attention to, or what should not be done at all.
And this is really a completely different approach. If, when working with courtyards, you can afford to focus on beauty and comfort, then in public areas that require high traffic, the main priorities are durability and safety. Public spaces cannot be built up with a large number of pavilions and nooks: good illumination, sufficient visibility in the daytime and in the evening are very important here. Materials must be chosen durable, with an eye to vandal-proof, and their choice is not always great. Well, from the point of view of architectural and artistic techniques: there will always be an acute issue of choosing a priority between the showiness and emotionality of the solution and public opinion. There is always this controversial moment for many in the search for a compromise between the architectural concept, the implementation budget and the opinion of the residents.
When designing public areas, great attention has to be paid to the development of a functional program. Preparing for the competition for the River Park embankment, we spent more than half of the allotted time on the pre-project analysis - which groups of the population will be potential users of this territory, how they can be classified by social, age and other categories, what may be important for them and what we can do for them suggest what the main points of interest will be?..
Won the River Park Embankment Design Competition Wowhaus, you took second place …
- Yes, but since we are developing the improvement of the rest of the complex, we were invited to bring their concept to life. Of course, in the process of more detailed elaboration and coordination with the territory of the complex, some areas were corrected, but we tried to preserve the original message and concept of Wowhaus.
When we were preparing our competition concept, for us the main function of the city embankment was a promenade; in this case, the specificity lies in the fact that mainly residents of the residential complex will use this promenade. We took this into account - for example, we linked all the exits from the mini-blocks with observation decks so that the perspective was immediately visible, and we were sure to plan some point of interest nearby - for example, a children's or sports ground. This determined the rhythm of the functional areas. We tried to distribute the activity in such a way as to rely not only on summer: as the cold season we have almost nine months, and it is necessary that not a single site is empty, either in summer or in winter.
Since the main theme of the district is the river, water, it also runs like a red thread here, starting with the lighthouse with which Wowhaus won the competition. We have designed a pontoon bridge that will connect the walking trail to the park on the opposite bank of the backwater. Cantilever fishing bridges act as viewpoints. Since sailing will be actively developing in the area, in the center of one of the functional zones, we have installed an amphitheater tribune, from where there will be a beautiful view of the boats exit site.
At the turn of the embankment, where the city road turns into a quarter road, the best view opens up. But the difficulty was that it will be in this place that the most traffic will be: there is a yacht school, an exit to the pier, and for pedestrians there is a great temptation to choose the shortest path - that is, just cross the road. We solved the problem: raised the level of the landscape and made an observation deck with benches, naturally leading the flow of pedestrians to the crossings.
We propose to pave the embankment with squares 60x60 cm - they play the role of some universal modules, which, like pixels, can be filled with small architectural forms, or elements of supergraphics, or just contrasting tiles. And along the entire promenade, laconic L-shaped lamps were installed: if you look at them in perspective, they enclose the panorama in a clear frame, and at the same time, each such element cuts off a certain section of the road, creates a visual stopper due to light and silhouette. At the same time, along the wall of the stylobate, behind the benches, we decided to install completely different lamps, similar to traditional floor lamps: they once again emphasize the "homeliness" of the embankment, designed primarily for residents of River Park.
If you try to summarize, what principles of land improvement could you single out as the main ones?
- Well, firstly, it is very important to carefully develop a functional program in order to separate the different zones and at the same time maintain their interconnection. This goal can be achieved only by a clear functional programming of the territory and, accordingly, the determination of the priority and scope of certain functions.
Secondly, the observance of the principle of safety - this issue greatly affects the functional division. Where that can be located so that there are no dark corners and nooks and crannies, what is the visibility, visibility, illumination in which area. In the West, by the way, this is the alphabet, but we are just beginning to pay attention to these things.
And, of course, not the last thing is the architectural and artistic value of the object. Like the icing on the cake, in my opinion, any improvement project should have its own zest, "trick". Working with the territory is like a script: you “live” it, as if in a film, you come up with a script: here the hero went there, did this, and the other person at this time is walking along that route … And the clearer you are all thought it over, the more correct the result will be. As in any work of art, the improvement project has its own set, development of action, culmination, denouement; the latter can be an art object, some kind of interesting installation, which will show why all this was done. Just sowing everything with a lawn and laying the tiles beautifully - you don't need a lot of mind for this. Each improvement project should have its own super idea.
