Shabolovka: What If?

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 02:26

The Architectural Association and its Visiting School department have long been preparing the ground for a workshop in Moscow. First, one of the teachers, Ivo Barros, visited the capital, followed by a lecture on methods of teaching at AA at ArchMoscow by the director of the AA Visiting School Christopher Pearce. After the preparatory events, a joint workshop with MARSH was organized, which brought together 29 participants from all over Russia and from abroad. Together with Ivo Barros, the intensive tutors were Andrew Haas, architect of Zaha Hadid Architects and teacher of a computer technology course at AA, as well as course curators - Alexandra Chechetkina, director of AA Visiting School in Moscow, and Yaroslav Kovalchuk, urbanist and teacher at MARSH.

For eight days, the participants worked on the topic “Lab of transformations. Shabolovka: a model for life . The main ideas concerned urban planning and architectural changes in different parts of Shabolovka. Along with the curators, Maria Fadeeva, a teacher at MARSH, and Alexandra Selivanova, head of the Avant-Garde Center of the Workers' Education Library, were responsible for getting to know the place and its history. The result was five projects for the development of the district.

The first group worked on the Shabolovka area on a citywide scale, the second worked on the area near the metro in conjunction with the Shukhov tower, the third specifically developed the Khavsko-Shabolovsky residential area, the fourth - the quarter connecting the Shukhov tower and Danilovsky market, the fifth - the boulevard on Serpukhovsky Val.

Colors of Shabolovka / Link

The main proposal of the first group was to connect Akademik Petrovsky and Khavskaya streets to create the New Boulevard Ring.

Svetlana Radchenko

curator of the exhibition "What if?", workshop participant in 1 group:

“The Shabolovka area is located within walking distance from the Garden Ring, the ZIL residential complex, and Gorky Park. It is surrounded by metro stations Oktyabrskaya, Tulskaya, Shabolovka, Paveletskaya, Dobryninskaya and Leninsky Prospekt. Despite the favorable location in the structure of the city and the developed transport network, the district fades, not revealing its potential.

The new Boulevard Ring, which is formed at the connection of Academician Petrovsky and Khavskaya streets, will present Shabolovka from a different angle. This idea takes us back to the 1930s. Direct connection between such objects as Gorky Park, ZIL, Danilovsky Market and Paveletskaya Square by one new road network through the Shabolovsky District will contribute to its development. The route fills the area with new meanings, but does not violate the historical appearance. The nature of the new boulevard can be roughly divided into four parts: recreational, educational, residential and office - according to the functional and spatial characteristics of the buildings. This approach is reflected in the landscaping, which instantly adapts to the needs of the segment. ***

The power of tower

The tower - the core of the entire Shabolovka and one of the most famous symbols of Moscow - is completely closed to citizens or tourists. The concept of the gradual disclosure of the territory became the basis of the proposed solution. The opening of the tower is accompanied by the development of the territory: the creation of an amphitheater in the basement of the tower, the formation of new low-rise residential areas in the southwestern part of the quarter, the development of a new tourist, cultural and educational center. For this, the nearby Avant-garde Center is transferred to the territory. The participants proposed to uncover the territory of the former bearing plant by locating a campus there and creating a through boulevard along Khavskaya Street, and to form a pedestrian corridor from the metro lobby to the block opposite.

Julia Saraykina

curator of the exhibition “What if?”, participant of the workshop in 2 groups:

“The area around the tower is a large-scale empty industrial zone, surrounded by fences and closed for entry, despite the fact that it is located next to the most active point on the district map - Shabolovskaya metro station. With the correct reorganization of the space around the tower, active flows of people in this place will help create an organic self-developing educational and cultural cluster. To do this, it is necessary to remove fences and barriers, increase the building density, saturate it with various functions and create a system of areas, each of which has its own character depending on the location and traffic.

The economic level of the quarter can be increased by adding a variety of functions in order to effectively use the territories, and the educational level can be increased by organizing a student campus, for which there is already a reserve in the area. The creation of various kinds of spaces for everyday activities, new jobs next to the metro and public spaces of a new quality, which will emphasize the importance of the Shukhov Tower, will serve as the beginning of the development of the social life of the district, while not affecting the historical environment and the right to privacy of the local population. The Shabolovskaya tower will come to life again and acquire a new function - it will become a point of attraction for both local people and tourists."

Unrationalism / [Ir] rationalism

Alexandra Chechetkina

program director, workshop curator:

“Perhaps the most difficult part of the territory, built up in 1927-1930 with apartment buildings, compactly grouped to the south of the tower and the metro station. The corner houses structure the inner space into a suite of semi-insulated courtyards, it is easy to get lost here - similar buildings and their non-standard arrangement (at 45 degrees) are disorienting. The team involved in this area did not have a single vision of how the complex could be changed. Their opinions were split into several projects, and we took this approach.

Here it was proposed to form a new living space within this utopian monument by designing and installing a large-scale dome-shell, similar to the work of Buckminster Fuller. Thus, the team proposed to create a special microclimate inside the dome with non-standard types of landscaping and functions corresponding to the new environment. This project is an allegory, students have identified and deliberately emphasized the isolation of the residential area. Another proposal is the transformation of the courtyards of the complex into public and private gardens. In this project, large and underutilized spaces between buildings were reevaluated. In addition to a new, meaningful content that can change the quality of life on a local scale, this vision returns to the original aesthetics of a rationalist building: there were no tall trees with an abundant crown covering the architecture of the complex. Cutting down the bulk of the chaotic trees and clearing the space for effective use is a radical starting point that requires precise detail. Another proposal touched upon the artistic comprehension of the Shukhov Tower. Elements with mirrored reflective surfaces installed along Shabolovka at different angles would allow a casual traveler to suddenly detect the reflection of the tower at different points in the area. This project proposes to expand the influence of the iconic engineering facility, ironically emphasizing how inaccessible the tower is today - it is impossible to approach it at its base, because it is fenced off with a barbed wire fence”.

*** Mind the gap / Attention, emptiness!

The far southeastern part of the territory is closer to the Tulskaya metro station. Residential buildings with an abundance of abandoned objects prevail here. During the analysis of the territory, the participants found out that the shortest paths lead to this part of Shabolovka from every point in the district where the necessary infrastructure is located (banks, grocery stores, pharmacies, etc.). Having identified the incredible potential of a rather faceless territory, the participants asked the question: "What if this quarter becomes a new point on the map of Moscow, offering a completely unique experience for its residents?" The team proposed a comprehensive regeneration of this area, which included the construction of new buildings, the transformation of existing ones and the development of a system of open areas, different in spatial and functional principle of operation. A series of workspaces (offices and workshops), a KGB prison reorganized into a hotel, a view of the Shukhov Tower from the windows of new apartments add up to that new feeling of the city that can attract citizens and tourists to this now inconspicuous corner of Moscow.

Sofia Zhukova

exhibition curator, workshop participant in 4 groups:

“In addition, we proposed a new pedestrian route that runs through a chain of public spaces: the Shabolovskaya and Tulskaya metro stations, the TV tower and the market. To do this, it is proposed to open the Tatishchev and Gorodskaya streets, which were closed in 1989, and to form a number of new intra-quarter squares. Shabolovka turns out to be a territory between two important points of attraction: Gorky Park, already a popular point of Moscow, and the ZIL peninsula, which is in the process of restructuring. Having rethought emptiness, endowing old buildings with new functions, and creating new objects, we will be able to turn Shabolovka's life in a new direction."

*** Bulvarizing Shabolovka / Boulevard as action

The boulevard of the Serpukhov Wall, as the workshop participants found out, serves as a border between the districts. Decorative fences and a small number of pedestrian crossings across the Serpukhov shaft negatively affect the permeability of the environment and the quality of life in the area. Participants proposed transforming the boulevard from a barrier into an attractive and open pedestrian axis. The main architectural instrument is a series of pavilions-hills located along the boulevard.

Irina Garifullina

workshop participant in group 5:

“The long perspective of the inner space of the boulevard works only as a longitudinal transfer, and the cross-links are not established. The boulevard can only be accessed from the end sides and at several points on the sides. A fence has been installed along the perimeter of the boulevard, which does not allow making this important part of the area permeable. Moreover, the boulevard lacks various functional activities. We proposed to return the ramparts to Serpukhovsky Val by organizing a new landscape space with a system of pavilions-kiosks, access to which would be organized from the side of the street, and in the space between the hills just new through passages were organized in strategically important places. Renovation of the boulevard space will allow re-stitching the southern and northern parts of the district, making it a permeable green space and a big Shabolovka bonus”.

*** More detailed information about the projects is presented by the layout of the district and a video projected onto it, telling about the work and its results in each of the five groups. All these objects, as well as sketches made in the process of work, were presented at an exhibition in the gallery "On Shabolovka", held at the end of August. Its name is "What If?" appeared due to the fact that this question was heard most often during the workshop - a lot of thrown ideas were supposed to become fully-fledged projects without losing their experimental focus.

Attracting a new audience to the district is one of the main goals that all projects have pursued. In addition, it is necessary to develop new alternative paths within the area so that people are not only interested in walking down the street, but also to walk through a series of small courtyards and inner hidden squares - it is important to create a diverse living environment. And, of course, to make the most important symbol of engineering Moscow accessible.

Alexandra Chechetkina

program director, workshop curator:

“We decided to conduct a small experiment and invited the workshop participants to become curators of the exhibition of their projects. They had all the materials and a large space in the very heart of Shabolovka in order to globally evaluate (and reevaluate) their work and show them to the residents of Shabolovka. As a result, we managed to collect comments, remarks, wishes and ideas of the exhibition visitors, which we use for further work.

The residents-oriented exhibition was followed by a presentation at the architecture festival “Zodchestvo 2016”, where we received feedback from the professional community. Having accumulated this experience, rethinking our own projects, we are starting to write a book together with the British company ARUP, which acted as the main sponsor of the school."

*** In early December, representatives of the Moscow department of the AA Visiting School will speak at the general AA summit in London with a presentation of the school's performance in 2016 and plans for 2017. In total, 7 out of 60 AA Visiting School departments from around the world were selected for the summit.