The area north of the Krestovsky overpass between Prospekt Mira and Sokolniki is relatively quiet and quite profitable from the point of view of building Moscow housing. Sokolniki Park begins right behind the Yaroslavl branch of the railway, nearby is the territory of VDNKh, which promises to soon turn into an urban paradise; not to mention the Yauza with parks strung on it. Transport accessibility is not bad: near the Alekseevskaya metro station, Prospekt Mira is also not always full of traffic jams, and besides, in the 1980s, city planners did not skimp - they built a tunnel under the avenue at the beginning of Novoalekseevskaya Street. Moscow is not Paris, there are few such structures in it, and this rare tunnel is convenient for leaving the Alekseevsky district to the city. The district is equipped with almost everything you need: the city bustle with restaurants and banks near the metro quickly develops into the silence of former factories and research institutes of the Soviet era, and beyond them - into a park, and then stables, and a dog playground. In addition, there are surprisingly many schools, and among them there are good, rated ones. In a word, it is not surprising that for the next ten years the construction of mainly high-rise residential complexes began here - since several institute buildings managed to set a large scale back in Soviet times. Egodom by Sergey Skuratov and Kvartal 1147 by Andrey Romanov are being built here - just 3 minutes walk from the territory of the Vodopribor plant, where it is planned to build a large-scale residential complex “Silver Fountain”.
Atrium has been working with the project for over three years. But only now, in September 2016, five old buildings belonging to Vodopribor at the Alekseevskaya pumping station of the Moscow Heritage Committee
transferred from the status of "newly identified" - to objects of cultural heritage, securing the territories of the protected zones and the subject of protection. However, Butko and Nadtochy are such architects who are always looking for a reason for visual diversity. And in this case, history itself and the existing context became such an occasion.
The Vodopribor plant is the heir of the repair shops of the Alekseevskaya pumping station and the owner of the remaining buildings: a reservoir, a water pumping station, a gatehouse, an office and a fence. They are the five heritage sites that have recently received their final status and will be preserved. Why is this place so interesting? It is the remnant of an old aqueduct, laid by order of Catherine II, which fed all of Moscow with delicious water from Mytishchi for more than a hundred years. For the Mytishchi water supply, the sculptor Vitali built the famous water fountain on Teatralnaya Square. And four more fountains that have not survived; they gave 20 thousand buckets of water a day. The Rostokinsky aqueduct above the Yauza River, two kilometers from Vodopribor, has been preserved from this aqueduct. The aqueduct was immense, feeding not only the fountains, but also several baths, including Sanduny. So they built it for a long time: they started under Catherine, finished under Nicholas I. Then, in the 1830s, containers with water were placed in the Sukharev tower, which stood, as you know, at the very beginning of Mira Avenue; At the same time, the Alekseevskaya station with steam pumps was also built - as you might guess, it collected and, importantly, raised water, giving it the opportunity to flow further, to Sukharevka. Both the station and the water supply system were reconstructed several times, they tried to take water from the springs in Sokolniki, and even from the Moskva River. But the river water turned out to be the worst of all, and Mytishchinskaya remained unsurpassed. Since the 1960s, the Mytishchi water supply system finally ceased to function, its aqueducts - bridges for pipes over rivers - collapsed, only the Rostokinsky bridge was restored. In the second half of the 20th century and until recently, Vodopribor produced valves, pipes and meters for Vodokanal; including - cast-iron hatches with the image of an elephant, which can be seen on the streets of Moscow. In 2011, there was talk of bankruptcy, now the plant is planned to be moved to the Moscow region. And on the old territory - to build a residential complex.
If we compare the modern map with the old scheme of the pumping station, it is clearly seen that the central core of the station has been preserved on the right, southern side of Novoalekseevskaya Street. The Soviet plant developed to the south and received a fairly large plot of land - a little less than 8 hectares, up to the borders of the neighboring NPP "Kvant", a thriving enterprise for the production of solar panels. All security items are thus located in the northeastern corner of the site. In its southern part, where the buildings of the Soviet factory will be demolished, there are no restrictions, which predetermined the composition of the complex: everything is preserved in the zone of monuments of factory architecture of 1892, including the layout and existing trees.
Moreover, the architects keep the "Second Machine Building" - a two-storey building along Novoalekseevskaya, rebuilt in Soviet times and therefore not included in the list of protected ones by the department now. Thus, the authors go beyond necessity, showing attention to the valuable historical material that they got to work. Now this building is adjacent to a large factory hangar, and then it will become part of the northwestern residential area, which stands in a responsible place at the intersection of Novoalekseevskaya Street with 3rd Mytishchinskaya. The pentagonal plan unexpectedly resembles a quality mark, bringing back memories of factory production.
Further, the complex gradually, but rather rapidly develops into a gigantic futuristic city - from 6 to 22 floors, radically changing its style. This happens at all levels, from underground to external, stylistic, designed for fleeting perception: architects both play on contrasts, and work on the smoothness and gradualness of the "sprouting" of the preserved historical part - relatively speaking, into the neo-urbanistic - and then into futuristic towers, similar to the City or Singapore. The smoothness and validity of such a transition is one of the main plots of the project.
There are five block blocks along the perimeter. The conditional sixth spot that closes the circle is a site of historical buildings. If we consider these quarters counterclockwise, starting from the already mentioned pentagonal quarter at the intersection of streets, we will see that, firstly, they gradually grow in height, and secondly, the brackets of the quarters open. The first is closed in a “quality mark”, while all the rest are open to the public space in the center of the territory, turning their “backs” to its outer contour.
The quarters are composed of evenly alternating volumes: respectable brick and avant-garde whites, with stained-glass "TVs" at the ends. Advantageously, although not always, this corresponds to division into sections. Moreover, if in the relatively low-rise northern part the brick volumes turn out to be higher and look like a kind of dense 12-storey "towers" docked with white horizontals, then this principle is transformed. Moreover, in some places parts of different texture grow into each other according to the principle of a volumetric puzzle, emphasizing the unity of volume. The alternation of brick cladding and white panels echoes the color of historical buildings, where the red color is enlivened by ornaments laid out of white bricks, as was customary in the brick style of the late 19th century. But the association is very free, barely readable and certainly extremely far from being directly quoted. Thus, along the perimeter of the territory, in a "round dance" around the central square, a city is built, which gradually, not with the notorious steps, but with a complex rhythm, now rising, then falling, and yet it rather quickly grows from north to south: from 6-12 floors on the northwest corner to 18-22 on the southeast.
The town-planning solution uses everything that is now considered correct for a comfortable city: the building is divided into five “quarters”, creating private courtyards; a large number of public functions in the ground floors and in the stylobate (about 45 thousand square meters of non-residential premises are provided, including an office center with the headquarters of the developer himself); ensured pedestrian transparency of the entire territory and the absence of transport inside the area (entrances to the parking lots are carried out from the outside); active landscaping at different levels, using the relief difference and integrating the existing linden alley into a single green landscaped area with a public square in the center of the district; a clear functional zoning was thought out with the separation of flows of residents of the area, external visitors to public facilities, office employees, transport and pedestrians.
In the area there are also closed private courtyards for residents, and streets with a large number of public functions, boulevards and alleys and even a square, and the town-planning pattern itself is irregular and clearly inscribed in the existing site. Taking advantage of the situation, the authors moved away from monotonous orthogonal street grids and were able to create a unique, visually and functionally rich urban space. History is artfully mixed with modern style solutions. A kind of imitation of the chaos of "natural" urban growth. But it is quite obvious that "chaos" is placed in a rather rigid framework: according to a certain principle, only two or three types of facades alternate. Rather, we face a work with a balance on the verge of unity-diversity: the eye should not be bored, but the authors clearly avoid excessive distraction, preferring integrity and harmony.
The increase in altitude from north to south caused by the parameters of the environment in this case is unexpectedly supported by the features of the relief, which rises by 4.8 meters to the south. The architects developed this feature of the territory in detail, "squeezing" everything out of it. First of all, in the southern part there are two underground parking tiers, but already in the middle of the complex its upper tier becomes aboveground and successfully goes outside, to the ponds with their green shores, shop windows and restaurants, which are planned in large numbers in the stylobate from the public side. Further to the north, the underground space becomes single-tier, but continues up to the protected northern third, even under the pond. So, from north to south, the parking lots under the complex are also growing, and all this is successfully inscribed in the relief difference.
But the LCD also changes perceptibly from the edges to the center. In the central part, not only a pond with fountains is tripled - a reminder of the "water supply" past of the Alekseevskaya pumping station. In the center, the angular-square city of the perimeter sprouts with three completely different, white and silver towers of streamlined contours, raised on slender, three-storey high aluminum legs - Corbusse pillars - and on glass vestibules, that is, almost floating. On the plan, the towers are very similar to coffee beans - with the halves slightly shifted along the axis.
There is also alternation in the volumes of the towers. The outer half of each "coffee bean" is lower, 19-storey, white and glass horizontals alternate on the facades. The inner halves are higher, 22 floors, very vertical window openings combine three floors, and the vertical strokes of multi-colored silver cladding leave no doubt that the dominants of the towers, "collected" in the very center of the territory, reflect the name of the complex - "Silver Fountain", echoing real fountains in the pond and forming in the very center of the complex a volumetric-spatial "splash" akin to an artesian one. One of the real water, the second - sculptural and architectural; a kind of monument to the plumbing. It turned out quite boldly - and at the same time meaningfully, tied to the topic.
If the transition from buildings of the late 19th century to city quarters and then to towers occurs rather in space, then another “docking point” between historical and modern buildings is solved directly. The preserved and included in the list of protected lobby of the water reservoir looks spectacular in Roman style: a large arch of the entrance is located in the depths of the site, but "looks" towards Novoalekseevskaya Street. It turned out to be an excellent portal. Now, behind the vestibule, the Soviet workshop begins, which has taken the place of the reservoir. In the project, a relatively low office building adjoined the arched lobby: a parallelepiped with permeable facades made of glass and lines of wooden lamellas - a kind of transition sleeve, from which a white-striped volume with an egg-shaped plan grows to the south, designed in the style of the towers of the central part.
The arch of the former reservoir, which now serves as the entrance to the office part, has a significant role in the composition: a linden alley leading to Novoalekseevskaya street begins from it. The architects planned to restore it and make it the main entrance to the territory. There are two more boulevards: they go out between the quarters on 3rd Mytishchinskaya and, unlike the old alley, have trapezoidal plans - they narrow inward. From the side of the street, these entrances would seem promising sockets, and from the central square, their sections would be wide and spacious.
As you can see, the inner space of the complex is not only landscaped, but widely open to the city and accessible to the townspeople. The space organized around the ponds - as we remember, with fountains - in the center of the complex is two-level. The courtyards of the four quarters are arranged at the level of the second floor: now this is not uncommon in large complexes, but the architects accentuated the two-level structure of the central part, throwing bridges, both directly above the ponds and above, and providing for wide flights of stairs leading up. The two-level web of passages impresses with flying contours and provokes a three-dimensional perception: the metal "legs" of the towers, and the trees on the banks of the ponds, and the streams of fountains appear in the frame of the holes between the bridges. In addition, the pulls of stairs and passages turn out to be like the roots of some hyper-tree - they very clearly show how a large complex grows into the city - or grows out of it. In short, they provoke the imagination and make the public space definitely not boring.
Nowadays, they talk a lot about landscaping, a comfortable city, and architects are paying more and more attention to different aspects of the relationship between a new building and the city: large-scale, cultural, urbanistic, imaginative. This project is interesting in that it solves the difficult task of introducing a more than a large residential complex into a territory tightly adjacent to architectural monuments - and does this without turning away from the problems and specifics of future buildings, in particular, their considerable height, but deeply living, accentuating and comprehending each problem and task. The space has been disassembled "by the bones" and brought to a beautiful and appropriate image - rarely, I must say, architects turn a marketing name into an iconic image.
In the Atrium project, as in Journey to the Center of the Earth, more than a hundred years of the history of Moscow architecture are compressed, through which one could pass by passing 300-400 meters inside the complex. But, unfortunately, you won't be able to walk from the water pumping station to the “silver fountains” in this form: recently, the customer, Etalon-Invest, handed over the project to other designers.
