Architectural studio "Sergey Kiselev & Partners" designed the houses in Electrolytny proezd in 2013, and now they are built. During this time, there was a collapse of the ruble - the materials included in the project have risen in price several times, there have been metamorphoses in the real estate market - apartments with an area of 50 m2 became a realtor's nightmare, a diplomatic scandal broke out between Moscow and Ankara, which is significant, since the contractor was the Turkish construction company Ant Yapi.
Each of these events taken separately by themselves was capable of leading the realization far from the better. However, the name of the residential complex V-House, which the developers gave it for the location of the apartments, also became a sign of victory over the circumstances.
Dark and light
V-House is located in a residential area, it stands on the border of the P-44 series microdistrict, so the customer asked to make the residential complex original, this was his only aesthetic wish.
The bright "checkerboard" decoration of the facades catches the eye first of all, but the houses, which on the plan are equilateral trapezoids, are unusual both in terms of volumetric-spatial solution and planning. Moreover, all this is interconnected gracefully and logically, as part of a mathematical equation.
According to the chief architect of the project, Andrey Nikiforov, the shape of the buildings is dictated more by calculation than by considerations of composition. “Initially, we just turned towards the sun and gained additional square meters. Trapeziums made it possible to create the required area of dark rooms inside the house. There are just enough of them to accommodate elevators, stairs and everything you need. If we typed the same number of dark rooms in a rectangle, then there would be a surplus. And the trapezium "ate" this surplus, - he explains.
The dark zone forms a kind of core on which light rooms with windows are strung. In essence, such a solution is a kind of game with a corridor-type house, the plate of which was "folded" so that everything that is usually located at the edges of the section is inside. Among other things, it was possible to accommodate the necessary second staircase here without damage - the area on the floors exceeds 500 m2.
Non-residential areas inside apartments are deployed along the sides of the "core", where all communication shafts are located. In the light part, facing the facade with a metric row of identical windows, there is not a single supporting column and the walls are only inter-apartment. Thanks to all this, the floor plan was easily broken down into apartments of any size, and developers were able to freely invent a variety of layouts for marketing proposals. There were five such planning options.
The black and white cladding panels accentuate the structure of the building: the aspect ratio varies depending on the position on the façade. The architects propose to imagine this as a trapezoid, on which they put on an elastic fabric with a pattern: in the part where the facade is wide, the pattern is stretched, where the narrow one is compressed, and at the edges it is neutral, square.
Fighting for bolts and screws
The black-and-white pattern not only grows up and to the sides, it “moves” along three axes, creating also volume: dark “cells” are deepened, light ones - protrude forward. The architects had to put a lot of effort into making this cladding look organic. First, it was necessary to make sure that curtain walls made of HPL panels would be the best solution, then to convince contractors that it was necessary to use FunderMax panels, and for this to make an approximate "cutting" ourselves, and then even come up with the most delicate fastening.
“The fact is that companies that deal with facades always alter them a little to fit their technology. And in our case, they got an "armored train", the facade is all riveted. But we did not take this path. During construction, we always have a struggle for bolts and screws so that nothing sticks out anywhere,”says GAP Andrey Nikiforov.
The architects went to the construction site several times a week, followed closely all the nuances, convinced the builders to redo even what could be given up. The workers had to dismantle a part of the facade cladding, which was out of the planned complex rhythm, repaint the wall four times to get the desired shade, and drill the frame diagonally on all 23 floors so that the elevator buttons were exactly in the middle of the wall.
Difficult simplicity
The bureau also dealt with interiors of public areas. The same black and white pattern from the facade moved inside, and the wall of living plants, located opposite the entrance, became the only color spot. The apparent simplicity of the design project made it imperative for impeccable execution.
The architects insisted that the doors of all apartments be the same and chose high quality finishing materials. They came up with the design of the plates for the apartment numbers, the elevator halls were faced with large slabs of porcelain stoneware from floor to ceiling to avoid seams, the engineering hatches were adjusted millimeter to millimeter in the same plane with the wall, the opening slabs of the suspended ceilings were made not habitually square, but elongated so that they did not enter in dissonance with the direction of movement.
“We fought for quality and tried to defend the decisions that we laid down. We made a lot of knot samples right at the construction site. The approach to the knots in the interiors was even more careful than on the facades, because this is a different level of tactile sensation,”explains the architect Andrei Breslavtsev.
Perfect roof
With no less perfectionism, the architects reacted to the elements that are almost invisible at all. Serious attention was paid to the design of the roof. Andrei Breslavtsev carefully thought out how the outlets of engineering communications should look like, which together made up a composition, he designed a comfortable staircase and meticulously selected even gravel.
In order to convince customers to cover with aluminum lamellas not only the evacuation balconies on the facade, but also a completely invisible technical floor, the architects specifically looked for a material that is not inferior in quality to the Belgian, but several times cheaper, and eventually managed to find such a manufacturer in the Urals.
The landscaping was also divided into black and white. The walls of the houses set the direction of the paving with dark and light slabs, creating the effect of branchy shadows from the trees in the forest. The playground has become a bright green spot on the "chessboard". In addition, in order to present the improvement project to the customer, the bureau prepared carefully, showing in the presentation aerial photography of the Maldives, where the lawns echo the outlines of the atolls, and the covering of the playground depicts the sea surface.
Andrei Nikiforov and Andrei Breslavtsev say that the object turned out to be exactly the same as it was conceived, although for this it was necessary to embark on long negotiations. “To realize the drawings, we had to persuade and prove a lot. Despite the fact that some customers consider architectural supervision optional, it is absolutely necessary: quality is achieved only by the presence of an architect at the construction site,”GAP is sure.
