Artak Makaryan,
Business Development and Investment Director, Housing Construction, Moscow
- I would like to point out two points, and the first of them is partnership. As we have seen, developers in London manage to do a lot at once, while, most likely, without investing too much of their own funds. By attracting investments and financing at various stages of the project - from partners, from the ultimate owners of real estate - they manage to implement huge undertakings for hundreds of millions of pounds in a relatively short time!
And the second thing I would like to note is marketing and branding of territories. Each of us noticed how the objects are branded, and at what high professional level. It is easy to guess that the professionals themselves gave allegedly popular names to buildings such as "Grater", "Cucumber" or "Oskolok" - all this is, rather, part of the general marketing concept to promote the project. This is what we really lack, since branding of territories is a new topic in Russia, few people know how to do it, some confuse ordinary advertising with branding, but these are different things. There are no specialists of that level to attract enough attention to complex projects at the earliest stages. its development. We have one developer who gets out as best he can, and, unfortunately, often at the expense of quality savings. There is no that synergy, that impulse that one partner can give to another, because if it is interesting to the townspeople, then it is interesting to retailers, if it is interesting to retailers, then investors immediately appear, and as professional and institutional investors appear, everything will sparkle with different colors!
The so-called win-win concept works here, where all participants benefit from the fact that they go together, shoulder to shoulder, doing a common cause, raising the image of the territory.
Large plots, large buildings in Russia, of course, need similar approaches, marketing technologies in order to attract different project participants from different sectors, including authorities, citizens, bankers, investors, engineers. In this area, we have a lot to learn.
Alexander Enin
Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Voronezh State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Voronezh
- London for Educational Purposes - (for teachers and students, as well as for the professional development of practicing architects) is such an endless book that needs to be constantly re-read. The very approach to the formation of any spaces - at the level of the city of London, the block - and any other residential formation - is of a completely different nature. The main motivator is the population or the person. Decisive should be "human", and not technical and technical and economic criteria of optimality. In this respect, the quality of the comfortable environment is completely different from our practice. In the historical center, new districts, in the areas of reconstruction, the efforts of the authorities, development and architects are aimed at creating a comfortable urban environment. We need to take this into account to some extent.
- But isn't everything done here for the comfort of the townspeople?
- In England, as practice shows, the approach is systemic. Design in a different way. And the process itself, the role of the architect, differ from Russian practice. The architect, from the idea to its implementation, participates in the entire process. The presence of the architect is immediately noticeable. Thus, the reconstruction area of the former industrial zone near the King's Cross station can serve as an illustration of this approach. King's Cross belonged rather to the category of slums, had not the best reputation, although it is located in the very center of London. Now we see young people there with folders and easels under their arms, since it is here - in the former station warehouse - that London University of the Arts and the prestigious St. Martins College, which trains designers, moved. The university is located in a renovated granary! A total of 6 art colleges have moved to this area - and they fit very well into the atmosphere of history, creativity and development. Here they modernize, restore old houses, build new housing, keep, despite the high costs of preliminary preparation, the old gas tanks in their historical place (Vienna has a similar experience). Gas holders are made of cast iron, and in a constructive, engineering aspect, they are completely unique structures. They were used in many English films, and English Heritage, an organization for the protection of cultural monuments, suggested that at least a few gas tanks be preserved. The developers agreed with this proposal. Inside one is a park, and inside the "troika" - a residential complex of three houses of different heights, reminiscent of the movement of gas in cylinders.
The building of the German Gymnastics School has survived in its original place. This slightly church-like house stands directly opposite the exit from the St. Pancras International Terminal. Neighborhood multi-style architecture does not "prick" the eye at all. As the famous French architect Paul Shemetov says, the problem of combining the old and the new is the problem of good architecture.
… We walked through the area under construction, and saw a fenced garden where vegetables, fruits and trees grow. It belongs to residents from the old housing stock. Such neighborhood gardens are popular in Europe, helping to form a number of individual public spaces that have their own specifics. The authors of the idea wanted the residents to understand what was happening and to feel that it belongs to them too.
Timur Kadyrov
Deputy Chief Architect of Kazan
- In Kazan, we took up the topic of introducing energy efficiency into design and construction, so the trip for examples seemed very successful. It was my first time in London. The first thing that caught my eye: a mix of everything - different architecture, approaches, technologies, pastime.
My acquaintances studying in Milan, now working in London, advised me to definitely see the Shoreditch area. As it was said, this is a new place of power, a new urban center, something that is up-to-date. Indeed, Shoreditch illustrates the change driven by gentrification. There was a degrading area with not very good architecture, conditions were created in it for a creative class, primarily for street artists, service attracted interest to them, other people appeared, added their aspects of creativity. The place has become unusual. With your face. But then a well-known process begins: the cost of housing rises, and pure commerce replaces underground and hipster things, since there is already a flow there - it is clear who the final user is and what you can sell. In social terms, gentrification is a negative process: poor people are forced to leave their usual places. From the point of view of the development of the urban area and the urban economy, this is a positive phenomenon: the environment is improving, there is an influx of tourists and new investments. In Shoreditch, over several square kilometers, this chain can be traced from the beginning to the apotheosis.
At first you think that you are in a dilapidated suburb, but intuitively you choose the direction, you see where people are moving, turn the corner and find in the future - skyscrapers, with a degrading area adjacent to offices, for example, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development … Public spaces that are formed in Shoreditch cannot be called innovative: they are subject to a common logic that we have been reading for a long time in Defense and other similar areas, but the atmosphere of this place remains, and the mass of street art works that make Shoreditch unique.
As far as my immediate topic is concerned, London provides a wealth of information on how transport systems work. A city with a huge pendulum migration. At the same time, we remember that the world's first metro was opened in London, and it's amazing how the city is able to maintain historical lines, old tunnels are small by modern standards. In the center, there is a difference in the size of platforms, transitions, but very high-quality navigation and the principles of competent wayfinding atone for many inconveniences. The London metro is integrated with commuter trains (like in Paris, Milan, Berlin), there are high-speed lines, new types of metro - without drivers.
A very interesting project - Crossrail - a commuter train that will run through the whole of London, have several transfer stations in the metro and at railway stations, will allow people from the periphery not to load terminal stations (as it was once in Moscow), to disperse traffic flows to the hub metro stations in the heart of the city. The project is also interesting for its design, for example, the Canary Wharf station, designed by Sir Norman Foster, has a futuristic design with a very cozy botanical garden on the upper level in the open air.
Alexander Lazarenko
company Solomio, Rostov-on-Don
- London is an outpost of globalization (and environmental trends), and I got a huge energy boost here. I was familiar with the architecture of the city from publications, but alive it made an even greater impression - especially the squares of London, which, in fact, are the islands of the village, "forgotten" in the city. They are very organically preserved and fit into the architectural urban areas of any period.
As for the latest innovative materials, I had mixed feelings about this. Didn't find inspiration, but saw the market. At Ecobuild 2017 there were two stands with Lithuanian products: straw panels from Ecococon. I am very fortunate to have a personal acquaintance with Barbara Jones, the author of many studies and books on organic construction: she was impressed by the presentation of our company and products. In Great Britain, much attention is paid to the creation and implementation of building systems, enclosing structures with a high coefficient of resistance to temperature effects, while here they carefully take into account the ecological ideas about materials, their impact on humans. According to these criteria, the products of our Rostov enterprise are more than competitive. Energy-efficient structures and systems exist, but due to their conservatism, the Russian and European construction market reacts to them very sluggishly: they try to use industrial designs, while raw materials for the production of safe biopositive materials are simple and affordable. My conclusion: I am on the right track, the European, world experience of ecological energy efficient construction will soon be relevant in Russia as well.
Evgeny Shcherbakov
architect, Moscow
- In London, you inevitably experience a culture shock: the Olympic Park, the old and the new City, "Crystal", the funicular crossing to the new chic area, redevelopment objects, street art, an exhibition of ecological construction … It's good that the team of participants of the trip was selected so that we had a great opportunity to comprehensively discuss what we saw and criticize it. On an excursion to the BRE Innovation Park, we saw individual houses-winners of the British competition of different years (the best ones are those for whom several tens of thousands of Albion residents vote): in all of them the emphasis is placed on solving the problem of energy consumption - through different techniques and design solutions.
We had not planned in advance, but already agreed upon in London, a visit to the architectural studio of David Rodden (DRA David Rodden Architects). I managed to work together with David on the concept of the Bullbridge shopping complex in the city of Zhukovsky. The British architect already had several Russian projects in his portfolio, including the completed project of the NEOpolis business park in New Moscow. And I wanted to introduce our delegation to David, to show the style of his work and views on the development of the city. I am amazed by the graphics of his exploratory sketches, the methodology and accuracy present at the earliest stages of the project.
Marina Ignatushko
journalist, architecture critic, chairman of the board of the public organization "Open Strelka", Nizhny Novgorod
- In Europe, the tactfulness of advertising, the quality of the urban environment and navigation, and, most importantly, the values that cities present as fundamental, admire in Europe. You will immediately - on the streets, in transport - learn about all the most important exhibitions and performances. Museums - crowded with visitors any day and hour. I specially went to see the Docklands area, which has been actively developing since the 1990s, and is ready to fuel interest for more than one year. In the old building of the port, where sugar was unloaded, a museum of the port and the region has been created - modern and lively. There is a crane on the embankment - already a decorative one - a sign of this place. By the way, on the opposite bank, where the ExCeL London exhibition center (designed by Grimshaw) is located, decorative cranes have lined up in whole ranks, and a monument to port workers is erected in front of the exhibition portal. In Docklands I saw the first monument to Michael von Klemm - the man who influenced the concept of the development of this new financial center of London, then to St. Pancras - a monument to the poet John Bethgemen, who organized a campaign in defense of the old station building and, in general, did a lot to preserve Victorian architecture in the second half of the 20th century, when its monuments were often threatened with demolition.
