The Kamenny Ruchey residential complex in Yekaterinburg occupied the area between the forest park with the Uktus ski base and the Nizhne-Isetsky pond. In front of it, across the road from the coastline, there is a public transport stop. It was planned to make the territory of the complex protected, so the "Stone Stream" was supposed to block pedestrians and skiers from their usual route. The second difficulty was the relief. The forest park dramatically goes down to the reservoir, and the complex was supposed to appear exactly in the zone of elevation differences.
Solution found
bureau "OCA" allowed both to make the territory of "Kamenny Ruchey" partially permeable for transit flows, and to smooth out the problems associated with the relief.
The houses were built on a stylobate of four levels with a staircase in the middle, which the bureau called the "canyon". On it, passers-by can go out of the forest park onto the stylobate and, bypassing the adjacent territories, freely go down to the bus stop.
At the same time, the staircase organizes several options for walking routes for the residents themselves: from the courtyard you can get to both the park and the pond.
Ground floor apartments, as it is now common in advanced projects, received small private front gardens.
The residential complex consists of four 26-storey towers. In order to visually facilitate such a volume, the architects designed high frames along the perimeter of the roof, through the openings of which you can see the sky. This technique was supported by deciding in blue and the upper technical floor. The rhythm of the facade is created by vertical "indented" stripes, narrow and extremely laconic. Their height alternates from body to body.
OSA paid a lot of attention to landscaping. “The yard space is as comfortable and varied as possible. It is divided into characteristic spatial archetypes. This made it possible to comprehend the rather large and complex form of the territory of the complex and achieve a feeling of comfort and human scale,”the architects explain.
On the stylobate there are two courtyards with playgrounds, front gardens raised above the level of the sidewalk thanks to a retaining wall, a promenade deck area overlooking a pond, as well as a “piazza” and an amphitheater.
Inside the stylobate there is a double-height lobby, while on the street side there are shops, cafes and a fitness center. A kindergarten is provided on the ground floor of one of the buildings. Thus, the architects managed to create an absolutely self-sufficient, but at the same time not isolated environment on the territory of "Stone Brook". “This is the great merit of our partner, the development company Brusnika,” the architects admit. “Their desire to make the project of high quality in many ways allowed us to find the right solutions.”
