For you yourself see what my factories are, and you will surely agree
with me, so that these manor buildings must have excellent …
buildings to have "the best possible facades."
From a letter to A. P. Demidova
architect A. L. Chebotarev
The residential complex "Aleksandrovsky" is planned to be built on the territory - with a total area of 49.5 hectares, in the southern part of Nizhny Tagil. This part of Tagil is separated from the city center by 2 kilometers of the private sector and mid-rise buildings; the eastern border of the territory adjoins the Nizhniy Tagil pond, the western border is the two-lane Uralsky avenue, behind which the area of old Soviet nine-story buildings begins. On the south side, closer to the avenue, there is a large modern hospital, on the north - a new residential complex, on the flanks the site is surrounded by cottages.
The authors received an area with an approved PPT, preparation for roads, laid by utilities. It was unusual that, after assessing the situation on the housing market, the risk of large investments in the construction of 9-storey buildings without guarantees of their quick implementation, the customer suggested that Alexey Ivanov develop a residential complex with a lower number of storeys and population density than was originally intended. For the same economic reasons, the construction was decided to be carried out in turns, each with 10-12 two-section three-story houses - "urban blocks, in Old Russian it means a house, a building, a structure," comments Aleksey Ivanov. Thus, the development of the master plan from the very beginning was based on a housing unit worth 40 million rubles. At the same time, the agreed surveying along the boundaries of the projected network roads should be taken into account, but the architects had the right to adjust the PPT based on the new realities.
“We have proposed a new composition based on a given grid. - Alexey Ivanov reports. - The main role in it is played by the three-part pedestrian axis of the central square. I must point out that the general enthusiasm for the newly opened method of quarterly development quickly became redundant; the quarter layout of multi-storey buildings looks especially strange. At the same time, it is obviously suitable for 3-4-storey buildings - in this case, the task is to give each quarter its own face. When the "game of squares" becomes unnecessary, it closes the movement to beauty - then we move on to unfashionable line buildings."
Designing to a greater extent did not come from an urban planning idea and not from a social order, but from the conditions for the phased financing of construction. The market situation has determined the predominance of studios and one-room apartments in the apartment design. Corner and latitudinal sections complete the selection with two-room apartments.
Two-thirds of the site has a regular rectangular shape, the quarters are strung on strictly perpendicular five-meter driveways. “We are developing the theme of open courtyards with necklaces of houses, when private courtyards are connected with city-wide squares,” explains Aleksey Ivanov. According to the TK, the territory should become permeable for all citizens, while maintaining the ability to freely pass from Uralsky Prospekt to the pond. A semicircular square-square has become a kind of inviting zone, drawing in the city-wide flows. Its shape, as well as the curvilinear outlines of the internal driveways, are intended to enliven the orthogonal layout.
The concept proposed by Archstroydizayn assumes three stages of the development of the territory plus the improvement of the surrounding area of the pond. The first stage begins with three-storey buildings from the Festivalnaya square. The architects proposed to keep the same number of storeys along the entire length of the central street-square, and to build up the perimeter of the site with higher, four-storey buildings.
In the second stage, in addition to urban blocks, it is planned to build four apart-hotels near the hospital. They are intended for nonresident patients who are treated in a day hospital or undergoing rehabilitation. The houses of the third and last stage - according to the plan, the most prestigious - will be located closer to the coastline. They are separated from the main part of the residential area by the "sickle" of the boulevard. Here, the strict geometric order is slightly disturbed - or revitalized, providing residents with privacy and views of the pond. The architects proposed to divide the coastal strip into several functional zones: sports, children's, recreational, exhibition, beach and yacht club.
Particular attention is paid to the transport system. “For sprawling Russian cities with long distances from work to home and recreation, and for most fellow citizens with obligatory summer cottages, and in a harsh climate, personal vehicles are a necessary condition for tolerable living,” says Aleksey Ivanov. “Besides, the car is a symbol of freedom,” the architect concludes. Multilevel parking is unprofitable, and even with the minimum selling price of 300,000 rubles for a parking space, they are not sold. Therefore, the only possible solution was ground parking along the main streets. “The restrictions on minimum distances of 10 and 35 meters from parking lots to buildings make life very difficult,” the planners admit. - The solution was found in the arrangement of the driveways, along which parking spaces are also located.
A small construction budget allows for the only option for a volumetric-spatial solution - a clean rectangle with a flat roof. However, given the central location of the complex, the architects did their best to ensure that the external perception of the houses was in tune with the historical environment of the city. Loggias turned out to be an unaffordable luxury, but they managed to design French balconies, as well as arched openings and roof railing in the form of simple attics. The customer offered plaster facades. The historical prototype was found in the albums of exemplary buildings by William Geste. Two hundred years ago, the Geste houses did not receive such a massive distribution in the Urals as in central Russia - but, nevertheless, they are recognizable and have the potential for modern interpretation.
This solution to the living environment is not the first in the portfolio of Alexey Ivanov. The project continues the planning and architectural ideas laid down in the competition concept"
Bastion for Tsarskoe Selo: a suite of closed-open quarters, the organization of transport services and parking along the periphery of the sites, historicism in the solution of facades.
There are almost no public buildings in this part of Nizhniy Tagil, so the customer plans to make the first floors non-residential: they should be occupied by shops, cafes, service services, etc. However, if necessary, they can be converted into apartments. Therefore, the second floor is finely chopped into a studio with an area of 25 m2… According to the wishes of the customer, based on the financial capabilities of Tagil residents, there is not a single apartment in the project more than 45 m2… It is planned to use local trees and shrubs for landscaping, which can survive without much maintenance. The architects plan to make the entrance area as green as possible, turning it almost into a square, for which they intend to independently develop landscape regulations. As Aleksey Ivanov explains, the idea to organize an area covered with trees also arose from the need to visually isolate the area from the old nine-storey houses on the other side of the avenue, one of which is the central axis of the projected development.
The project turned out to be atypical - starting with the fact that economic circumstances dictated not gigantism with density, but a decrease in number of storeys and density, but with an increase in the number of ground parking and the development of infrastructure for personal transport, hotly disliked by modern urban propagandists. And also by the fact that architectural solutions are based on prototypes typical for the region.
It is hoped that the setting of such tasks will gain popularity in the development of general plans for other Russian cities, giving them some chance of recovery. The authors of the project say that they are already receiving similar proposals from other Ural cities.
* William Geste (1753-1832) Scottish architect in the service of the Russian emperors, author of the town-planning "Plan for the settlement of Tsarskoye Selo" and general plans for the development of cities in Central Russia, Siberia and the Urals with geometrically correct quarters and entrance areas. Geste has collected a "methodological manual" with exemplary facades of houses for Russian cities.
