The village of Darino-Uspenskoe is located in the Odintsovo district, three kilometers from the Rublevo-Uspenskoe highway. The plot of 55 hectares is located in the center of the territory, which is considered to be the most respectable area of the Moscow region, between Nikolino and Lapino. In the east, it is adjacent to the academic dachas of Novodaryino, in the north - with the village of Diplomat, in the west - with Novo-Nikolino, and along its southern border there is a stream, behind which is the new Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. About two-thirds of Darino-Uspenskoye was once an arable field, to the north of which a mixed forest begins.
At first, the customers planned to densely build up a large cluster in the southeast of the future village. For him, Roman Leonidov made a master plan, where the houses were arranged in the form of clover leaves. Then the customer moved the first stage to the northern part, to the forest zone, the number of objects was significantly reduced and placed differently on the site. Now the territories of the commissioned first stage and the projected second stage are divided by a wedge-shaped section, which was cut into lots and put up for sale without buildings.
The peculiarity of Darino-Uspenskoye is that this village is a rental settlement, the housing in it was originally designed for rent, not for sale. Roman Leonidov's bureau was tasked with developing two standard projects that would differ from each other in terms of area. In terms of materials and technology, there was less specifics. Customers made a choice after the construction, in order to estimate the costs experimentally. So in the village there was one house made of timber, one half-timbered, and the rest - frame-panel, since they decided to stop at them.
Most of the blockade two-storey townhouses in the village with the area of residential sections of 240 m2, there are ten of them. Three more houses - three-storey cottages of 500 m each2, they are called so in the project - Big. The one-of-a-kind Forest House - the one made of timber - stands separately, in the thicket.
By and large, the entire first stage of the village is located in the forest, which largely determined its architectural image. Unlike most of Rublyovka, Darino-Uspensky's houses look extremely open. Neither cottages nor townhouses have fences or their own fenced-off plots. Moreover, Roman Leonidov insisted that there be no blind areas around the houses, instead of them, plants were planted around the perimeter. The village looks "Europeanized", and this impression is enhanced by the glazed entrance doors and the absence of a plinth.
Only the access roads were conceived as asphalted, while the rest of the paths and paths were designed from larch wood. The pile foundation, the rejection of the blind area and the usual paving were also dictated by the desire to preserve the landscape: they do not create a closed circuit in the soil and do not disturb the existing water circulation, that is, they do not harm old trees, some of which, with other decisions, would be doomed to death.
In the volumetric-spatial solution, it is easy to recognize the "handwriting" of Roman Leonidov's bureau: rectangular geometry of the facades, the absence of unnecessary details, pitched roofs.
Despite the fact that the village is built up according to a standard design, it does not look monotonous. Firstly, due to the irregular arrangement: only five houses are located neatly along the road, while the rest are scattered among the trees. Secondly, because of the facade materials: some townhouses are finished with planks, others - with fiber cement panels that imitate masonry, so they seem to be different, although in fact they do not differ significantly.
Blocked houses do not have common walls, the sections are extremely open to the surrounding space, but they exist independently. They are united not so much constructively as visually. The role of the bow is performed by garage sheds. There are no garages as such, either external or built-in: “As practice shows, the use of townhouses in the Moscow region shows that garages are practically never used for their intended purpose. Most of the time, the car remains outside the house, and the garage turns into either a gym or something else,”explains Roman Leonidov.
From the side of the front facade, the first floor is almost completely glazed, and an open terrace stretches along its entire length. Above it is a large balcony with a rare horizontal metal grate. A door from the terrace leads to the kitchen-dining room and living area. On the opposite side there is another entrance to the house - through the hallway. On one side of it there is a dressing room and a laundry room, on the other - an isolated room. The role of the "buffer" area between the guest area, open to the terrace, and the private-economic area is played by a bathroom and a staircase leading to the second floor.
According to the project, the ends in the upper part of the second floor were supposed to be glass to create the feeling of a roof floating in the air, and the windows - to the floor. However, stained-glass windows were abandoned for economic reasons, and large windows - for fears that tenants would be embarrassed by the lack of traditional wall-mounted radiators. As a result, the building lost a little in expressiveness, but functionally suffered not too much: the roof drops over the bathroom, stairs and nursery, and the other two rooms of the second floor face the front facade, and in addition to windows of a sufficiently large size, they also have an exit to the balcony.
"Big houses" consist of three rectangular volumes of different heights. Three colors are used in the decoration of their facades - dark brown, beige and white. On the central - the darkest and highest - block, the windows are stretched vertically, on the rest - horizontally. Flower borders ignore geometric borders, making homes look light and compact despite their size.
The spacious balcony serves as a garage shed for two cars. There is also the entrance to the boiler room underneath. Two entrances to the house are located in the “guest” horizontal sector: on the one hand, you can enter through the hallway, and on the other, through the dining room, which in this version of the houses is already separated from the kitchen. In the same part of the house there is a guest bedroom and a bathroom. In the second transverse "compartment" there is a staircase hall and a storage room, in the third - a large living room and study.
On the second floor there is a master bedroom and two children's bedrooms, separated by a nanny's room. One of the children's rooms is very spacious, with its own bathroom, and, moreover, is double-height, with a mezzanine. On the opposite front façade, on the third level, there is a cooking area with a spacious balcony suitable for open-air breakfast and family meals.
The location of the houses in Darino-Uspenskoye does not fit into any definite geometric pattern: they seem to be scattered over a landscaped area with trimmed shrubs, lawns and objects of modern sculpture from the personal collection of the owners of the village along the paths. The residents have a playground with a trampoline, a picnic area and a large communal tent. The open nature of the architecture of Darino-Uspenskoye is largely consistent with the fact that its territory has become a single public space. “By renting a house here, a person acquires a way of life,” says the author of the project, Roman Leonidov.
