We are grateful to the publishing house TATLIN for help in preparing the publication.
Yalta, urban-type settlement Kurpaty, Alupinskoe highway, 12
The team of authors ("Kurortproekt"): architects Igor Vasilevsky, Y. Stefanchuk, V. Divnov, L. Kesler, engineers Nodar Kancheli, B. Guryevich, E. Vladimirov, E. Ruzyakov, E. Kim, V. Malts, V. Gansgorye, E. Fedorova.
Design: 1978-1980
Construction: 1980-1985
Construction volume: 54 230 m3
Area: 11 500 m2
400 rooms
Resort architecture has always been a territory of freedom for Soviet architects. The sanatoriums served as a “paradise on earth” - a place where all working people strove to go. Therefore, even in the era of the fight against excesses, the departments did not skimp on the construction of recreation palaces for their employees, and resort construction allowed architects to deviate significantly from the general line. So, in 1980, the leaders of the trade unions of the USSR and Czechoslovakia decided to jointly build a boarding house "Druzhba" in the Crimea for the workers of the two countries. Czechs wanted the boarding house to be located in the place where their romantic youth passed - on the Golden Beach. But in those years, the coast was already built up, there was only a narrow piece of territory with a 40-degree slope between the road and the sea …
The construction site turned out to be very unfortunate. In addition to landslides, a tectonic fault and an 8-point seismic activity were found here. But after reaching an agreement at the top of the architects "Kurortproekt" only notified of the choice of location and gave instructions to start developing the project. Of course, it was impossible to build in the usual way here. Architect Igor Vasilevsky and engineer Nodar Kancheli decided to use a system in which the building touches the sloping relief as little as possible.
Here is how Vasilevsky describes the choice of the path: “We had to choose the most stable system. It turned out to be a "stool" on three legs, where all the supports are evenly loaded. This was the basis for the structure. Everything that is in the object - floors, transverse, longitudinal walls - everything is included in the work. The constructive solution, where there are no load-bearing or carrying elements, is ingenious."
Thus, the entire load from the building - a ring-shaped monoblock - was collected and transferred to the rock using three tower supports with a diameter of 9 meters and a wall thickness of 80 to 20 cm, connected by struts at the level of the foundation and the residential part. At the same time, the area of support on the ground is minimal.
In fact, the architect has two ways of interaction of the building with the surrounding nature. The first is the inclusion of the object into the landscape, which is commensurate with the environment, greenery and man. The second is an attempt to physically preserve the natural environment by tearing the object off the surface of the earth (in this case, keeping the slope with vegetation). The second option is typical for structures in places with difficult geological conditions and relief. Hence such an unusual form of "Friendship", reminiscent of a flying saucer.
The design of the middle, five-storey part is made in the form of a ring-shaped honeycomb supporting system, which includes all the elements in constructive work. The diameter of the two-part ring, consisting of 400 residential rooms, is 76 meters. It does not stand on supports, but, touching, as if glides over them, creating the illusion of soaring. Its load-bearing elements are floor discs 15 centimeters thick, as well as radial and ring walls 15 and 30 centimeters thick, respectively.
The reception and lobby group with the main entrance is located at the level of the operated roof of the sleeping block. On the open terrace there is a recreation area that compensates for the lack of a walking area. Also at the top of the building is a three-part console restaurant. Igor Vasilevsky described the penetration into the building as follows: “With a 56-meter drop from the upper access road to the beach, there is no other entrance or approach. You can enter the object only through the roof, which was done. You leave the covered glazed passage to the upper terrace with a breathtaking opening to the sea horizon …"
[ii]
The hotel rooms are located on the outer ring with opening to the sea. Thanks to the jagged shape, almost every room opens up a piece of the sea without seeing the neighbors.
The basis of the object is an atrium-crystal, where public premises are concentrated: a cinema and concert hall with a foyer, a cafe, dance floors, and a billiard room. All this rests on a "drop" of sea water - the pool bowl, which is relatively suspended from three supports. It can be seen through the glass triangle in the floor. And this triangle itself is a light and music fountain. Sunlight enters the atrium through a glass dome in the roof. Since this space was primarily created for relaxation in the evening, electric light from unusual lamps also plays an important role.
All rooms of the boarding house are divided into two types: oriented outside and illuminated by the sun during the day (living rooms, swimming pool, dining room, lobby) and working in the evening (cultural and other public premises).
Between the residential ring and the glazed atrium, there are open courtyards that emphasize the expressive multi-part composition. The abundance of light and glass "pushes" the space.
The problem of air conditioning, heating and hot water supply has been solved in a revolutionary and environmentally friendly manner on the scale of the entire structure. The thermal energy of the sea is used for these purposes. Such a heat pump works like refrigerators in our home: it takes heat away from “cold products” (the Black Sea) and transfers it to the premises. The system does not pollute the environment with harmful emissions, like boiler houses: a balance with nature is maintained. It was created jointly with specialists from VNIPIenergoprom.
In other health resorts, the seawater of flowing pools requires a lot of heat (25–30% of the total consumption), and after being used it is discharged back into the sea. Taking into account this fact, as well as the requirements for environmental protection, made it possible to create a heat pump station, which provided the boarding house with the necessary heat, utilized the heat of the discharged water and fit into the surrounding landscape.
The conical shell of the pool bowl with a diameter of 25 meters is connected to a flat cover disc by a steel truss. Its lower belt is aligned with the contour of the shell. The system is suspended from the load-bearing supports in the lower part of the building by the three upper truss nodes.
Project engineer Nodar Kancheli described the work on "Friendship" and the situation around it: "Several decades ago, prefabricated housing began to develop rapidly in the USSR due to a sharp increase in capital construction. Labor productivity increased rapidly, and a powerful construction base arose. However, this process also had negative aspects: the inertia of the precast industry imposed severe design constraints; a single structure was cut into pieces, which sharply worsened its work, and the reverse process of unification at a construction site is complicated and time-consuming.
Now all over the world methods of industrial monolithic housing construction are rapidly developing. They do not require a powerful precast industry, allow almost all the whims of the designer to be fulfilled, the overall labor costs are reduced and, most importantly, uniform spatial structures can be created that maximize the possibilities of material and shape for the perception of external forces. Discreteness of the structure disappears, the overlying structures cease to be ballast for the underlying ones, and they begin to work together.
The currently existing powerful computers make it possible to calculate complex spatial systems, which was previously impossible in principle. An object like "Friendship" could only arise when using a computer. I do not deny the advantages of traditional prefabricated systems and the rationality of their application, however, I see a further sharp decrease in material consumption not in the "licking" of known planar systems, but in the creation of new spatial structures involving practically all elements of the structure in joint work."
[iii]
In the 30 years that have passed since the opening of "Friendship", the building has not been exposed to any human influences, partly because there are no walls that can be moved or rebuilt: they are all constructively included in the work.
Igor Vasilevsky. M., TATLIN, 2016. [ii] Ibid. [iii] N. Kancheli. Pension "Druzhba" // Architecture of the USSR. No. 3 (1986). - S. 38–43.
