About the "cave"
The Ice Cave is one of the most "sonorous" and technically complex components of the Zaryadye Park concept. She was also present in the winning bid of the consortium Diller Scofidio and Renfo (DS + R). The essence of the concept, its leitmotif, one might say, is that the park consists of a series of climatic zones that represent the nature of Russia in a concentrated-compacted form, allowing visitors to easily move from tundra to forest and field within 13 hectares of the park's territory. Among the climatic attractions of Zaryadye, there are two extremes: northern ice and subtropics. And if a forest with tundra can be placed in the open air, then for the extremely cold and warm zones, premises were required to maintain a microclimate. They were located under one roof, in the northeastern part of the park, south of the Znamensky Monastery - in an artificial "cave", on the green roof of which, at the highest point of the park with a brilliant view of the Kremlin, the northern tundra landscape with dwarf junipers and stones is arranged. You can climb the green roof of the "tundra" from two sides, to the left and right of the entrance to the "cave", you can walk along the edge of a large triangular canopy covering the entrance, along a transparent glass fence.
Inside, the "cave" is divided into two parts. On the right is the Zapovednoye Embassy educational center with a media screen and a pair of auditoriums for lectures and master classes. The semantic and plastic center of the "embassy" is a glass "glass" expanding upward under a glass roof, a kind of closed atrium on all sides: it maintains a constant temperature and humidity, and there is a spiral ramp with tropical plants. Guided tours are conducted here, recording in the media center of the park. The protected embassy with its thermophilic flora is intended to remind that there are small fragments of subtropical zones in Russia - in Sochi. This is the “warm” pole of the park's climatic storyline.
You can enter the Ice Cave on the left. She is the opposite pole, shading the tundra landscape on the roof. The sub-zero temperature will be constantly maintained here, warm clothes will be given to those entering. In fact, the "cave" is a giant thermos-refrigerator, where ice crust will be frozen on a large number of refrigerated tubes, flickering in LED lighting. Cold air with a special reagent is supplied through pipes to the walls, floor and ceiling of the cave, forming an even layer of transparent white ice.
The interior design of both premises was developed by Timur Bashkaev, who won the competition held by the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Construction (he also designed the interior of the Media Center with the "northern lights" on the ceiling). The complex and large-scale ice installation in the Ice Cave was done by Alexander Ponomarev and Alexey Kozyr, permanent curators of the Antarctic Biennale; in Lisbon, Ponomarev froze six-meter acrylic pillars. The authors emphasize that the cave in Zaryadye is more of an installation than an imitation, a work of art aimed at evoking certain emotions in the audience. And yet this installation is gigantic by the standards of a work of art. In addition, for the effect of ice drips, it was required to freeze a complex sculptural formation in which there is not a single right angle and not a single flat surface. The pavilion will host regular exhibitions dedicated to the Arctic and polar explorers, organized excursions will be conducted through the labyrinths, and, according to preliminary calculations, it should receive up to 10 million visitors a year. The concept of a non-linear "portico" of the entrance belongs to the authors of the park, the DS + R consortium.
The fluid, non-linear, "bionic" cave is the main plot, perhaps one of the most striking impressions of the park; it is not surprising that the entrance portico, common for the "cave" and the "embassy", acquired similar outlines: white, stalagnate columns, curvilinear shapes. In Moscow, there is almost no non-linear architecture, according to my information, the Zaryadye pavilions are the second most time-honored example after the KVN Planet on Suschevsky Val. The ice cave and its portico are the most complex of the non-linear structures in the park, both inside and out.
The deep portico itself already looks like a cave - a real entrance to something underground. All supports are different, the ceiling smoothly merges into the walls, the flexible surface of the shell is dotted with "stars" of point LEDs. At night it is highlighted in blue, which makes the entrance to the "cave" especially attractive.
Implementation history
The design of the cave's interiors and its portico was implemented by the KROST Concern - using a technology that had not been previously used in Russia, and, moreover, extremely quickly.
After the basic idea was formed, few people really understood how to bring it to life. At some point, having built a monolithic foundation, contractors and designers to some extent reached a dead end. Initially, it was assumed that the facade of the building - the portico - would be made of metal structures, but this idea had to be abandoned due to its complex curvilinear shape. Then there was a proposal to use ready-made glass fiber reinforced concrete panels. Due to the tight deadlines, the production of panels was distributed between five Russian plants: each plant worked separately, according to its own technology and drawings - as a result, it was not possible to correctly fit the elements of complex geometry. Almost half a year had been missed, the situation looked hopeless.
At the last moment, literally a month before the opening of the park, the KROST Concern was involved in the implementation, which offered its technological solution; with all the risks and laboriousness, it made it possible to complete the project efficiently and on time. Engineers and architects of "A-Proekt. K", the design institute of the Concern, decided not to abandon glass-fiber-reinforced concrete - a material that is sufficiently plastic and at the same time durable, allowing to reproduce the surface of any. However, it was proposed to manufacture the elements not at the factory, but directly at the construction site.
In the shortest possible time, the production of the Fibrol factory near Moscow, which is part of the KROST industrial complex, was moved to Zaryadye. This allowed not only to save the time allotted for surface decoration with a total area of more than 1,500 m², but also to avoid inaccuracies in the installation process - thanks to the additive technology of 3D-printing: spraying glass fiber concrete directly onto the facade surface. This new technology has never been used before, but it gave an amazing result - all the work was completed in less than three weeks.
The composite material was applied in layers to fiberglass reinforcement, which gave the surface a smoother shape. The load-bearing layer of glass-fiber-reinforced concrete 10–15 mm thick was coated again and again to achieve the most even surface. It is estimated that over 70 cubic meters of glass fiber reinforced concrete was required to cover the facade.
To create the curved foam formwork, robotic manipulators were involved, which coped with the work twice as fast as a milling machine. The robots worked around the clock, as did the entire team of the KROST design workshop. The design went along with the construction. More than 400 specialists of the KROST Concern worked at the site every day.
Before proceeding with the manufacture of the formwork and layer-by-layer spraying of composite material, the architects of the A-Proekt. K Concern's design bureau built a three-dimensional model by scanning the existing cave skeleton with a 3D scanner, says Denis Kapralov, Deputy General Director of the KROST Concern. This made it possible to determine the exact distance from the monolith to the surface, to obtain cross-sections and a step of 40 cm. Surveyors were involved in the work, who divided the entire space into many points (only 25,000 points were needed for the installation of a subsystem of points), and sculptors who manually brought the surface to perfection using decorative plaster with a grainy texture.
Thus, in the conditions of a colossal shortage of time, it was possible to find and test in practice a new technological solution. “This is a unique experience for us,” says Andrey Sazonov, Director of the Industry Department of the KROST Concern. - The timing made the task almost impossible, but we were able to find, as it seems to me, the only possible solution. Not only the plant moved to the construction site, but also practically the entire project office. In extreme conditions, we have done what no one has done before us."
Now the found technology will be applied to other objects of complex bionic shape. According to Denis Kapralov, using additive technologies and 3D printing, KROST, for example, will be able to implement the concept of unique interiors of Sberbank's Technopark in Skolkovo, designed by Zaha Hadid's bureau.
