Studio PlanAR was founded by Natalia Voinova in 2003, Ilya Mukosey became her partner in 2009. PlanAR works a lot with the improvement of public spaces, starting in 2010 with the project of the territory of the residential complex "Marfino", where the architects proposed to designate the yards of a large panel array with figures of exotic animals, linking with them internal navigation and self-identification of residents. The project was implemented, part of it - wooden gazebos on the boulevard - were awarded the ArchiWOOD prize, which, in turn, brought PlanAR the fame of specialists in the field of working with the landscape of residential courtyards and the improvement of urban spaces. They were among the first to install advanced imported playgrounds in the courtyards and introduced fashion to colorful bright coatings, which we now see everywhere in Moscow. For them, even the analysis of regulatory constraints turns into a decorative panel, then evolving into a panel underfoot, visible from a satellite.
Among the projects of PlanAR in the field of improvement, about ten were developed for residential complexes of the development company FGC Leader - we are talking about this group of works with Ilya Mukosey.
Julia Tarabarina, Archi.ru:
I heard that it is easier to work with a private customer than with a state one. Why?
Ilya Mukosey, PlanAR:
- In my opinion, a private, non-state developer, as a rule, knows better what he needs, knows his target audience. He is more personified - if necessary, you can meet with a company representative who makes responsible decisions and convince him or better understand his position. The official representing the state customer has much less authority. When working with a government order, rush jobs often happen, this is work in a mode of constant stress: significant amendments to the project may be required at the last moment, because they forgot to tell you about something or something unexpectedly changed. Or vice versa - at the very beginning they suddenly demand to show some chief renders that are not yet available … Besides, you have to work without an advance payment. On the contrary, in the beginning you pay the state, depositing funds to secure the bid for the auction, and thereby proving that you are a reliable service provider. At best, all you can get from such a job is fame, and even then, if you're lucky.
There is a lot of technical work in the improvement of residential complexes. What's left for creativity?
- In architecture, in principle, there is a lot of technical work. When designing landscaping, we first of all come up with a technique at the macro level that helps to form the identity of the place. We often work in outlying areas where houses are being built on the site of industrial zones or vacant lots. There you need to create a "spirit of the place" from scratch. If you let the process take its course, then this spirit will not appear soon. Sometimes we propose a topic, sometimes, on the contrary, we follow the proposal of marketers and work with them - in this case, we are grateful that our ideas are being listened to.
Well, at the micro level, our job is decorating. We figure out how to paint the facades of technical structures and playgrounds, how to arrange elements on these sites, what plants to plant. Of course, there is not always a lot of room for maneuver, not everything and not everywhere can be placed. At the micro level, you also need to focus on the architecture of buildings, unless, of course, we are talking about panel buildings, but this is a thing of the past.
What about the response to the already established identity of the place? This is written in the credo of your office …
- Perhaps the most typical example of such work is the unrealized concept that we did for the Moscow City Park for Victory Park. The park is overly focused on a single task - the propaganda of patriotism. Our goal was the functional reprogramming of the territory, so we did a detailed study: photographing the daily life of the park, surveys of people who have lived near it for a long time and know the local conditions well. Another example is the concept of landscaping the area around the Rodina cinema, commissioned by the ADG Group. Here I had to study the history of the development of the area, rummage through old drawings and photographs. But such a rich background does not occur very often in our practice.
Your project for the improvement of the Obninsk UP-quarter "Olimp" continues its architecture. How often does this approach work?
- In our opinion, this residential complex has very nice facades. In addition, there was no strong marketing component in its name: it is just located nearby the Olimp pool, in which the Russian swimming team trains. Therefore, it was possible to build on the architecture without thinking too much about the name.
In some other projects, when the facades of buildings are relatively neutral, a bright theme is needed in order to "bring them to life". The third option - if we are faced with a specific marketing task, the need to develop a given plot. For example, the name of the Generation Residential Complex on Signalny Proyezd set a nostalgic theme, which we manifested in the architecture of the gazebos, the graphics of boulevards, as well as in the images of satellites and rockets in playgrounds.
In the Skolkovsky UP quarter in Odintsovo, named so because of its proximity to the innovation city of the same name, we based the design graphics on the image of a barcode, which has become a cross-cutting theme for the entire territory, and microcircuits, the lines of which indicate “game routes”, connecting elements of playgrounds designed for a certain age.
Signature reception of PlanAR - large colored animals, symbols of courtyards and entrances, the basis of navigation. In your first project "Marfino" they were sculptures, then they became colored drawings on the ground … Do they define your handwriting?
- In fact, we voluntarily addressed this topic only twice. After "Marfino" we understood that it was impossible to literally repeat the story with the figures of animals. The next project was the residential complex "Golovino", the territory of which we interpreted as a tree with branches-paths and leaves-platforms. The whole thing can be perceived from the upper floors, but the technique is also read from the ground, thanks to the tortuosity of the “branches” and the relatively small size of the “leaves”. An adult walking or a child playing can imagine himself as an ant or a caterpillar on a giant tree. Already in the process of implementation, we clearly saw our tree on satellite imagery, and we were very impressed.
Therefore, in one of the following projects, we decided to specially make a drawing that would be perceived from a satellite. After all, this is not bad for advertising either: an area that can be unmistakably recognizable even from space. For the project of the UP-quarter "New Tushino" in Putilkov near Moscow, we took the famous drawings in the Peruvian Nazca desert as a prototype. As a result of their study, flat images appeared in playgrounds - a lizard, a turtle, a bird, a frog, and a fish. The customers liked the idea, so later in St. Petersburg, in the Svetlanovsky UP-quarter, we were persistently asked to draw animals. We ourselves did not initially plan this.
In the case of the "Breathing" house - did you coordinate your landscaping with the authors of the interiors of public areas - YOO inspired by Stark - or did you work autonomously?
- All street solutions are completely ours, YOO we did not show them. But, since we were engaged in the detailing of YOO sketches for interiors and terraces on operated roofs, we managed to get used to it.
Speaking of landscaping, figuratively, we tried to make some references to Stark. This applies primarily to a wooden gazebo with gold supports. Our landscaping is similar to the YOO sketches for operated roofs due to the large amount of wood in the decoration of outdoor objects. However, for fire safety reasons, in many cases the wood had to be replaced with other materials. In particular, the volume of the entrance to the parking lot, the roof of which we have transformed into a system of tiers-terraces, is finished with glass-fiber-reinforced concrete panels cast in a wooden formwork.
How often are used roofs found in projects?
- On the roofs of houses - infrequently. In elite class projects, as, for example, in "Breathing", this sometimes works, but in economy class, as a rule, it does not. Terraces on the roofs of high-rise buildings are difficult to coordinate with the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and, in principle, it is not always worth collecting people on the roof. In "Breathing", this technique worked as an additional bait for apartment buyers, but in the "economy" it, apparently, does not pay for itself.
On the other hand, in the new buildings with which we work, an underground parking lot is buried in almost every courtyard - technically, this is also an exploited roof, so there are more of them than it seems. Working with yards above a parking lot is much like working with a rooftop beautification. In particular, there are few places where you can plant trees, because this requires a large layer of earth - one and a half meters on average.
Hence the artificial trees in the Western Kuntsevo UP-quarter?
- Exactly. There, the main boulevard is located on the roof of an underground parking lot. To form a boulevard, trees are needed, and the half-meter layer of earth above the parking lot allowed only shrubs to be planted. And in general, there was little space on the territory for planting trees - due to the large number of nets. To mitigate this problem, we have introduced wavy bersot alleys, reminiscent of groups of trees, and nautical tree signs.
How difficult and expensive is it to integrate large attractive elements into projects: amphitheaters, bunk gazebos or more complex things for outdoor activities, such as a rollerdrome and a climbing wall?
- I would not say that it depends on the class of real estate, besides, investments are required not too large, in comparison with the positive effect for the territory, which, in turn, leads to an increase in sales.
Most "attractions" arise as a response to natural or artificial terrain, or to various auxiliary structures, especially parking lots. For example, after the amphitheaters in Zapadny Kuntsevo, created above the entrances to the parking, we were asked to work with similar structures in Novy Tushino - this is how solariums appeared. A climbing wall in the residential complex "M-House" appeared where the parking lot protruded from the ground.
M-House is an interesting project: the house is located right next to the metro, on its ground floor from the outside there are shops, access to which should be free. In this area, from the Varshavskoe highway, we have placed a "sports core" with a single fence, inside which there is a rollerdrome, exercise equipment, volleyball and basketball courts. The treadmill encircles the "core" in a circle. During the day, the sports area is open to all comers, and at 22:00 the maintenance service locks it until the morning, so that the noise from balls and wheels does not prevent residents from sleeping. At the same time, access to shops and pedestrian transit through the territory remain open. All this, to a certain extent, helps to reconcile the surrounding residents with the emergence of a new home.
The presence of unusual elements in projects - something that others do not have - is one of the main ways to increase the attractiveness of housing. FGC Leader understands this very well.
What manufacturers of equipment for playgrounds do you prefer?
- Several large international manufacturers are represented in Moscow. Their offers are very diverse, and prices are approximately at the same level. Once, in Marfino, we were the first to install Danish Kompan sites in public areas. Now they are often found in Moscow, and some developers already seem "ordinary", so they ask us to supply something else, although Kompan regularly has new products in the catalog. We try to use products from different companies approximately equally, and invite, within one large complex, such manufacturers as Lappset, Hags, Proludic, Eibe, Kompan mentioned above, and so on. But, as a rule, there are elements of only one brand on one site - this is more convenient from the point of view of delivery and installation. In Breathing, the situation is atypical, where Eibe, Hags and Proludic got along on the court.
Recently, developments of Russian manufacturers, interesting in design and worthy in terms of quality, have finally begun to appear. We are starting to work with them too. In particular, I really liked the wooden playground from the Chekhard bureau in the Yasno-Pole eco-park. I hope that we will be able to cooperate with them in the near future.
I see that in the projects for the “Scandinavskiy” UP-quarter and the “Breathing” house, it seems that there is more wood and less color, benches with curved backs instead of geometrized, spectacular, but not very comfortable, in my opinion. Are these the features of specific projects, or is this how the style of the bureau develops?
- Regarding the style, I would not say that we have somehow consistently developed it in this direction. We try not to repeat ourselves, and try different things.
The economy plays an important role. As a rule, when building inexpensive housing, a rather modest budget is allocated for "urban furniture" - therefore we often have to limit ourselves to expressive, but simple techniques.
Breathing is a premium home, which by definition sets a slightly different bar for many parameters, including landscaping. For the "Scandinavian" we initially offered rather laconic objects, but the customer himself insisted on a more "organic" solution: smooth lines, rounding, more use of wood. The project has not yet been implemented, and we hope that this trend will be maintained.
Gradually, we realized that it is wrong to manufacture non-standard urban furniture on site by builders, it is much more productive, having designed the elements, ordering their factory production - this gives a significant positive difference in quality. In addition, quite good ready-made urban furniture has now appeared on the market. So, in "Dykhani" we used the products of the "Adanat" company, which we are quite satisfied with. We recently offered Adanat for serial production one of our developments, the PlanarWave bench, which is now sold on their website.
Are there other examples of serial production?
“For example, for Breathing, we developed double hemispheres of parking limiters called INFINITY 1028, and placed an order with one of the fiber-reinforced concrete manufacturers. In plan, they resemble an eight or an infinity sign, and are also a kind of hello to Stark. By the way, at the price they turned out to be no more expensive than usual.
All your projects start with an analysis of the normative margins: you get a kind of circles around houses, mines and other things. It is clearly seen that there is little room for maneuver. And you also need to breed children at three ages …
- Now the tendency prevails to mix everyone, both children and adults, to create opportunities for communication. Therefore, our playgrounds and sports grounds are not separated, they smoothly flow into each other, which is especially convenient for parents with children of different ages. It is more difficult with the zones of the so-called "quiet recreation for adults", which are provided in the regulations - it is not too clear what they are … We usually put ping-pong tables, chess pieces there, or mix these zones with something else.
But what about the table for dominoes and neighborly, shall we say, communication, as in the "Pokrovskie gates"?
- A table around which you can sit is almost taboo. Where he stands there will surely be noise at night. Modern residential complexes are too compact for this, so I think that tables are more likely to be in a park. Although not in all districts you can find a park or square, where gatherings until the morning, even with songs, will not bother anyone.
This issue, by the way, is connected with the transition from micro-district development to European-scale neighborhoods. They are smaller, and it is impossible to place inside them everything that is required by the microdistrict norms. Therefore, for a certain number of blocks it is necessary to allocate one undeveloped area, occupying it with a park, sports, or even parking. For a group of neighborhoods, neighborhood norms may still be enforceable. In Europe, you see this everywhere: the courtyards are compact, and playgrounds are mainly located in public squares and squares.
You are now experienced beautification masters. What is the current situation with regulations and standards in this area?
- In addition to the well-known joint venture for planning and development, which provides, among other things, basic requirements for improvement, in some regions, for example, in Moscow, there are special, more detailed standards for improvement. In the Moscow region, where there is no such standard, there is a law "On improvement", as well as local norms in some municipalities, for example, in the Leninsky district.
In my opinion, there are not so many inconsistencies, excessively strict or unrealizable requirements in the existing norms, but there are several serious problems. One of the most urgent is SanPin "Sanitary Protection Zones", which sets the distance from parking lots to windows of residential and public buildings, playgrounds and so on. When designing, we take into account these rather large distances, but in practice the norm is almost always violated: in the absence of parking lots at the entrance to the house, people leave their cars on fire lanes that are not intended for this. The situation turns out to be not completely manageable, this impossible norm must be radically revised towards less strictness. Firstly, the quality of cars has grown a lot now, and the exhaust is far from being as poisonous as it was when SanPin was written. Secondly, the state encourages the purchase of cars in every possible way: profitable car loans, recycling programs and support for the domestic auto industry work for this. If at the same time SanPin interferes with parking in the courtyards, and parking on the streets is paid, and not everywhere allowed, there is a serious contradiction. A more consistent policy is needed. And then, there is such a principle: if a law is impracticable, it must be changed at least in order not to discredit the legislation as a whole.
Another serious problem awaits designers on city streets. The fact is that neither the regulatory nor the legislative framework provides for the design and implementation of landscaping in isolation from capital construction. There are no clearly prescribed procedures for this case. However, in Moscow, for example, there is already a practical experience of such work, which has developed during the implementation of the My Street program. It is far from ideal, and not very convenient for studying: information can be obtained bit by bit from the numerous announcements about state tenders for the development and implementation of improvement projects, which are published on the Internet portal of public procurements. It takes a lot of patience to collect it, but this experience is worth studying and discussing in order for the topic to develop. I myself was engaged in such searches in the course of studies that were carried out by order of KB Strelka during the development of the Street Improvement Standard, but the results of these studies, unfortunately, have not yet been published.
Some new standards do appear. Many of them are not obligatory, but recommendatory in nature, but as methodological materials they can be very useful. In this series, it is necessary to mention the "Standard for the improvement of outgoing highways", developed by GlavAPU by order of the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Construction, an album of typical road structures for Moscow, published by Mosinzhproekt, as well as the published part of the already mentioned "Standard for the improvement of streets" from Strelka. For the first time, this document proposes the classification of city streets depending on their position in the city, the power of traffic and pedestrian flows, and other similar factors, as well as the procedure for determining the boundaries of the improvement, according to which these boundaries should include everything that is visible from the street, regardless of who owns and how these territories are used.
I also consider an important source of information to be the working drawings of the improvement, which are published on the public procurement portal during tenders for the implementation of improvement projects. It stores, among other things, information about projects, since the implementation of which quite a lot of time has passed, such as, for example, Triumfalnaya Square, Myasnitskaya or Malaya Dmitrovka streets. The correctness of the design decisions made can now be judged practically by walking along these streets and squares. Since the projects for their improvement at one time passed the state examination, the units and parts developed for them can be considered ready-made methodological materials for reuse. This, let's say, precedent methodological base is now actively replenished, which is good. But, perhaps, the scale of the projects included in it could be more modest.
