We Will Build This

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-11 03:43

Young architects - participants of the Biennale in Kazan, stopped “changing the world” and began to equip it thoughtfully and carefully. The projects are varied and thoughtful. Among the 29 finalists, an unexpectedly large number - five - made the quarters of the future in traditional architecture. There were about the same number of futuristic visionary statements, the rest suggested different versions of modernism, which can, in turn, be divided into modernism with ideas and a simplified version for a developer.

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The task for young, up to 35 years old, architects was proposed by the curator of the first youth biennale Sergei Tchoban. The participants had to design a block of no more than 250 by 250 m in size - one in which they would like to live themselves. After all, this is a key criterion for the quality of architecture. Architects often design “from above,” for an abstract Other, and do not live in their own buildings. The author of the House of Corviale in Rome, a monument of modernism in 1968, when asked why he does not live in his work, replied: "I am an architect, not a proletarian." So Sergei Tchoban dismissed social engineering, which everyone was tired of in the twentieth century, at the very first stage of the competition.

The Minister of Construction and Housing and Public Utilities Mikhail Men and the President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov promised to implement competitive projects, while the presidential aide Natalia Fishman and the Center for Strategic Development Agency became the “drivers of the process”. According to Mikhail Men, 30 subjects of the federation, headed by new young governors, need young chief architects "in direct subordination" who will become the second persons in the city. The minister promised to create a personnel reserve. Therefore, at the Biennale they are looking for heroes who can meet challenges, who are ready to learn management and travel to the regions. Someone has to implement the federal program “Formation of a comfortable urban environment”.

President Rustam Minnikhanov reacted very directly to the projects of the Biennale, his speech was an example of brevity: “Here are my emotions - I liked the sloped roofs and public spaces. Thanks to Choban, now we know where the youth wants to live, and we will try to build it. Natalia [Fishman] is a fine fellow, she has assembled such a representative body of experts. And we will hold this event every year”. Later, Sergei Tchoban confirmed that it is planned to hold a forum every year, and a biennale every two years. And during a tour of the exhibition, the president, pointing to this or that model, exclaimed: "This is what we will build." And knowing that projects - even large-scale international competitions such as the embankments of the Kaban lakes - are being implemented in Tatarstan with lightning speed, one can understand that such words of the President of Tatarstan are dear.

Natalia Fishman, a 26-year-old beauty with a brilliant career, who finished MGIMO, took part in the educational program of the Strelka Institute, led the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, organized the flourishing of Moscow parks and embankments together with Sergei Kapkov, and built it since 2015 200 public spaces in Tatarstan as Minnikhanov's assistant. “The goal of the Biennale,” said Natalia Fishman, “is to form an idea of what the city's environment should be like. And since we have the ability to design and build, this is a unique case for the participants."

A place

The Biennale was held in Innopolis - the Silicon Valley of Tatarstan, an analogue of the Moscow Region Skolkovo. This is an IT village and a university campus, taught in English by foreign professors. Students study for grants, and then either found a startup or work for three years here, in technology companies gathered from all over Russia in Innopolis. Innopolis is located 40 kilometers from Kazan, at the confluence of the Volga and Sviyaga, not far from Sviyazhsk; it has all the infrastructure for life, even a ski resort. And renting an apartment for a young specialist costs only 7,000 rubles a month. Now there are about 3000 inhabitants in the city, their average age is 30 years.

Winners

> you can get acquainted with the competition task here >>

First place

Citizenstudio, Moscow

The Golden Prize of the Biennale was received by the Moscow bureau Citizenstudio, Mikhail Beilin and Daniil Nikishin. Their project was also awarded by the Ministry of Construction and Housing and Utilities. Read more about this project.

here.

Second place

Nadezhda Koreneva, Moscow

The project in the style of restrained modernism is based on the following scenario for the development of the living environment: the territory of 240 x 240 m is divided into nine squares measuring 60 x 60 m. The basis of each of them is made up of universal urban cells of 30 x 30 m. In the center of each cell there is a staircase-elevator cage and engineering blocks. Structurally, each cell is two-level with the possibility of transformation into two single-level cells. This solution allows for high density with a low number of storeys of 4 - 6 - 8 floors and the possibility of transforming urban fabric while maintaining its character.

Third place

Oleg Manov, Petersburg

Oleg Manov from St. Petersburg, who won the bronze, suggested mixing different social groups within the quarter with the help of appropriate, extremely diverse, architecture. Block "A" - low-rise block buildings with courtyards and green terraces for a respectable family audience. Block B is a three-storey community center. Block "C" is a tower, a vertical dominant and a landmark of the quarter where the temporary residence apartments are located. Block "D" is a new typology, namely: a cluster of separate studios with spaces for joint housekeeping and pastime.

2Portals, Voronezh

The Republic of Tatarstan awarded the 2Portal bureau from Voronezh under the direction of Artur Harutyunyan. How much pitched roofs can do! Thanks to them and the brick, the architecture looks traditional while remaining neutral modernism, besides, the sloped roof in the project is only in half of the houses. The idea of the authors is to "form a personal space close to a private residential building." They divided the large quarter into several small ones with their own courtyards, plus a common square for everyone. The main part is occupied by the “traditional housing” format. In these houses, on the first two floors, there are ground houses with a separate entrance, front garden, terrace and basement. And the "active housing" format - for people with a busy lifestyle - is given one block, and public functions are concentrated there. The project was noticed and liked by many. Only composite materials I personally would not welcome.

Elena Kashirina, Igor Kashirin, Moscow

Igor and Elena Kashirins were awarded a special mention by the jury for their project of "cubes" in the spirit of 1970s structuralism. By alternating dense and transparent blocks, a megastructure of four rectangular buildings is formed. All together - one house that can grow indefinitely. The buildings have a common stylobate. There is a courtyard inside each building, and public squares fit in between the staggered buildings outside. The architectural solution is based on a 7.5 x 7.5 m module. This environment does not seem humane to me, but the shape based on one cube impressed.

WALL, Moscow

The WALL bureau received a special mention. The visionary project of vertical pivot cities embedded in a virgin natural landscape or in a historic city is not entirely new, but expressive. The core city consists of living capsules, which, according to the authors, serve as a "third skin" for a person (the first is one's own skin, the second is clothing). The head of WALL Ruben Arakelyan refers to Heidegger and Baudrillard, although I could not find a direct connection with their ideas in the project. The capsules fly and connect to the vertical city wherever the owner wants. When people fall in love and get married, they can combine the two capsules into one - or not, if desired. The walls of the capsule are media. If you need to chat off-line, you can go down to the historic city, and to breathe, respectively, into the landscape.

Nikita Timonin, Maria Lyashko, Petersburg

Nikita Timonin and Maria Lyashko, architects from St. Petersburg, chose a site in the historical center of Kronstadt, bounded by canals and the Gulf of Finland. Divided the large block into several residential clusters with public ground floors. Red brick, low number of storeys and pitched roofs create the Amsterdam flavor, although the authors focused primarily on the architecture of Kronstadt. Several buildings overlook the water, resembling the Kronstadt forts. It is proposed to make a landing stage on the embankment - a compact housing format.

B-Group, Yekaterinburg

The futuristic design of biosphere towers with a microclimate, which internally contain landscapes with low-rise housing located on different tiers, seems impracticable. Although in Singapore, parks in glass passages between skyscrapers are not uncommon. But all the same, I want to breathe normal air, not air-conditioned, and it is no coincidence that in this project the kindergarten is located in the open air.

MASS [SHTAB], Rostov-on-Don

The authors believe that the main feature of a modern city is friendliness towards people and nature. And this is not an unfounded statement. The project could be subtitled "Pink Art Deco". Fashionable pink color, many arched galleries, lots of greenery, generalized order, cheerful south with cypress trees. Linear parks in the second level create spaces for pedestrians, while cars remain below. Not everything is worked out here, but some ideas are quite viable.

Natalia Sablina, Timur Cherkasov

The project was developed on the example of a block in a residential area of Tushino, surrounded by industrial zones. The authors offer their own version of renovation: instead of demolishing, partially disassemble the houses, and use construction waste for new structures. All houses in the project are interconnected by a multitude of passages, and green exploited roofs should improve the ecology of the area; in addition, according to the authors' conviction, the use of roofs makes the quarter a prototype of a vertical city. Note that, in contrast to talk about durable and beautifully aging architecture, Natalya Sablina claims that the life of modern buildings is 20 years, and you should not expect more from them.

Anton Sevastyanov, Moscow

A lot of attention is paid here to the sports infrastructure and playgrounds - it seems that the author gave them all the free space, the quarter looks like it has descended from a school poster about healthy lifestyle. The architecture of houses, on the other hand, intensively develops the theme of diversity: two five-story buildings with sharp-pitched roofs represent a compromise between houses of the 1950s and modern ornamental tendencies, and houses-snakes, torn in half and turned from zigzags into hooks, work out the role of modernism and postmodernism … The theme of the heritage of the second half of the 20th century is closed, thus, for individual 125 x 250 m. However, the author raises the variety of facades to three types of fabric: corduroy, denim and tweed. On the underground level, Anton Sevastyanov places the market in its most modern sense, interpreting it as a “theater of food”.

Yaroslav Usov, Moscow

The quarter was designed for a real site in Moscow near the Polezhaevskaya metro station, between Sorge and Kuusinen streets. Respectable Stalinist houses and landscaped courtyards are reinterpreted in the forms of modernist architecture. The facade mesh keeps memories of the order system of the surrounding houses, and, I must say, good proportions are read, as in the Chipperfield architecture cleared of order. The historic surroundings are reminiscent of four shades of clinker bricks and large green courtyards.

Anastasia Yaremenko, Kazan

Anastasia's project, like the Voronezh bureau's project, evoked a warm reaction during the inspection of the Biennale exposition by Minister Menem and President Minnikhanov. Along with the human scale of the development, they noted the national Tatar motives in the form of colored facades with gable roofs (“the facade as a library of historical styles and national traditions”), as well as attention to the green zone. A real park is laid out near the block. Anastasia Yaremenko is a member of the Archdesant organized by Natalia Fishman to create public spaces. In particular, Anastasia is one of the authors of the Gorkinsko-Ometyevsky forest, which was saved from felling and turned into a fashionable place for walking and sports for residents of adjacent sleeping areas and all of Kazan.

Sergey Choban, curator of the 1st Youth Biennale: “This exhibition is an opportunity to understand what kind of neighborhoods we have for future cities. Frank Lloyd Wright thought that cities would become linear and the very concept of a city would disappear. Nevertheless, today we like to live in traditional cities. What forms of urban life are attractive? We asked this question to the contestants. People, free enough from the investor, began to paint the city in which they would like to live themselves. In today's picture of competitions, this is an incomparable result. In their quarters, architects answered the question of how dense housing should be (and this is not a very high density, on average 20,000 per hectare), what typologies are close to them, and many others.

As we have seen, this is not always a block or infinity buildings; it can also be line buildings. The problem with ordinary competitions is that we design some cities, and we go to rest and admire the architecture in others. In this case, variants of a human-scale environment have been created. Thirty-five years is the age of solutions, and all the contestants were pleased with very specific solutions, gave specific answers to the test task. The Biennale catalog can become a reference book for regional leaders”.

Biennale business program

The program consisted of talks about neighborhoods, an architect's career, and urbanism. Askar Ramazanov presented the scientific and creative residence Chekhov Api. Innopolis University hosted a hackathon [“hackers' marathon”, a forum for programmers, - approx. ed.], dedicated to writing programs related to architecture.

The most interesting, in my opinion, were the lectures of the member of the jury, the Danish architect Mikkel Frost and the chairman of the jury, Sergei Tchoban. Frost noticed that architects often talk about buildings, but the best house of his life did not have a noticeable architecture: Frost rented an apartment next door to friends and was happy in this mini-community. From these friends his bureau CEBRA was formed: at first we skated together, then we played in a rock band, and now we are engaged in architecture. He tries to keep these ideas of happiness in projects. A home for children left without parents in Kerteminda - several houses with a pitched roof (as in the children's drawing, that is, coinciding with expectations), a hamlet with turrets that children are not bored to master. “We veneered it with materials familiar to Denmark: wood and brick. There is a lot of stress in life, and then there are new materials - let at least something be pleasant and familiar,”said Frost. Other CEBRA projects were also rich in inventions, regardless of the budget and social status of the customer. Mikkel Frost is remembered for his love of life. And by the way, when I asked all the members of the jury whether there is one among the quarters presented at the Biennale in which they, the members of the jury, would agree to live, Mikkel Frost was the only one nodding happily. Considering that the overwhelming majority of successful architects live in the historical city, the projects of the Biennale (some), therefore, reach its level. It seems to me that this is a very high mark.

Sergei Tchoban gave a lecture on his joint book with Professor Vladimir Sedov “30:70. Architecture as a balance of power”. The hall was full. It is very important that young architects learn about the content of the book. It often happens that architects do not read books, they avoid reflection and doubts, so as not to damage manipura, the will chakra, which serves as a weapon in the fight against the customer. And in "30:70" important problems of modern architecture are just raised. Which is expressive if we are talking about 30 percent of iconic buildings and becomes faceless if we are talking about typical buildings, since it does not have sufficient detail and ages quickly and ugly. Sergei Tchoban urged to pay attention to the facades and create eternal shells that can survive any function that is characteristic even of the background buildings of historical cities. ***

Test Project

Following the readers' fair requests, we publish the Competition Project. It can be found in a somewhat abbreviated form on the website of the Biennale | back to the projects of the winners

“To develop a project of a mixed-development urban quarter, illustrating the contestant's ideas of what a comfortable and visually attractive quarter of a modern city should be - a quarter in which the contestant himself would want to live for at least several years.

The block must meet the following criteria:

• limited to 4 streets;
• functional content: mixed development with a predominance of housing (at least 80%); other functions are at the discretion of the participants, based on their idea of the needs of a modern city dweller;
• relief: flat;
• site dimensions: at the choice of the participant - from 200x125 m (min) to 250x250 m (max);
• building density: not less than 12,000 - not more than 30,000 sq. m per 1 hectare, at the choice of the participants, based on their ideas about the comfort of the living environment;
• number of storeys: at the discretion of the participant, must meet the above-mentioned density parameters and the task of creating a comfortable environment for a multifunctional quarter;
• the availability and quality of public spaces is at the discretion of the participants, based on their ideas about the comfort of the living environment."