At the dawn of a new era
The idea of how the development of New Moscow might look like, as conceived by the developers of the concept of annexing new territories located in the southwestern direction, between the Moscow Ring Road and the Kaluga Region, will now remain a mystery. What has happened over the past five years on almost 150 hectares of the former Moscow Region land shows that the systematic systematic implementation of complex large-scale projects of new urban settlements, such as the construction of Magnitogorsk by Ernst May's design, is a skill that has been lost in our vast expanses. And if there is reason to count on some kind of qualitative breakthroughs, then only thanks to the involvement of leading Russian architectural firms in the design of buildings and complexes.
The history of New Moscow began strangely and develops strangely. The issuance of the order to expand the area of Moscow surprised many. The struggle against monocentricity and the creation of new centers of gravity that could pull labor to the periphery and reduce the load on the transport system, declared as the main reasons, did not, by and large, require the transfer of land to the capital's jurisdiction. Everything could have been resolved at the level of agreements between the governments of Moscow and the region, but "we went the other way" and the area of the city more than doubled, and the map took on a bizarre shape. The grandiose competition "Big Moscow" for the concept of the development of the Moscow agglomeration did not help the business of clarifying the constructive scheme of "castles in the air". The strategies that were developed on it remained on paper. And first of all, the plan for the construction of a new Government Center in the village of Kommunarka. In 2013, it became clear that officials would not leave their homes in the center of Moscow. And the plans for the development of the Novomoskovsk land, which is still free from the rapidly growing residential areas, had to be adjusted. The pathetic government center was abandoned in favor of a more modest administrative and business center, which was supposed to be located between the reconstructed Kaluzhskoye Highway and Kommunarka and demonstrate the viability of the polycentric concept. On an area of approximately 300 hectares, it is planned to build a MISiS campus, various public and business complexes, as well as transport infrastructure facilities, including two stations of the Moscow metro "Kommunarka" and "Stolbovo", as well as the administration buildings of the Troitsky and Novomoskovsky administrative districts (TiNAO) … Out of a long list of planned multifunctional projects, the prefecture was the first to be designed and built. And the TPO "Reserve" team under the leadership of Vladimir Plotkin was supposed to come up with the idea of what a compact administrative center of dispersed New Moscow could be.
Put in place
All the above background of the appearance in the fields of Kommunarka of the building of the ADTs of the Tyumen Autonomous District is not just an introduction in context, but a direct explanation of how the design took place and what factors influenced the image and volumetric-spatial composition of the building.
When in 2014 TPO "Reserve" began to develop the concept of the future center, a development project had not yet been prepared for an area of 300 hectares. The red lines, routing of the gas pipeline and the main access roads from the side of the Kaluzhskoye highway and Kommunarka village were roughly identified, but not approved. The location of the building was indicated as "plus or minus in this area." It was a real urban void.
It would seem that in this situation with zero dependence on the environment, one could design for pleasure, but in reality, imaginary freedom has become more of a hindrance than a stimulus. Vladimir Plotkin comments on the situation with the landing of the building: “The difficulties were enormous. It is much easier to design an object when there are constraints, when the context is clear and you know what to do. And here we were solving a problem with a hundred unknowns. We had to create a building that would meet the tasks of future development, which had not even been formulated yet, making only guesses about what the environment would be like and how best to place the object itself. Without the main visual connections, it was not easy to clarify its volumetric solution and compositional accents."
The building of the future prefecture was "washed by waves" of the only planned communication links and planning lines of the future administrative and business center. Under their influence, gradually, the location was clarified - the center of the intersection of several roads, and a rounded shape of the building was found, corresponding to its compositional role as a kind of hinge connecting residential and commercial buildings. But not in the form of a circle, but rather resembling a comma, with rounded and extended parts facing a smooth arc towards Kaluzhskoe highway, but a complex conjugation of two main blocks and the main entrance, oriented towards the neighboring residential area and a triangular square in front of the road leading to Kommunarka and towards the future metro station.
“We worked with simple forms, not trying to create an urban focus. The building had to be compact enough, not high and could not pretend to be a dominant in any way. Therefore, we decided to play on restrained plastic and the contrast of straight and rounded planes. The form was invented very quickly. This "comma" was the most "enchanting" version of our sketches. We weren't even sure the customer would approve it. I believe that we have brought the degree of permissible spatial unrestrainedness to the maximum in it,”Vladimir Plotkin explains the choice of the building's form.
Catamaran principle
In addition to the absent environment, the building's form was influenced by its functional purpose, namely, a predetermined two-partness. Despite the vast territory occupied by the Troitsky and Novomoskovsky administrative districts, the prefecture, called upon to manage all this "restless economy", according to sober preliminary estimates, could not occupy more than a third of the planned 30 thousand square meters.2 total area. The rest was to be saturated with all the basic functions required for a modern business center: office space with the ability to organize both an open plan and separate blocks with dedicated offices, a service infrastructure with a cafe, meeting rooms, a bank and a conference room. The form of the plan, reminiscent of a "comma", fully answered this binary problem. A part of the round “dot” was allocated for the prefecture, and a long “tail” for the business center intended for rent.
It is not the first time that TPO "Reserve" uses these techniques of working with two-part compositions in its projects. The conventionally defined typology of "catamaran" can be attributed to the project
the headquarters of the United Aircraft Corporation in Zhukovsky; and the Aeroflot - Russian Airlines office complex. But in each of them the architects find a new reading and create unique volumetric compositions, varying proportional articulations, using combinations of different materials and the structural solution of the outer shell of the building.
The two parts of the complex, seven stories high, are separated by a lowered two-story block occupied by a spacious atrium. This joint hinge of the complex contains public spaces and functions that may be useful to both the employees of the prefecture and their future neighbors. The outer outline of the building is outlined along a tense arc, and all changes in shape occur along clear straight planes, as if cut by a giant blade, cutting off pieces from the initially monolithic volume that interfere with its function.
The first floor of the block of the prefecture (our "point") is deepened into the body of the building, creating the feeling of a cylindrical volume hovering above the ground. In addition, one third of the extended part is torn off the ground and rests on an oval "leg", inside which there is an escape staircase and technical rooms. This solution has no utility function or purpose. This is a purely artistic gesture dictated by the laws of shaping within a given compositional framework. It is interesting that this technique, which was actively used in the architecture of the 20th century, so easily and appropriately arises and fits into the building created in our time and meets the most current trends.
The volumetric-spatial composition of the ADC bears the recognizable features of the architecture of the TPO "Reserve". With the outward simplicity and brevity of the form, the precisely orchestrated struggle of contrasting principles is embedded in it and is very well felt: compactness and length, straightness and roundness, heaviness and soaring. Thanks to this inner conflict, enclosed in an emphatically restrained shell, the authors achieve the necessary degree of emotionality in architecture.
Multiple facades
The work with the facades took the architects of TPO "Reserve" almost as much time as the search for the exact location of the complex. The reason for this was the need to find one single ideal solution, which was both simple but variable; rhythmic but not monotonous; respectable, but not expensive; modern, but not high-tech; and at the same time it would be most beneficial to emphasize the contrast of rounded and rectilinear planes. And it would be nice if it was white or almost white. Yes, and one more thing: it was supposed to be a proprietary lattice structure that greatly simplifies the identification of the buildings of the TPO "Reserve" bureau in the chaotic Moscow buildings.
The number of sketch options for facades is impressive. Not so much by the fact that so many facades can be designed for a small building (this is just not a problem), but by the fact that the architects were able to stop and objectively choose one option. However, the final version is so logical and so ideally fits the form of the complex that it gives no reason to suspect it of an undeserved victory.
A light gray lattice with narrow openings and narrow piers, two stories high, wraps the building along the outer rounded surfaces. The rhythm of thin vertical pilasters emphasizes even the slight bend of the extended body, working like colonnades in the wings of the Kazan Cathedral. And the double height gives the facades a monumentality, albeit due to the visual decrease in height (the building looks not seven, but four stories). In contrast to the external facades, the internal rectilinear surfaces are made of glass. Huge stained-glass planes, like cuts, expose the interior of the building. Vladimir Plotkin declares the principle underlying the facade solution in the following way: “From a tectonic point of view, everything is clear - there is a rounded body of the building, which is cut by straight planes. Everything that is cut off is glass. Only the outer shell remained of the curvilinear generatrix.
The introduction of additional material marking of surfaces of different geometry works great without destroying the integrity of the overall composition, which would be imperfect if the authors did not introduce an accent element into it, which at first glance violates the general principle, but in fact works for its effectiveness. On a part of the outer facade of the extended building, a grid of walls has been removed. Part of the facades of the second and third floors above the place where the body rests on a cylindrical column with a staircase were left purely glass. The stained glass plane, devoid of the protective frame of pilasters, looks especially light and even fragile and serves as a kind of finishing mark marking the end of the structural tape.
Formal lessons
The composition of the ADC building, made up of simple shapes: a cylinder, a segment, a parallelepiped, and even solved in a light gray, almost white color, is very reminiscent of academic exercises that are so popular in the first years of architecture faculties. They need to convey some kind of emotion or state only with the help of pieces of cardboard and paper. And only looking at the already built building, feeling exactly how the conjugation of simple forms work on a real scale, you begin to understand what exactly the teachers want to explain to frivolous students. Perhaps this is the essence of architecture and the purpose of design - not just to make a box for a function, but to evoke an emotional reaction by structuring the space. And in our case - also to create an aesthetic standard by which it will be possible to compare all future development of the geometric center of Greater Moscow. The main thing is that this standard does not remain the only example of high-quality architecture in the fields of Kommunarka.
