Archi.ru:
What was your path to creating your own bureau?
Anton Barklyansky:
- Honestly, I was not going to become an architect. I had no idea about the existence of creativity in architecture - in Perm, where I grew up, the buildings for the most part are gray, boring, utilitarian. But I was fond of graphic design. I entered the Architecture and Art Academy in Yekaterinburg, where they taught the specialty I was interested in, and there in the library I found a hall of foreign literature with all periodicals on architecture, books, albums … Then I discovered the profession, I realized that you can do amazing things in it …
After the academy he returned to Perm and worked for seven years in the workshop of Viktor Stepanovich Tarasenko. Everything went well, but over time, a physical sense of the limit of development appeared: it became clear that here I would not be able to get the quality of architecture that we see in magazines, the purity of solutions and details that I wanted to strive for. I realized that I had to learn from foreigners. Therefore, having moved to Moscow, he first worked for the British, at McAdam Architects, and then for Eric van Egeraat.
And what did this experience give you?
- A sense of new prospects: it became clear where to grow further. I saw what a difference there is in approaches, that foreign architects look at many things differently. Here's a concept, for example. In Perm, there are usually twelve pages: a master plan, several basic plans, facades - and, in fact, that's all. And van Egeraat has booklets as thick as a good book, which contains versatile information about the historical and urban planning context, interaction with the environment, functional content, analysis of space at the level of pedestrians … Europeans invest time in pre-design studies - you need to understand how the space was formed, what it is is now to offer the right solution for future development. I think that the importance of this stage is underestimated in our country. Indeed, the future of this place, building, people living in it depends on how accurate the decision was at the concept stage, whether the place will develop or fade.
After van Egeraat's company, I worked for two years in the office of Sergei Skuratov. I got a good school of perfectionism - how to look for and find the best solutions. At the same time, Perm also did not let go, projects came from there and continue to come.
What were these projects?
- For example, we have developed a master plan for the campus of the Polytechnic University. The territory has been used by the university since the sixties of the last century, and the original master plan provided for the division of functions: hostels in one place, educational buildings in another, laboratory in the third … And all this in an atmospheric pine forest. We offered a solution on how to link the functions into the system and make this large area comfortable for pedestrians. And also, instead of one large multi-storey hostel, they developed several houses in the forest commensurate with the place, organizing a recreational space between them. Part of the campus with houses for students and teachers has already been built.
Also in Perm we have reconstructed a factory-kitchen - a historical building of the 1920s in the style of constructivism. It was important to return this building to its original image, lost in connection with the reconstruction in the 70s. We cleaned the facade of stained-glass windows, returned the original windows with characteristic deflections and other details.
These projects made it possible to create your own company in 2012. At first it was called simply "Anton Barklyansky's Architectural Workshop". Later, I decided that the company should have its own name - so that the people who work here feel their involvement. Then it got the name SYNCHROTECTURE.
What do you mean by this name?
“It combines the words“synchronization”and“architecture”. There are many tasks that an architectural project must combine. There are project participants, there are future users, there is a city, there is a customer, and the architect is obliged to take over the function of synchronizing their requests. In this case, it is possible to obtain an integral object that will bring value to the place and its users and give impetus for further development.
How is the work process organized in your workshop?
- In our case, it is probably wrong to say "workshop". In my opinion, an architectural workshop is a place where everything is determined by the Master, where everything is drawn by his hand or dictated by him. This is not the case in our practice. Yes, I am in charge of the work, but still we are the company. A team is formed for the project, where everyone is responsible for a certain area, depending on experience and inclinations, and there is no hierarchy - the chief architect, the leader, the junior … Dialogue is more important for us, when each of the participants expresses his point of view. Personally, I can be a full-fledged member of the team, or I can look from the outside, correct the result at key points and resolve difficult situations.
How do you usually start working on a project? From plans, volumes, maybe from a sketch of the facades?
- With questions. Questions that we ask ourselves and the customer in large numbers - why is this, why is that, and what is really important?.. Plans, volumes and everything else is secondary - they will naturally grow from the answers to the questions posed. So the first thing we do is take colorful stickers and write the questions in our head on them. We glue them on the wall and think in what order we will decide. It is important to find the correct wording, because as you ask a question, you will get the answer.
How do you build a relationship with a customer?
- The ideal option is when the customer is involved in the design process. After all, he is also responsible for the result, and it is important for him to understand where what solutions come from. We try to organize regular workshops when issues that arise are discussed together. Of course, the customer is not always ready for such work. Then we go through the entire preliminary process ourselves. We also go outside, observe, ask people, and bring the result of this work to the customer in the form of conclusions and recommendations. After all, this is also important for him - if only because the creation of the right environment, the atmosphere, directly affects sales.
Do you literally go out into the street?
- Yes. It is important to analyze the space, see how people live, what they would like to see here, what they want to preserve, and what, on the contrary, is lacking. The task of the architect is to expand his focus of perception, to understand the potential of the place, to collect the most complete picture: what would be appropriate here, not only in form, but also in content. And based on this, create a comfortable and interesting space - not from the point of view of an architect, but from the point of view of future users. This approach, it seems to me, helps to do something non-standard, unusual, not what you would do, as they say, "off the beaten path."
If in world practice the task of an architect includes not only the budget to calculate and come up with a structure, but also, most importantly, to understand how the building will function, how future users will interact with it, then we are only moving towards this understanding. When you immediately, without receiving additional information and without letting it pass through yourself, begin to draw, then decisions necessarily run into patterns formed by previous experience. Nothing new can be born in this way.
Are there any taboos in the profession for you, what you will never do?
- Build in the style of the past. I like to design in a historical environment, and this should be done very carefully, but in no case should I adapt to my “neighbors” in terms of style. A fake is always a fake - it is like a mask behind which there is no life. At the same time, I like to be in places really saturated with history. I remember that on my first trip to Europe I ended up in the modern Dutch city of Almere - it was built only at the end of the 20th century and stuffed with objects of modern architecture. A few hours later, I literally escaped from this space, from its visual monotony and boredom, to Utrecht, where the vibrant architecture of the 21st century coexists with centuries of history.
And modern remakes according to historical drawings are all the same as "plastic" ones. It is necessary to identify the truly historically valuable, and the new, on the contrary, to make a modern contrast. Then the object will play in a different way, and users will see in contrast how they were building at that time.
For example, when we worked on the concept of a new building for the French Lyceum in Milyutinsky Lane, together with the French partners Agence d'Architecture A. Bechu, we immediately agreed that the new volume would be light and transparent as opposed to the brick historical buildings, and through this transparency we would see the main communication flows that unite the entire complex into a single whole.
So you like contrasts?
- We can say that yes. Contrast of shape, texture, color … In particular, when choosing a color scheme, we often use the principle of contrast - the number of colors is minimal, while they are the background for one accent.
The same is true when working with a landscape: natural forms of nature enhance the impression of a strict architectural object. When we made the ASTRA residential complex in Perm, we immediately laid the contrast between the building and the landscape. If the building itself is rigid, rectangular in plan, with a sloping roof, then the courtyard was supposed to have soft, maximally natural forms of hills and trees, multiplying in the mirror of stained-glass windows. Perhaps the residents will subsequently implement this idea …
Another example is the concept of the NCCA Center for Contemporary Art on Khodynskoe Pole, which was included in the short list of the first stage of the international competition. Here, the geometric outline of the main facade of the building is located on the soft forms of the landscape, pulling it into the interior of the building.
What's in the works now?
- We are designing a house in a residential area ZILART. There will be an unusual facade with windows of different sizes. It was conceived as a natural pattern created by nature. We want it to be both visually understandable and "fluid" due to the lack of strict repetition - like a picture of a rock created by the wind or, say, an animal's skin.
There are also several objects in Perm: a building of the Mining Institute is being built, a mansion is being designed on the central historical street with an extension to it of an office complex. There we solve the problem of creating a mix of functions, preserving the historical object and harmoniously connecting it with a new, modern volume. That is, again, contrast.
Are you personally more interested in designing residential or public buildings?
- At the moment, the public fascinates me more. Many users simultaneously create an interesting tangle of activity that needs to be cleverly unraveled. In addition, there is a lot of freedom in shaping in public buildings. Another thing is that a residential building can also be designed differently, outside the box, only this new form - it must come from the inside, as a response to a request from society for other housing. This, for example, happened in the 1930s, when new requests led to an interesting search for new forms. I would gladly take part in such a process.
What in your work gives you the greatest pleasure?
- It makes me happy when I manage to come up with a new scheme for organizing space, the likes of which I have not seen before. Not every order implies this, but it happens that you are faced with a really difficult task with a large number of factors and limitations, and you need to find a non-standard move to solve this problem. How to create an interesting, but at the same time, intuitive space, combine several functions in one complex, correctly build a system so that it is not perceived as complicated and confusing, separate all flows, understand what is really important and what you can do without … How, for example, it was with the elite residential complex ASTRA in the central planning area of Perm. As a result, we got a unique object for Perm, organized according to the principle of perimeter building with a closed yard for residents.
Where else do you see your strengths as an architect?
- Probably because I strive to rethink any task, to look from a different angle. Suggest a cleaner solution that often seems out of the ordinary at first. My first mentor, Viktor Stepanovich Tarasenko, once voiced the idea that I break stereotypes … Probably, this is what I really strive for. Because I like to be surprised: I would like there to be more amazing things in this world.
Also, I manage to catch world trends and take them into account in my projects, thanks to this, doing something new, unfinished. When you see the directions in which architecture is developing and use them now, this creates spaces that will be convenient for users for a long time. By the way, this is a very useful skill, given that many years pass from the beginning of a project to its implementation. Therefore, it is especially important already at the starting point to lay down solutions that will not look outdated in ten years. It is interesting for me to follow trends and take them into account in my work, it often happens by itself, intuitively.
Then, perhaps, it is logical to ask, how do you imagine the architecture of the future?
- An obvious trend that is becoming a reality is energy efficient design. For example, when we were working on the bid for the Ryde Central Hub in Sydney, there was an unambiguous requirement: all solutions were LEED Platinum. For Australia, this is already the norm. Unfortunately, in Russian reality, this approach is not yet relevant.
Regarding more distant prospects, the first trend is that architecture is no longer so "reinforced concrete". Already now we see that buildings are becoming more "alive", adapting to weather conditions, climate, even to the change of day and night.
The second trend is the desire to return to humans the natural environment that we almost lost with the growth of megacities. The simplest example is that now more and more objects are being designed with a huge amount of greenery on the facades, living plants are also appearing inside buildings - for example, real trees grow everywhere at the airport in Singapore. Thus, we create a more comfortable environment for humans.
The third direction is total digitalization. In the near future, sensors built into the technological system of the building will collect information about users, about their flows and preferences and give feedback very quickly, thanks to which the house will learn to change itself, for example, the energy consumption scheme or some other functions, and possibly, even the color of the walls - if, for example, it "understands" that its existing inhabitants do not like it. Thanks to this, we will probably begin to learn something new about ourselves.
As a result, the approach to design will change, because it will be possible to automatically take into account the entire pool of collected information. An architect will become a little bit of a programmer who builds codes - a lifestyle architect.
Is there something that unites all your projects?
- Despite the fact that an architect solves a huge number of very different problems in his work, we strive to make the result as simple as possible. I do not want to create chaos: everything should be simple and clear, although not always straightforward. Probably, this can be called a kind of common denominator of our projects - internal complexity, hidden behind external simplicity.
