Recently, a strong team of designers from workshop No. 22 of Mosproekt JSC under the leadership of Mikhail Alekseev moved to PROEKTUS LLC. Almost simultaneously - this summer - Rustam Kerimov's “A-GA” bureau, together with his old friend Mark Safronov from PROEKTUS, organized the ATOM bureau. AM PROEKTUS will lead large projects, stages P and RD, and ATOM associated with it will deal with ideas, concepts, contests, exhibitions and much more, representing the creative part of the team. As a result, a full-cycle company is formed, capable of leading a project from idea to implementation, without losing, as the architects hope, all the most valuable along the way. We figure out what's what, what plans and what is the context of this transformation.
Yuri Safronov
He worked in workshop No. 22 of Mosproekt JSC, better known as Meerson's workshop, until 2000, after which he left and founded AM PROEKTUS, but kept friendly relations with Andrey Meerson, who remained in the workshop until 2006. He worked as part of a team in the ABD architects company of Boris Levyant, later he collaborated a lot with Pavel Andreev. Supervises AM PROEKTUS, teaches at the Department of Life Sciences in Moscow Architectural Institute.
Mark Safronov
Son of Yuri Safronov.
Studied at the EDAS school of Vladislav Kirpichev. In his graduation work, he investigated methods of transforming an “intuitive” parametric field into a form, including with the help of a computer program of a medical specialty.
He is passionate about urbanism, new technologies, nonlinear and parametric design, programming. Attends programmers' hackathons, considers their format productive for architectural discussion. He works at AM PROEKTUS, where he has ideas for cooperation with LAP Landscape & Urban design by Sander Lapa, a number of competition projects and educational initiatives.
Rustam Kerimov
Known for participating in the Archstoyanie festival. The founder of the bureau A-GA, the portfolio includes projects from art objects to large residential complexes and public buildings. For workshop No. 22, Mosproekt and his team worked on competitive projects, complementing its predominantly classicizing architecture with modernist proposals. The project of the building of the Krasnodar Non-State Expertise became one of the finalists of the City Signs award.
Rustam and Mark studied together at the Department of Life Sciences. Both fondly recall their internship in Japan, where the work of the interns was supervised by Vasily Aurov from the Moscow Architectural Institute, and from the Japanese side, Aizenman's disciple, the deconstructivist Hiromi Fuji. In the early 2000s, Mark and Rustam worked together for some time, including on projects for the improvement and catering for Gorky Park.
Polycentricity
ATOM is not an abbreviation, but rather a sign designed to emphasize the multidirectionality of tasks united around a common center - the project: “We see ATOM as a group of interdisciplinary specialists that will not only design buildings and participate in architectural competitions, its field of activity will be wider - landscape, exhibition museum projects. ATOM's interests will include educational cases related to urban planning. We are also interested in the development of new facade materials. We plan to go international; Yes, we are already working a lot with foreign colleagues,”the architects say.
Contests
Now ATOM plans to participate in twelve competitions a year. The idea was planted by Junya Ishigami, who participates in twenty competitions a year with a high win rate - Mark Safronov talked a lot with Ishigi, working on the adaptation of his project for the reconstruction of the Polytechnic Museum; then "Proektus" was a sub-designer of the 14th workshop of "Mosproekt-2" Pavel Andeev.
Experience of participation in competitions, including large ones, is available. Renovation competition for the territory of Dorkhimzavod on Berezhkovskaya embankment in 2012 and competition for the Rosatom pavilion in 2015. Co-authored with
LAP Landscape & Urban design is a competition for the reconstruction of Danilovsky market with a proposal to clean it of late layers, organize a spiral space that enthralls visitors inside and accentuate the dome of Nodar Kancheli with a tapestry hanging of lightboxes. With them, and in the same 2015, there was a competition for the improvement of the Kristall plant, where the project, the main component of which was the Forum - an open but sheltered square, received the third place.
In 2013-2014, the concept of renovation of the Hammer and Sickle plant, developed by PROEKTUS in a consortium with MVRDV and LAP Landscape & Urban design, won first place in the competition for the concept of redevelopment of the Hammer and Sickle plant according to the jury. The project attracted the attention of experts by its delicacy in relation to industrial aesthetics and the “spirit of the place”: “We saw our task in showing that an industrial zone is not a kind of“failure”in the city, but an established territory with its own structure, character, monuments and paths. In any such territory there is something that would be worth preserving; we kept some of the designs. Parceling of blocks was inscribed in the spots of factory buildings. In addition, the project was good in terms of economics, we calculated everything so that the customer could not build right away, but work with the buildings of the plant one by one”. The customer chose another project for implementation, since then there was no talk of preserving the charm of the prom.
One of the competitive options from Mosproject-1 for the 2015 competition for the building of the Parliamentary Center in the Mnevnikovskaya Poima was developed by the A-GA group with Stepan Lipgart: an imposing building with large courtyards in the spirit of power plants of the first five-year plans. There were two variants of a figurative solution on the same planning structure: one in the spirit of Stepan's favorite architecture of the 1930s, the other ours - completely modernist. A year ago, A-GA participated in the competition for the second stage of the Golden Island-2, along with such bureaus as SPEECH, Sergey Skuratov architects, Tsimailo, Lyashenko and partners.
Urbanism
Most of the listed competitive projects are urban: the winding path along the Danilovsky market, the Forum on Kristall, the preservation of the industrial aura of the Hammer and Sickle. Another competitive project, also jointly with LAP, is a quarter in Belgorod, where the main topic was “the possibility of further development” and the compaction of the development, as well as the separation of private and public spaces. In the center of the block there is a large green area surrounded by buildings with geoplastics.
Now, after the formation of the ATOM group, the architects are working with a project for the development of the territory of hotel complexes on the coast in Anapa.
From the principles of ATOM's approach to urban tasks: a sense of security and the connectedness of parts should be inherent not only in the closed space of one building, but also in the open urban space. The architects consider the denser environment to be a positive trend - they are sure that high-tech industries should not be removed, but integrated into the urban environment.
New facade materials
One of the interests of Rustam Kerimov is the combination of design with a kind of technical creativity dedicated to the comprehension and adaptation of materials, new and not so much. “The economic situation in Russia is pushing us to offer our own solutions, more technological and innovative, instead of purchasing expensive imported materials. Our principles are: provocation, innovation, beauty."
For example, for an office “
Krasnodar Expertise”A-GA developed cassettes: steel was bent, perforated, filled with illumination. The same company that made the cassettes certified them along with the cladding system - a product that has a certain cost and can be used in other buildings. By the way, the script for drawing the perforation was written there by Maxim Malein.
Now, for Krasnodar, architects are making the facades of an office building, using lamellas with parametric properties there, they will change the image depending on the angle of view.
“In Yaroslavl, we are building a residential complex near Yakovlevsky Bor,” says Rustam Kerimov, “we have come up with profiled sheets and panels in combination with facing clinker for this project. Both materials "played", and with metal cassettes on 50% of the surface, the economy is acceptable."
What's under construction now
ZhK near Yakovlevsky Bor is cast in concrete. In Voronezh, a house on Grodno Street is almost finished, currently one of the tallest residential buildings in the city, 28 floors. A house is being built on Dmitrovskoe highway.
PROJECT, in co-authorship with Pavel Andreev, is building a residential complex "Dostoyanie" for the GALS company; the work of the company "Donstroy" begins in the Ramenki district, the urban planning concept of which belongs to the British architects LDA, PROEKTUS - support.
Branding
And naming, the design component of the project is included in the range of topics that ATOM will develop. A design company will help ATOM in this.
Pixies, they also make an updated version of the AM PROJECTUS website.
Small scale
The productive hobby of Rustam Kerimov, supported by Mark and Yuri Safronov: “work with small forms is absolutely necessary, only it supports professionalism and responsibility”. Understanding in a broad context, small forms are a lot, from private interiors and houses to festival art objects.
Growing house: a low-rise timber house designed in an open development paradigm. At first, the summer kitchen was attached to the old cedar bathhouse, then the guest rooms were gradually added, a yoga room, everything was connected by a transition, and the bathhouse was eventually completely included in the house, it was inside.
A recently completed villa near Kazan is a wooden modernist parallelepiped house; two villas are under construction in Sochi.
House-wood box: a dwelling for the builders of a villa on the site, a miniature house, the facade of which is interpreted as a woodpile. Firewood is brought in and carried away, the facade is constantly changing, "living". The main house-villa was never built, and the house-firewood became famous as the winner of the ArchiWOOD prize.
Kibitka: “a house on wheels for the troupe of artists directed by Yuri Muravitsky, who performed at Archstoyania. It was a total theater, they were an exhibit, because they lived behind glass, one wall was glass, and the house itself was a stage. It turned out even more interesting than the performance. It was implemented on the basis of the PAZ 32053 bus. The bus had to be strengthened, a steel frame made, and only light materials were used to prevent the suspension with wheels from sinking into the ground. Everything worked out, he travels, in Kibitka you can live like in a hotel. When Polissky's "Gothic" was burned, it was a real art car, a DJ was sitting in it, music was rushing from it."
Teaching
An educational project by Mark Safronov, which will start next year, is a joint project with Svetlana Serebryakova: “She was involved in projects for Perm and VDNKh, was at the origins of the Urban Forum and has vast experience in urban planning. The course is designed for specialists at the level of workshop managers, it consists of five to six modules of three days each, with full immersion - a format similar to a hackathon. The task is to expand competencies: so that the architect can act as a competent customer for the study of territories. Nowadays, the territory is often “dumped” on an architect with ready-made parameters, function and areas - we want to help them take a more active part in the process even at the level of idea formation”.
Recently, the interior of the children's technopark - "Science City" MASI on Profsoyuznaya street, designed by Rustam Kerimov together with graphic designer Anna Zernova, artist Lilia Bores and vice-rector of MASI Svetlana Zabelina, was completed: “there students and schoolchildren are taught modern technologies; there are classes in robotics, architecture, design, graphic design, 3D modeling. There are printers, there are lecture spaces, a cinema lecture hall, a museum of technology and a coworking space”.
Rustam and Mark were invited to teach at Naukograd, the plans are a series of seminars "Cities of the Future" - the result should be a prototype of the house of the future, which will be installed on the territory of the technopark.
Exhibitions
A colleague of Rustam and Mark, Natalia Zaichenko, who participated in early A-GA projects: in particular, in the work on the economical but vigorous Patriot house with triangular balconies on brick walls, and in the work on the reconstruction project of the Ostankino television center, implemented in the form of its coloring in the colors of the tuning table, - now, since 2013, has been engaged in
design of exhibitions.
“I've always wanted interdisciplinarity and drive - especially after five years of experience with working papers. In 2014, I graduated from the Strelka Institute, which resulted in a performance and an exhibition - this was my first designed exposition. I really like to create a conceptual elegant background for different content and different scales, because a modern person needs a comfortable atmosphere that enhances the quality of perception of visuals and information. I call it expositional urbanism."
Natalia owns the design of five cosmoscow contemporary art fairs, the opening of the Year of Qatar in the Moscow Manege, several forums of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives. She also works in a more chamber format, for example, with the design of the exposition of the Museum of Russian Impressionism and the Polytechnic Museum. The plans are to create a modular system of exhibition spaces. Natalia Zaichenko will be in charge of the exhibition department of ATOM.
Provocation, innovation, beauty
When you ask Mark Safronov and Rustam Kerimov about their principles, the answer is something like this (see above). Comments, I think, are superfluous.
