Oleg Karlson is known as the author of unique private houses, an expert in wooden housing construction. In the spring of this year, his architectural bureau and the GOOD WOOD company, famous for their experience in the construction of country houses according to standard, serial projects, released a joint line of houses. New projects have already gone on sale and are of interest to potential customers.
About cooperation with GOOD WOOD in an interview with Oleg Karlson.
Not every customer is able to pay for the author's architecture. Most people turn to companies that build houses according to standard projects, and becoming customers, choose their future home based on them
- It is clear that a typical project is not an author's architecture, where, for example, we do everything to the nail and landscape design, and where the customer is ready to wait several years while the project is being created and the house is being built, he is ready to pay for the author's design and supervision as much as it is really worth it. Most customers are looking for a standard project and a company that will build a house for this project quickly and inexpensively.
Your critical attitude to typical projects is well known. What are the drawbacks in them?
- The problem with typical projects is that their architects are often fond of drawing facades, while the house on the site may not be located in an optimal way, the logistics of the house are not quite convenient for moving inside, there are extra areas. As a result, we can see rugged plans, unreasonably complex roofs, which will then need to be repaired every year, there is no place at the entrance where you can take off street clothes, a kitchen in the opposite corner from the entrance, a kitchen where the owners will have to drag bags through the whole house, steps of stairs which will have to be climbed due to their incorrect height. All this, of course, is not in one project, this is a general list of shortcomings that wander in a different set for different projects.
Why is this happening?
- From my point of view, there are two reasons. The first is that typical projects are created by people who do not understand that a country house has a different device. A country house is not a small-sized apartment with a kitchen of 5 meters, a fenced off door so that smells do not spread, with a bedroom of nine to ten meters. This is a country house. It requires a vestibule and an entrance area, where you can leave street clothes and shoes without moisture and dirt being then in the "clean" area. The kitchen in the right country house is located next to the entrance so that you don't have to drag purchases across the entire first floor to the opposite corner. The value of a country house lies in the fact that it allows you to create a large common space where the family gathers. For this, the kitchen is combined with the living room and dining room, and then all family members have the opportunity to live a common life in this space. A sufficient area of bedrooms is also set by the correct layout. Understanding the structure of a country house is the key to successful plans and beautiful architecture.
And the second reason for problem projects is often the customers themselves, convinced that they know how their future house should be arranged, and demand to complete the project according to their ideas.
Take any region of Russia and you will find houses built according to standard designs with a very low level of architectural solutions. Such houses are subject to dismantling or reconstruction.
But any individual home buyer deserves to live in a beautiful, comfortable, warm home. And he's counting on it by reaching out to companies like GOOD WOOD.
How did it happen that you, dealing with unique houses, began to cooperate with a company that builds houses according to standard projects?
- The first acquaintance with GOOD WOOD took place at the conference of the Association of Wooden Housing Construction, where I was invited to speak. The conference was held in the company's stunning new office in Zelenograd - a wooden multi-storey building GOOD WOOD PLAZA, the first building of this scale in Russia, built of wood. I spoke and said everything I think about typical projects, and about the houses that are being built according to these projects.
Then I was invited by GOOD WOOD - to speak in front of their customers and architects. It was there that we met the owner of the company, Alexander Dubovenko. Dubovenko was hooked on my harshness in assessing what construction companies were designing, and he came to my workshop in the Sokol village with a camera and shot two videos that many had seen.
In these videos, using the example of the wooden houses of the village, you explain the difference between what is being built now and good architecture. Based on the results of filming and communication, did you decide to collaborate?
- We have many areas of cooperation. For example, GOOD WOOD plans to build demonstration houses next to GOOD WOOD PLAZA. I was asked to analyze projects. All projects had some kind of flaws in the plans and facades. Alexander and I decided to redo the projects. Two houses have already been made, the next in turn - in the classics.
We have also created a whole line of standard projects for combined technology. Four options that are now on sale. Let's look at the responses of people. They can already be seen on the website gwd.ru with a link to JSB Karlson and K.
Your cooperation with GOOD WOOD is aimed at creating qualitatively new standard projects. What is it for GOOD WOOD, of course, they want to learn how to make very good projects from you. Why do you need it?
- Probably for me this is a mission. The stars of our architecture are engaged in stellar architecture, they are not in the middle. Someone had to start working on the architecture of typical projects. For this, the heading "Doctor House" was created, where I tell you how to make a house, starting with how to plant it on the site, analyze the houses built and rework the projects according to which they were built, showing what was and how it became.
Why with GOOD WOOD?
- Alexander Dubovenko has created a wonderful company, very active, developing and striving to become a leader in wooden housing construction. And he manages to build quality and improve technologies all the time, he succeeds in promoting himself in the market: 30 new orders per month is a good level. But to be a leader, you have to be impeccable in everything, that is, to bring architecture in line with the high building level. The point is not only to get 150 new orders every month, but to build good houses. Let GOOD WOOD be the first, and you see, the rest will follow.
What is the purpose of revising standard projects, what exactly is changing in them?
- The goal is to improve existing projects of the most popular houses with customers. On the same areas, in the same axes, we make the most functional space, reducing transit zones, increasing the usable area.
How do you do it? Share your skill
- In our work, we rely on the scheme. The scheme in architecture is like the notation alphabet in music - there are only seven notes, which make up a lot of musical works, like twelve plots in literature, on which all literary works are built. So is the house: there are several schemes, on the basis of which you can make completely different architecture. It is based on a modular design principle invented long before us. All previous architecture is built on this principle, all temples were built according to this principle. There can be nothing accidental in architecture.
You are probably asked how to make a beautiful facade without pilasters and carved roofs?
- They ask all the time. And here we have to explain that the classic is not a portico with columns, it is an order, it is a special logic of building space. The classics in wood are very interesting. All of Moscow before the fire was in a tree.
Wood is a versatile, very plastic material - it can be built from it in the classics, in modern style, in modern style. And beauty and harmony must be sought in simplicity. The schemes of all Palladian houses are simple, and what a variety of architecture.
If GOOD WOOD houses are made correctly, then customers will see how they can be done beautifully and simply. And the more good houses there are, the better. The higher the level of the customer's culture and the bar of mass architecture will rise.
