The apart-hotel is planned to be built at the beginning of Dolgorukovskaya Street, in an alley with the wonderful Moscow name Pykhov-Tserkovny, opposite the eastern wing of Mikhail Filippov's Italian Quarter. In contrast to the giant neoclassical residential complex of Filippov, the site inherited by WALL is miniature - somewhere 80x65 m, and even with a cut corner, about 0.5 hectares. But, by modern standards, in the very center, just beyond the Garden Ring. Now here, behind the thickets of American maple, there is a typical building of the late 1930s, similar to a school one - right in the middle of the site, at an angle to the street, but stretching strictly from west to east; once it belonged to Stroyizdat.
The architects are radically changing the approach to the site, restoring the red line and offering this already quite expensive part of Moscow a relatively unusual typology of two- and three-storey apartment-villas. The houses are elongated rectangular "pencil cases", but rather large: the width of each is 7-8 m, the length is 15-20. And they are arranged in a free, but readable fan, the center of which falls on the round square of the Italian Quarter, but not exactly, but approximately, like casually knotted dominoes. Mikhail Filippov, working, in particular, on the Italian quarter, developed the idea of Roman ruins "inhabited by barbarians" - so, two chains of villas in some way can be understood as a suburb of these conventional ruins, although in reality, of course, a large-scale palace. A suburb that, in the urban planning sense, cannot ignore the magnetism of its pompous neighbor - but also resists by all means, in particular, by the mobile illogicality of various angles, at which are placed similar to each other, but completely different volumes of villas.
The architects explain the diversity of the apartments as follows: they tell seventeen stories of different families "with their own unique way of life." Each villa is unique: with two or three storeys, an angle of rotation that allows you to achieve uniqueness of views and a variety of rare bonuses, such as, for example, a bathroom viewport or a staircase illuminated by natural light. At the same time, they are subordinated to a common module and are similar, like cards thrown on the table - even a "docking corner", which allows all houses to closely adjoin each other with longitudinal walls and effectively use the sinuses of the internal space; which, I have no doubt, is pragmatically and parametrically justified. Actually, this balance between diversity and similarity, freedom and regularity of planning, one must think, is the main artistic technique of the residential complex.
It is also characteristic of facades, which are planned to be revetted with noble travertine - a material more classic and textured than the Jurassic stone, which is customary for the Moscow "golden miles". Architects offer several options for windows: from arched as in Roman EUR, and arches of the same scale appear both outside and inside as partitions - to orthogonal, however, all windows are luxurious, floor-length, all facades mainly consist of a grid of windows with small pauses …
A private promenade is formed between the two rows of villas - a kind of backyard, but extremely miniature and, of course, very civilized, without cars, for which, however, there is definitely no place, but full of scenarios - according to the authors, “a street, a square, gallery, chamber square, garden, terrace and path”. All villas are equipped with private areas in front of the entrances from both ends: in front of the street entrance, they continue with loggias - sections of colonnades, architects compare them with Florentine loggias and even call them “open city living rooms”; from the inside they serve as a "backyard",where trees and even art objects meet. However, each villa has an underground parking, from where you can take an elevator to the house.
Moscow is an expensive city, but in general it is not very luxurious: there are not many offers that correspond to the luxury class, not only in price, but also in the parameters of life. The 17 Villas project is definitely one such proposal, demonstrating the growing diversity in the saturated luxury market. The area of apartments here, according to rough estimates, is from 200 to 400 m2, several terraces, a private courtyard, parking under the house and a private elevator plus its location in the quiet center of the center make the complex a rare example of the development of the dolce vita genre in Moscow.
Two things are said about development: firstly, if earlier a city villa was built into an apartment building, at the top as a penthouse or in the middle for the sake of variety, or in extreme cases they tried to bury it underground, then here we have a village of such villas, typologically similar to an enriched one. and a sophisticated version of townhouses, as opposed to the usual cost reduction. Secondly, it is interesting that in this case one of the advantages of luxury housing is a nuanced choice, a variety of types, angles of rotation, layouts. Until recently, this parameter was not particularly thought about. Now it is very important to tell stories. When stories, then, are not boring, which is what we strive for. What does all this give the city? Perhaps a new scale and example of an architectural approach based on the search for individual traits. Maybe someday this approach will be able to get out of the elite segment.
