“The architect creates a scenario for the life of the entire quarter,” says Rustam Kerimov, the chief architect of the project: “He sets the tone, which is expressed in the facades and in the space between buildings, and not only in the planning solutions of individual apartments. Therefore, we pay a lot of attention to working with the customer, we try to find optimal solutions that meet both the modern demand for creating a comfortable environment and the economic side of the project."
The site is located on the eastern outskirts of Yaroslavl. In Soviet times, a rectangle with an area of about 200 hectares between the Tveritsky and Yakovlevsky pine forests was built up here with six panel microdistricts, mostly ten-story ones - so that the place does not feel at all as part of an ancient Russian city, or even as a Volga village: the private sector is grouped further west, along the river, and here the presence of the Volga is not too felt, it is 4 km away.
The new residential complex is being built on the border of the old micro-districts and the pine forest, taking up the scale of the former and calculating the recreational benefits of the latter. In addition, the Yaroslavl Clinical Hospital is nearby.
Work on the project began with a study of the adjacent blocks of typical panel buildings and their yards. It turned out that the courtyards, as in many Soviet cities, are used for parking cars, and not a trace remained of their previous improvement. So the architects, among other things, sought to offer an alternative to the inhospitable courtyards of the dull late Soviet buildings.
The project is based on the concept of the phenomenon of good neighborliness, in which the courtyard is a place for joint activities of residents. Based on the theory of placemaking, the architects tried to take into account all the components of the attractiveness of the place and implement them in the quarter.
The perimeter building of the trapezoidal plot, proposed by the architects, made it possible to create a network of courtyards, diverse in their function, but interconnected. An L-shaped four-section building forms a front facing the forest and the clinical hospital, and one-section towers are rhythmically placed along the street. Ordzhonikidze. A two-section house closes the composition, forming a large courtyard - the center of the quarter.
An open parking lot adjoins the block, thus freeing the courtyards from cars, which favors the creation of an intra-block environment without cars, which, according to the architects, should facilitate communication between residents and the emergence of their own community of residents.
It's no secret that the formation of local communities largely depends on the density of buildings. Solving this problem, the architects convinced the client not to build buildings higher than 12 floors. At the "Comfortable City" it was discussed that the maximum limit of the population of the courtyard, above which it ceases to be comfortable - 4000 people; here, a total of 1,500 residents are planned, which the authors consider optimal for maintaining stable associations of residents according to their interests, development and implementation of joint projects.
Thus, already at the stage of the project, an approach to the future management of the territory is laid.
An important factor in the eyes of apartment buyers is the quality of the facades and external characteristics: in "Preobrazheniye", porous clinker bricks are used, a material with a solid reputation as prestigious and waterproof. Architects proposed hand-molded clinker Atelier Bricks to the company
Architaille with a texture that enhances the effect of tactility, in four different shades.
But the budget did not allow the use of clinker on all facades, and the authors proposed a comprehensive solution: without abandoning the brick, combine it with metal cassettes. We found a domestic manufacturer, offered our own cassette solutions - as a result, according to calculations, the price of one square meter of such a facade is only 9,000 rubles, which is quite cheap. Various combinations of neutral shades of gray, brown and brown clinker and smooth surfaces of colored cassettes, bay window extensions bring the facades to life.
The authors follow the theory of placemaking, which considers the participation of residents in the improvement of yards to be important. Naturally, in this case, architects can only form the prerequisites, focusing on the average future buyer.
According to research, future tenants are young families and middle-aged people who purchase housing on a mortgage. Long-term investment is a kind of guarantee that people will perceive the place as their own and develop it on their own over time.
To form such an environment, architects propose to diversify the solutions of the first floors of houses. Along the perimeter of the block, the first floors are given over to commercial and public areas, and inside - to apartments with their own front garden, surrounded by hedges.
The increased height of the first floor - 4.5 m, compared to the height of a typical floor of 3.15 m, panoramic windows and a front garden, according to the plan, should contribute to the development of neighborly relations and improvement of the territory. There is a small plot adjoining the individual front gardens, in which all residents of the complex can equip a public garden or vegetable garden.
The uniqueness of each courtyard is determined by the variety of landscape and functions: there are children's playgrounds and a sports ground with a sandy surface.
The rejection of standard sites in favor of an individual solution is another feature of the project. Initially, the option of landscaping using sites from a Dutch manufacturer was considered, but they did not fit into the budget, and then the architects turned to Ivan Shchetinin, a landscape artist who has been creating objects in Nikola-Lenivets for many years. Now he is preparing a proposal for a less costly project - a "natural site": it should give the environment a uniqueness, and in addition, it is designed for different ages.
Seven sites - seven solutions, where attention is paid to both small architectural forms - benches, gazebos, and landscaping. Playgrounds, reminiscent of a sculpture made of wood, promenades decorated with arches, areas for contemplative relaxation surrounded by shrubs and trees, selected so as to look attractive in winter - all should contribute to the psychological comfort of future residents.
