It rarely happens that the client has one hundred percent trust in the architects and does not try to turn the construction of a house into a form of psychotherapy. But the Fourth Dimension was lucky. “The customer himself is a very good builder,” says Mikhail Kanunnikov. - We discussed the layouts and determined the general direction. We were told that the house should be simple in shape, orthogonal, made of quality materials, with brick cladding. Brick from the Stanislavsky factory was cited as an example. Then the customer withdrew."
The house turned out to be strict, orthogonal, but not at all simple. As a sample for the cladding, the Mix Stanislavsky set was taken, consisting of eight types of bricks of different colors and shapes, among which there is even a bent shape. The architects proposed their own mix of German clinker bricks. They used a special masonry: the brick is suspended and stitched, the owner of the house fiddled with this himself and achieved a high quality of handicraft. The same quality can be seen throughout the house: in glass balconies and terraces, metal structures, stone cladding, furniture and other equipment designed by architects to order.
The house is intended for permanent residence of three generations of the family. The land is located near the village of Slavino, founded by the famous ophthalmologist Fedorov, next to the ski slope on Dmitrovka, where the authors rode back in their student days. The site slopes towards a ravine, a stream flows below. The house consists of three buildings - the main building, a security house with a garage on the ground floor and a bathhouse. The buildings form the letter G in the plan, creating a border for the courtyard. The main building stands at the top, along the western edge of the site, the recreational part with a bathhouse hangs over the stream, magnificent views open from the height of the slope. The upper part of the yard is a lawn for outdoor activities, the lower part is a garden for the older generation.
The layout of the main house is built as a suite of rooms located along the courtyard and having exits to it. This is a front kitchen with a wine room, a double-height dining room, a fireplace and an office. A corridor separates the front suite from the older generation's bedrooms and the guest rooms, and access to the sleeping area can be blocked if someone needs it for relaxation. The corridor ends with windows on both sides, that is, it works with north-south clearance. The central double-height dining room with a huge stained-glass window overlooks the courtyard, and opposite there is a staircase with a window. Thus, the sun "pierces" the house in a cruciform manner: from north to south and from west to east. Another light axis west-east is located opposite the glass entrance, on the right side of the house, that is, the entrance is carried out "into the light". So the spaces do not just flow into each other - a light drama is built here.
On the second floor there are the master's and children's bedrooms, the master's office, the gym, which opens onto a double-height living room with a balcony. All bedrooms face the courtyard with floor-length windows and glass-enclosed balconies. And from one of the bedrooms you can go to a cantilever balcony with cables hanging over the main entrance. The console with glass railing and glass canopy is a very expressive element in the composition of the house. In addition to emphasizing the entrance, this is an energetic gesture, an exclamation: not for the sake of function, but for the sake of aesthetics. There is a glass rectangle in the floor of the cantilever balcony. Again, not only for lighting, but also for adrenaline: walking on glass invigorates.
In general, the composition of the house is quite curious. Despite the orthogonality and seemingly simplicity, the house turned out to be plastically very rich, multi-layered and even dramatic. Due to the selected materials - dark brick, light limestone and black metal, as well as glass, which is rather responsible for dematerialization, for “pauses”, there is a feeling of opposition and interpenetration of red and white volumes. The War of the Reds and Whites creates intrigue. The surface itself is also interestingly arranged. The main courtyard facade reflects the internal structure, it has brick “risalits” and glass gaps, the division corresponds to the rooms. The risalits, in turn, are deepened by loggias, trimmed with black metal, as is the black metal accent balcony above the entrance.
To the right of the main building is a slightly lower, limestone-faced guard house. This is a conditional name, because most of the second floor is occupied by a billiard room with a bar and a balcony. It faces the garden, like the rest of the owners' rooms, and the security studio looks outward in accordance with its purpose. The space between the main building and the guard house is a kind of architectural gourmand, it is complex, the authors admire the dialectic of mass and space, heavy and light, material and transparent, impeccable articulation of nodes. There is a feeling that the temperament of architects does not fit into the scale of a country house, and the same plastic themes could well be developed in a larger form.
In the bathhouse, in addition to the bath itself, there is a recreation room, changing rooms, summer and winter terraces. The interior is dominated by light wood (oak and walnut) in contrast to the dark brick of the facade. The stairs, doors, fireplace, storage systems were designed by architects specifically for the home. Many interior elements are faced with oak panels. The floors are finished with solid boards and natural stone. This is a "masculine" interior: the emphasis is on architectural elements, rather than draperies and decorations. According to Mikhail Kanunnikov, the customer took care of the work of the architects and introduced his everyday things into the house very delicately, so that after a year of his life, the architectural concept remained almost intact.
