The Mosfilmovsky Residential Complex is a 20-storey beige giant with a typical for the southwest, though not only for it, a predilection for a likeness of Stalin's Art Deco, designed to ensure respectability of business-class housing. It is surrounded by highways, but the courtyards are closed, and behind one of the roads, which was recently opened by a 6-lane flyover of "projected passage No. 4931", a descent into the Ramenka river valley begins. From here, breathtaking views of the rows of similar LCD giants open up on the opposite side of the protected river.
But here, in the circumference of two pseudo-Stalin buildings, the New School settled - a paid educational institution that opened relatively recently, but already famous, since it is known that it was founded, in particular, by teachers who left Moscow school No. 57. The school carefully selects students, offers grants to successful applicants, and so on; in a word, she immediately joined the competition between the best-rated schools in Moscow, which, as you know, is especially acute in the southwest.
And this school also has a courtyard, and it needs to be decorated.
More recently, last summer, a tender was held for the improvement of the school territory, in which the architects of the Druzhba bureau participated, who proposed the published project, interpreting it as a "precedent for an ideal schoolyard" for "a gathering place for the best specialists in the field of modern education."
The courtyard of the school, located, according to the authors, "inside the concrete urban jungle", is quite small: it is a crescent of about 100 x 28 m in front of the southern facade facing a semicircle of residential buildings, and the framing of the fire passage on the north side, between the school and its stadium, a total of 12 meters wide. The green slope of the Ramenki river valley adjoins the northern border of the school territory, but is separated by a fence and can only be admired.
So, having a tiny territory with a total area of about 0.3 hectares, the architects of the Druzhba bureau proposed to intensify it using modern methods. Their main idea is to give the school community the opportunity to “continuously create and update their yard,” that is, to change it, develop and adapt it. Paphos is about using all the crumbs of space.
The authors divided a small area, in their words, "lush bushes and groves" - blocks of greenery, forming two amphitheaters with gazebos, a central podium in the spirit of Konstantin Melnikov, and several more zones that, following the main concept, firstly, are capable of transforming and vary the function, and secondly, they use space in different directions, primarily vertically and horizontally. “Children can climb to different levels, create secluded spots and survey their surroundings,” the authors say. "Every point in space is used as a place with meaning, even a fence, school walls and a blind area."
About the school walls, we can say separately: on the north side, opposite the stadium, there appeared, for example, a kind of built-in cylinders, into which, probably, it will be possible to somehow climb up and settle down there. Paduses play the same role, allowing children to look through school windows. All this seeks to provoke a variety of life in the yard, but not only play, as the architects emphasize, but above all educational, since “play stories are aimed at an organic age of growing up”.
Meanwhile, the protagonist of the project is, of course, a wooden "kite", a two-three-tiered play structure that includes slides for skiing and "Alpine" geoplastics, an amphitheater, a climbing wall, nooks for rest and conversation, and it seems there are many more functions. In color, it echoes the beige houses, in shape, it forms a bold counterpoint, which should appeal to the new generation. You might even think that this is a tame dragon, inscribed in the border of the school space, and to some extent it protects the territory of children, their right to play, run, scream and fantasize, from the world of pretentious adult respectability.
As you can see, the concept is based on several principles of modern improvement of public spaces: multifunctionality, the possibility of growth, transformation and transformation, saturation and diversity, as well as the maximum activation of space, allowing productive use of even the smallest space. The project is full of ideas and in this it is modern. ***
Below is a comment by the architects of the Druzhba bureau about school spaces in general:
“… It seems to us that the topic of schoolyards in general is interesting and important, and we are working on it in other schools in Moscow as well.
The schoolyard is an urban public space with a huge resource. With proper understanding, it can become a place for uniting school communities, relieving tension between classes, a place of unregulated communication, its own secret garden for each school. Such a space includes as users not only children, but also parents, school administrators and teachers. A schoolyard is a value and a resource that should be in the first row of tasks for equipping schools. At the same time, this is the most logical space, in the design of which the students themselves should participate. If in the school yard children see the answer to their requests, they can realize their authorship in the constructed objects, the yard becomes an educational urban space. In this process, children realize the opportunity to influence their city, personal responsibility and love for the city are formed in them.
At the moment, our interdisciplinary City for Children team, consisting of the Druzhba architecture bureau, the Horses on the Balcony children's educational club, and City Friend community specialists, are working in three very different schools. The new school is the maximum school, where the basis for the most modern educational areas is being created. The European Gymnasium is an actively developing private school. School No. 91 is a public school with an active administrative, pedagogical and parenting community.
At the New School, we followed the classical design process, and at the European Gymnasium and 91 schools, it is preceded by a one-year educational course from Horses on the Balcony, in which a focus group of schoolchildren designs the schoolyard. With a series of educational activities, we will receive requests from different school communities and involve the entire school in the design. Such a lot of work is justified - instead of typical formal objects around the theme of the schoolyard, a large rallying process takes place, and the decisions turn out to be precisely verified and suitable for a particular school. ***
