On the Old Rublevskoe highway, at the entrance to Barvikha, the road makes a turn and goes down. On the difference between the high and low banks of the river, at the crossroads, there is an L-shaped section set aside for the future complex. “A beautiful place, like a hinge, temples used to be erected at such intersections,” says architect Ilya Mashkov. This will be the first public building on the way from Moscow, it should set a certain level and fit into the context.
The Rublev context is a mixture of private development of the Soviet and post-Soviet times, which does not constitute a harmonious environment. The tasks before the architects were somewhat mutually exclusive. “Rublevka is a fashionable area. Here you are dealing with an audience that is hard to surprise: these people saw everything. Plus, this is a special area from the point of view of regulations: there are mansions around, and height restrictions must be observed. That is, you have to be restrained, but at the same time somehow attract local residents and passing motorists."
The bureau held an internal clause competition for the concept of the building. We settled on a rather soft, ecological image proposed by Andrei Kolpikov and Nikolai Vozvyshaev, adapting it to a large public building. The customer liked the concept.
There is no final decision on the function yet. Most likely, there will be a food court - a market in the historical sense, where you can taste and buy food, as well as ask them to cook and eat on the spot. “It seems that the food court is something new, but it’s not quite true,” says Ilya Mashkov. - If you walk around Pompeii, you will see both the countertops on which the food was sold and the dishes in which the food was immediately prepared. Over the centuries, only the name has changed."
One of the tasks of the project was to emphasize the function, to literally show, demonstrate it. Therefore, the facades, especially those facing the roads and the intersection, are revealed with glass planes: in the lower tier - with a thin cut, at the top behind a grid of widely spaced lamellas.
The lamellas leave the surface permeable, at the same time setting a rhythm and forming a special dynamic pattern: because of it, the building will change in the process of perception in motion. Facade lines respond to both the relief and the bend of the road. One "ray" on the facade repeats the line of the road going down, the other - the outline of the road going up. When you manage to catch a beam of the road, it's beautiful. On the western facade, the architects left the end of the second tier completely glass, using the well-known modernist technique of a large "TV" frame. For the people inside, it seems to show a moving stream of cars: you are sitting in a restaurant, and cars rise towards you from a perspective. The reception is reminiscent of the Italian "Autogrills". It will be readable from outside, from car windows, and from inside. The slats will not be wood, but either corten steel or HLP wood substitute.
In the forms of the extended building, the fashionable modernist plasticity of the "Mobius strip" is evident, but with an allusion to Soviet cinemas with consoles hanging over the glass. The lamellas also allow this, they are generally very good for modeling the shape, even though they leave behind a transparent glass surface that reflects the pines with their vertical rhythm, confused with the verticals of the lamellas. It turns out that the building, on the one hand, has a bright shape, but at the same time it almost dissolves into nature. In my opinion, it already belongs to the paradigm of the 2010s - low-key ecological architecture, which replaced the attraction architecture of the 2000s. In this sense, the building can be put in a row with the University in Skolkovo of Herzog and de Meuron - a large form with wooden cladding and a hint of pitched roofs, as well as with a wooden theater by Yuri Grigoryan in Luxury village, in Barvikha.
To my question about the idea of the building, Ilya Mashkov replies: “In the slopes of the roof there is a tradition of suburban construction, the natural context dictates a restrained image, alien to shocking and the desire to stand out, no matter what. Variability in the perception of volume with the preservation of integrity and harmony was important to us."
A structure of narrow two-storey shops is supposed to be inside. On the ground floor there will be shops selling groceries, and on the second there is a food court, where you can order a dish from newly purchased groceries. The levels within one floor are different: stairs are arranged to use each piece of the usable area. The rigid rhythm of the lamellas is also needed in order to cover up the variegated inner filling, to bring it to a common denominator. A view towards the river is planned from the restaurant on the terrace; the river is not very visible, but the spaciousness will be felt. And in the direction of the mansions, the view, of course, is closed.
You can get to the shopping center from Rublevka via an exit perpendicular to the highway with an additional lane that leads the stream to the underground parking. Parking is provided for 100 cars, two underground levels, the class of cars is taken into account so that, say, Bentley can pass. The entrance lobby is accented, but it is almost invisible from Rublevka. At the entrance, the rhythm of the lamellas is interrupted, and the facade, as it were, parted for visitors. The building does not work for pedestrians, they are not there, it is designed for the perception of motorists. And when you go along the road, the "rays" of the facade catch the eye.
As a result, you will get a very contextual, but in its own way noticeable image: it is inscribed not only in the natural environment, but also in the tradition of Rublyovka near Moscow, which means that it will be recognizable and noticed by visitors.
