We want it like there
The Soviet legacy in its microdistrict format places a moral and aesthetic burden on the attitude of the adult population of large Russian cities. Forced to live surrounded by panel houses, people categorically refuse to consider this environment beautiful. Everyone, to the best of his ability, is looking for a way to escape from the gray world. Either physically, choosing for life, some - the historical center, some - suburban life, or mentally - transferring the surrounding panel landscape into the category of an unperceivable background. But every person who comes from dormitory areas experiences a special pleasure, getting into an environment that is fundamentally different from them. The main thing is that it is not the same as here.
Architects approach the problem from a practical point of view, offering new solutions for the main task of the market economy - to combine beauty and profitability. Recent trends suggest that the scales are tipping towards good old Europe. Geographical proximity, historical ties and aesthetic commonality make Europe the most logical and popular prototype for the search for new principles of residential development in Russia. Quarter layouts, public ground floors, the combination of background and accent buildings, and so on - these principles are rooted in the sense of harmony that so naturally arises on the streets of any of thousands of cities from Portugal to Poland. And it seems that it is worth copying the approach - and we will have, as there.
Far west
The Kaliningrad Region, a Russian enclave surrounded by the EU countries, is perceived as a suitable platform for experiments with the search for a domestic version of the “ideal city”. The status of a special economic zone, the climate and the general charm of life a stone's throw from the Schengen area, with fairly low real estate prices, have made the region one of the most attractive for Russians.
Commercial housing is being built in Kaliningrad quite actively. There is a demand for apartments, but the activity of buyers fluctuates significantly depending on the location and style of projects. In the struggle for the client, development companies show wonders of ingenuity. Someone bets on the historical charm and accentuates not so much the Kaliningrad present as the Konigsberg past. An example of this path was the project for the reconstruction of "five-story buildings" turned into Hanseatic houses.
Other developer companies are following the path of assimilation of the capital's housing standards on the Kaliningrad land and are making progress. For example, a well-thought-out layout, public ground floors, landscaped courtyards and a high-quality architectural mix of modern techniques and traditional design - all these solutions brought
The residential complex "Tsvetnoy Boulevard", built by "AvangardInvestProekt" by the project of the Kaliningrad architect Ilya Solovyov, has the status of one of the most demanded real estate objects in Kaliningrad.
Inspired by the success of the first project, the developer launched a new one, on a much larger scale, for the development of which Asadov's bureau was invited. The architects were given an ambitious task to continue the experiment and develop a fundamentally new format of residential development that would meet Russian ideas about the European style of life.
Russian Europe
An area of about 20 hectares in the east of Kaliningrad was allocated for the new project. The section, which is triangular in plan, with one sharp corner rests against the roundabout of the Eastern flyover.
At first, as befits a progressive developer, the developer thought out a marketing strategy for promoting the project and named the future residential complex "Russian Europe", answering the unspoken dreams of every potential buyer of real estate in Kaliningrad. After such an application, it was necessary to submit a project that could shake the real estate market. Therefore, the next step of the developer was to organize a competition among Kaliningrad architects for the planning of the future district. The proposed options were convincing, but they did not reach the project, claiming to transform the ideas of Russian residential development in the XXI century. There was a lack of innovation, imagery and the WOW effect that the developer was striving for.
In search of brighter ideas, the developer toured several architectural and construction exhibitions, at one of which the first meeting took place with the architects of Asadov's bureau, who, at that moment, were summing up their many years of experience in implementing complex projects for the development of territories, turning it into a manifesto for a comfortable urban environment of the new quality in an affordable housing budget. Based on these principles,
the project "Nespalny District", which brought victory to Asadov's bureau in the Moscow renovation competition. The developed system included solutions covering a complex of urban planning, architectural, landscape, functional and infrastructural solutions. Some of which, as it turned out, have already been used in the Tsvetnoy Boulevard project. Match in and Denia of architects and developers became the starting point for the start of cooperation.
As a result of the joint work, we managed to find a realistic and viable form for the ideal images that we associate with real Europe.. Especially for this project, a team of architects went on a sightseeing trip across Belgium and Holland. They transformed their impressions into an architectural and urban planning format that combines European quality with a Russian soul.
Different happiness
Moscow architects proposed the concept of a full-fledged urban area, in which various types of housing were combined with a developed business, recreational and social infrastructure. The entire development is clearly structured: as you move away from the border with the private sector, adjacent to the site from the south, the character of the houses changes from villas and townhouses to block, terraced and multi-section houses.
Andrey Asadov comments on the variety of types of housing: “It was important for us to provide the buyer with the widest possible choice so that each person could buy a home to their liking. Someone likes to be closer to the ground - for them we have made compact urban villas, by the way, typical of the historical buildings of Kaliningrad. There are also two- and three-storey townhouses with adjoining plots, as well as sectional houses, some of which are designed with terraces and exploited roofs that can be used year-round due to the mild climate of the Kaliningrad region. Different architects worked on the look of the eight main quarters”.
The density of the layout and the height of buildings increase towards the north side of the site. The tallest building in the area - a 100-meter tower with studio apartments, flanks the central square - a typical building block in many European cities, from which several pedestrian boulevards diverge. Along the Eastern flyover, there are four blocks of blocks, made up of sections that differ in number of storeys and design of facades. They form a front front with wide driveways designed as entry portals.
Residential blocks, stretching along the southern and northeastern boundaries of the site, are shared by a "green beam" with a large recreation area and several cultural and educational buildings. A cultural center is located next to the round amphitheater, and closer to the north-western border there is a kindergarten and a private school. The architects placed another large city school on a nearby site.
In slippers or on a boat
A distinctive feature of the concept was a large number of public spaces of various formats and functions and a system for dividing automobile and pedestrian traffic within the district.
The architects developed the principle of courtyards without cars, removed part of the driveways and all parking spaces in a two-level stylobate. In the outer perimeter of the stylobate, there are public and commercial premises focused on the development of small and medium-sized businesses. For intra-district communications, three levels are used: underground, ground level and the upper level of the stylobate. The second and third are mostly pedestrian. Moreover, the latter is designed as a system of covered galleries, which allows providing maximum comfort to residents. The architects joke that “you can walk around the district in slippers without getting your feet wet”.
However, the team of Asadov's bureau offered another non-trivial recreational bonus - a system of artificial canals using nearby groundwater and the existing drainage system. Developed pedestrian embankments on two levels are attached to the canals.
The final chord of the public space system was the large square in the center of the “green wedge”. Using all three levels of landscaping, the architects created a multifunctional space in the middle of it with a round amphitheater, along the perimeter of which a bridge runs, a waterfall flows from under the bridge, which in the evening turns into a screen for an open-air cinema. The bridge itself is not simple, like everything that surrounds it. It plays the role of "hanging gardens of Babylon" and at the same time a symbolic "European embassy": twelve trees will be planted on the bridge - the same number as the stars on the flag of the European Union.
Geographic cherry
In addition to the concept itself, Asadov's team, together with the developer, presented a mathematical proof that the territory of the new district coincides with the geographical center of Europe. Having calculated the middle between the extreme points of the European continent, they came to the conclusion that the center of the European Ecumene was a roundabout on the Eastern flyover. For him, AB ASADOV offered an installation: the mown outlines of a map of Europe with miniature houses indicating the capitals of countries. In the center of mini-Europe, the authors proposed to install a vertical stele-periscope, which allows observing the neighboring construction site from a bird's eye view.
The probability that this will be the case is rather small, but the example clearly demonstrates that this team does not recognize half-measures.
