The project for New York is a serious matter for any bureau. And for the post-Soviet it is also a status one. It is generally accepted that our architects are not expected in other countries - they say, where should they go, let them first learn to build here. Recently, however, projects have appeared: Sergei Tchoban is building in Germany, Meganom has invented an ultrathin skyscraper for Manhattan. It is interesting to study these first experiments of expansion: what interesting do architects offer? How is it different from ours? Is it better in a different system of bureaucracy and laws?
In the case of Archimatika, it can be assumed that philosophy, transformed into a method, has become a competitive advantage: at the heart of all projects of the Kiev company is a seriously developed concept of the individuality of housing, which the architects are constantly improving.
The method is as follows. Before starting the design, Archimatika conducts a fairly serious sociological study: what audience is the future complex designed for? What do these people live, what do they do, what are their habits? Then they create layouts that suit them, arrange apartments into a house, select a facade. This is similar to working with context, but it takes into account not only history and environment, but above all modern users. Building the workflow not from an image that came to mind by chance, but from the “inside”, Archimatics creates houses that really reflect the hero of our time. And he brings architecture to its logical end - because not only the shell, but also the space is being creatively worked out.
So Manhattan. Its typical resident is a bit neurotic like Woody Allen, a bit James Bond, and a bit the heroine Amy Schumer from Pretty Woman. A loner, a successful specialist, is always in a hurry, does not prepare food at home, and does not at all seek to deal with her housing - she readily delegates any household chores to hired helpers. Doesn't bring guests home, but keeps a dog. And he is also polite to paranoia - having accidentally touched you in the bustle of the city, he will immediately preemptively apologize, though partly out of a desire not to expand casual contact, and to forget about you forever. He needs to have a refuge - an island of tranquility in the epicenter of the bustle, a quiet backwater, a sink, a den in the end, where he will isolate himself from the whole world, focus on himself or his decisions, rest, stop. But at the same time, he will not be left alone, he will not be in a cocoon. In some aspects, the characteristic may seem stereotypical for a resident of any metropolis, but in sum, it is a very specific, exclusively Manhattan portrait.
On the basis of the "sketch" developed 16 planning types for 30 apartments of the future complex. These 30 "modules" ranging from 27 to 170 m2, like three-dimensional tetris figures, connect and form a rectangular bar of the entire building.
The first two floors are public, we will return to them later. The lower residential floors are occupied by small studios. There is a tiny kitchen with a front a little more than a meter and two burners - to warm up, eat, then run on business or fall into bed. To match the kitchen and workplace: a laptop, the main tool of a freelancer, does not need a lot of space. In this planning hierarchy, the wardrobe and the bed dominate - they are provided with the most space. In general, the result is a high-class hotel room. And in order to live in it comfortably for a long time and under different circumstances - on the floor there is a common large kitchen where you can cook dinner, as well as a lounge area where you can sit with friends or chat with a neighbor. With this addition, the lower block becomes more like a coliving hostel in typology.
The next level is one-bedroom apartments, the area of which starts from 40 m2… Here, each functional area receives clearer boundaries: the kitchen and bedroom are separated, there is a small office. Further, that is, above, there are five one-and-a-half-storey apartments: in the “mezzanines” there is an office with a view of the city, downstairs - a bedroom and a kitchen. One of these apartments has an exit to the terrace: it appeared due to the difference in height, which is required by local regulations.
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zooming 1/5 Complex Snail-apartments. Apartment organization schemes © Arkhimatika
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zooming 2/5 Complex Snail-apartments. Sections © Archimatika
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zooming 3/5 Complex Snail-apartments. Apartment organization schemes © Arkhimatika
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zooming 4/5 Complex Snail-apartments. Sections © Archimatika
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zooming 5/5 Complex Snail-apartments. Plan of the 4th and 5th floors © Archimatika
The last "cube" is a penthouse, an immutable element of an American elite house. Each of the three bedrooms has a bathroom, dedicated study and wardrobe. Anything bulky and seasonal can be hidden in a storage room - I can't even call it a “pantry”. The dining room is located in the bay window, from where New York is in full view.
Various layouts allow you to fill the house with people of different ages, marital status and status, but at the same time they will most likely have a similar worldview. In theory, the neighbors will not interfere with each other, but they will quickly get to know each other, and in the best case, they will make friends or will maintain more or less regular contacts. At least this is one of the design tasks. Its solution is in the common spaces of the house.
The entrance group is marked by a giant brass canopy on the scale of the building, along which a sculptural family of snails crawls up to the greenery of the hanging garden. The image is not finally approved, but nevertheless it quite clearly expresses the idea of persistent dedication: I just want to say "yes, this is about me, about us, about all … ©" - most of us are such snails, slowly but surely moving towards the goal … At the same time, the mollusks are large enough and unexpected to be perceived as a bright author's gesture, there is something Lewis-Carroll's in them - but, on the other hand, the image of harmless "slugs" in its own way pacifies and even hints at that here it is, the house is a sink for everyone living in it, you don't have to carry it on yourself, but you can go inside. The voluminous visor boldly wraps inward, "tightening" the incoming, and creating the effect of penetration into the "shell" of the house - many, probably in childhood, considered, for example, a rapan shell, thinking about how it penetrates the turn of its spiral, into the safety of its earthly home. Speaking of the spiral - it’s right there: next to the entrance, the theme of the “screw”, on which many shells are built, is supported by a staircase behind the rounded glass of a transparent bay window - here we seem to already see the shell in section, as in a textbook, perceiving the essence of the image of a snail and piece by piece, and at the same time. The lobby, contrary to Manhattan tradition, is small and cozy, taking up the theme of the refuge. Albeit fragile, sometimes glassy, but also reliable. After all, snail, from English - both a screw and a snail, so that the image develops further, in details of an unobtrusive-bionic property, for example, unexpectedly convex windows, but first things first.
The first two floors are a “home” public space, where you can come “in slippers”. There will be a cafe, a cigar room, a barbershop, which turns into a bar in the evening by simply turning the chairs. For another way to relax - gym, yoga room, massage, sauna, shower. And also a place for bicycles, the aforementioned common kitchen, a quiet room for an important conversation or meeting. Interestingly, all these zones can be combined: push in the soundproof partitions and throw, for example, a party. And, of course, a special room for dogs, in which the pet can wait for the owner and even, if necessary, receive some types of service. Also, residents and their guests will have at their disposal a green courtyard, the ideas for the improvement of which Arch4Kids, according to good tradition, commissioned to come up with the children's studio Arch4Kids.
It is unusual to talk about a building and spend the first half of the text on layouts and public spaces. But - such is the Archimatics. And this despite the fact that the "architecture" itself, if we talk about the shell of the building, is very effective.
The plot for Snail-apartments is a gap between the fire station and a five-story apartment building, both red brick buildings with cast-iron staircases and balconies - classic New York, as we know it from Hollywood films. Archimatics picks up the loft style, which is abundant in other buildings in this area, and reinterprets it in new materials and images. But the equality of the cornices also maintains: the lower volume protruding to the street is aligned in height with the neighboring building, the next six floors significantly recede into the interior of the site, forming a large step with a terrace on it in accordance with the above-mentioned norms.
The main detail, of course, is the convex windows, similar to the cylinders of a pneumatic post. The powerful walls of the part of the building that overlooks the red line is a common way to create the image of the shelter necessary to protect against enemy arrows or from the chilly wind. And the bubbles "blown out" of the concrete frame, which seem to be about to burst, are already about the fragility of the spirit, tired of the speed of events. On the other hand, the opacity and thickness of the curved glass makes you fantasize about how electronic waves break about it, protecting the residents from the information flow. The border turns out to be transparent, but tangible: a person continues to observe the world, but can not let it in. If we present convex windows and piers in a section, we get a drawing similar to the sections of some screw shells, consisting of many round partitions. Only this openwork pattern is not rolled into a spiral, but humanly "deployed" on the facade along the red line of the street. The bulges of the windows also form another association, the classical one with rows of arches of different widths, one of the most relevant techniques in our time.
Cylindrical windows do not open, it is planned to use the SCHUCO-developed side profile with adjustable ventilation for ventilation, as well as the artificial ventilation system adopted in North America. Curved glass must be washed outside, similar to modern glass facades. Because of its shape, curved curved glass is much more difficult to break than flat glass, the architects explain, but even if it succeeds in breaking, tempered glass with a protective film will avoid dangerous fragments.
Dark red brick on the facades, traditional for New York, replaces chocolate-colored concrete interspersed with marble of two colors. The combination with glass and brass pays homage to the Art Deco tradition and modern skyscrapers.
All together gives us a house with an obviously "piece", sharp-design appearance, which makes us recall the Viennese
shocking from Hollein, and at the same time interprets the image of a traditional New York building in a modern language, technically more perfect - take at least curved frameless bay windows, they look extremely expensive, like a rare item from a boutique. Spectacular techniques: a spiral staircase in a transparent cylinder, the golden surface of the ribs-waves of the “entrance to the shell of the house” under the visor, the alternation of piers with rounded corners and semicircular glasses - interpret a non-trivial image, not devoid of well-known philosophical symbolism: here is both humility and perseverance, and love for the smallest natural details, and the courage to give them an artistic hyperscale. The sculpture of the entrance “grows” into the house and defines its “genecode”, finds rhythmic responses in its facades. It is a sculpture house, but akin to neighboring brick “just” houses, combining the author's technique and contextual sensitivity, the boldness of modernist plastics of the sixties-seventies and the tendency of modern authors to neo-romantic comprehension of everything and everyone, what is around, what is inside, and about what else can you think about all this. An interesting alloy turns out, the main thing is noticeable and solid, although it requires high-quality technical implementation, which in New York, one must think, is possible.
New York has many epithets, one of the most important is lonely. There is a beautiful
the book by Olivia Lange, which is called “The Lonely City”, where she talks about different characters - from Edward Hopper to Andy Warhol, exploring their feelings of being lost and abandoned in this huge city - there was a lot of material. Snail apartments largely responds to this feeling, working on the theme of some fragility and touching vulnerability inherent in everyone, even the most successful people.
Now Archimatika, together with the customer and partners, calculates the budget and possible risks, it is possible that the project is waiting for revision.
