Why did you get carried away with woodwork and began to specialize in wood architecture? Was it a deliberate choice or did it happen by chance?
Like many of our inclinations, everything comes from childhood memories and impressions. Half of my childhood was spent in the village of NIL near Moscow, in a classic wooden dacha, the same as most of the houses in the village: initially felled, and then repeatedly completed and rebuilt. The NIL settlement was a special, unique world, with an amazing atmosphere of dacha life and the feeling that there is nothing better than a wooden house.
Then, already in our student years, while studying at the architectural institute, we went a lot to take measurements and traveled across the Russian North. And forty years ago, absolutely by chance, my friends and I bought several houses in an abandoned village 700 kilometers from Moscow, on the northeastern border of the Kostroma region, near the glorious city of Kologriv. Over the course of several years, we had to rebuild houses ourselves, learn to cut wood, rearrange crowns, change foundations, and lay stoves. At first we made up for the lack of knowledge with enthusiasm and courage. But gradually, we immersed ourselves more and more deeply in the subject, studied all the available literature in the Lenin Library and the Library of Foreign Literature. In addition, many handbooks on wooden architecture were in our family library, thanks to the many-sided interests of my great-grandfather. Gradually, I could already act as an expert and gladly helped my friends not only with repairs, but also when they asked me to help with designing a new house or summer cottage. And more than once this led to unexpected results: people liked living outside the city so much that they changed their way in order to spend as much time as possible there.
Then the time came when I was running my own workshop and doing big projects in Moscow and Paris. For another five years, the tree remained my hobby. But in 2002, I realized that I wanted to do just wooden architecture, to which I have always had a soul. I closed the office and started my own company for the design and construction of wooden houses. I saw very well all the difficulties and problems of their manufacture and at the same time understood what immense possibilities this technology conceals in itself, if you use traditional and develop new, modern methods of working with wood. What is the potential of the log house and all the connections, such as dovetail, hidden grooves and so on, what can be changed or combined in a new way, and how this will all affect the shaping. So that my projects do not depend on low-skilled and not interested in the final result of carpenters, we decided to create our own production and bought an abandoned machine-tractor station near Galich.
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zooming 1/7 Drevolyutsiya 2016. Team "IN DYNAMIKE". Object: Sculptural group "Split". Drevolyutsiya2016 Authors: Cheremnova Anna, Dudina Ksenia, Kuzina Anastasia, Mukhin Dmitry, Smetanin Ilya. Photo: Anastasia Kuzina © Drevolyutsia
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zooming 2/7 Drevolution 2016. Object: "Mobius Trail" Authors: Podaguts Galina, Pokatovich Alexandra, Sotnikova Ksenia, Shevchuk Polina © Drevolyutsia
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zooming 3/7 Drevolution 2017. Object: "Linden tea". Authors: Maria Alymova, Alexey Kosterin, Ivan Krutikov, Denis Kudryakov, Alexander Nikolaev, Olga Repina, Alexander Taslunov © Drevolyutsia
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zooming 4/7 Drevolution 2017. Object: "O. R." Authors: Vorotnikova Ksenia, Zhernakova Natalia, Posadsky Yan, Sushchin Alexander, Cheremnova Anna © Drevolyutsia
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zooming 5/7 Drevolution 2017. Object: "PRO … SUKHANOVO" Authors: Vyborova Daria, Levchenko Maria, Nikolaenkov Anton, Purenkov Anton © Drevolyutsia
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zooming 6/7 Drevolution 2017. Object: "SKELETON OF THE PAST (FRAME OF THE FUTURE)" Authors: Maria Polishchuk, Yaroslav Razumovsky, Alexey Ushakov, Maria Yakovleva, Alexey Kolesov © Drevolyutsia
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zooming 7/7 © Drevolyutsiya
It is located in an amazing place - on one of the highest points in the Kostroma region, right on the watershed of streams and rivers, some of which flow to the south and flow into the Volga and further into the Caspian Sea, and the other - to the north, into the Northern Dvina and the White sea. A wonderful place, open to the sun and wind, surrounded by forests, the most suitable for processing structures for wooden houses. The built-up production system allowed us to have the wooden architecture that we present to our customers, show at all exhibitions.
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zooming 1/4 House of Nikolai Belousov at a factory near Galich © Drevolyutsia
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zooming 2/4 At the production site near Galich © Project OBLO
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zooming 3/4 At the production site near Galich © Project OBLO
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zooming 4/4 "Drevolution 2003" at a plant near Galich © Drevolyutsia
You are not limited to developing your own business. At what point and why did the idea of "Drevolution" appear?
Studying the topic, exploring the traditions of Russian wooden architecture, I realized how limited and undeveloped this entire industry is in our country now and how few specialists who know how and are eager to work with wood. None of the architecture universities teach a course in wooden architecture; young architects simply have nowhere to learn about its possibilities. At first I wanted to publish a magazine on wooden architecture, and then the idea came to create a kind of school at our factory. And already in 2003 the first "Drevolution" took place near Galich. Initially, I wanted to make a permanent summer internship school for architects and students, where they could learn the secrets of owning wood, this very complex, living, only renewable of all existing building materials. But organizing a three-month course was very difficult, so we developed the concept of a two-week workshop, which has remained practically unchanged for fifteen years.
The essence of the idea lies in a thoughtful combination of theory and practice. Students and young architects find themselves in an unusual environment where they learn to understand and work with wood. In the beginning, they are given lectures on the history of wooden architecture. At the same time, they study the technological process: methods of joining wooden elements, fasteners, design features of wood and various lumber. They also investigate the territory proposed as a polygon and try to form their own ideas about it, what this territory needs, what they can offer it, what problems to solve using a tree. For five days they design their objects and defend them in front of the jury, which actually gives permission for implementation.
For the next week and a half, the participants in the workshop will implement their projects. A specification is drawn up for sawmills and paints and varnishes, fasteners, and so on. Our partners - tool manufacturers provide them to participants free of charge. All these two weeks, from morning to evening, I spend with the participants, consulting, explaining to them where you can and where you can not turn screws and many other nuances. At the end of the workshop, there is a general presentation of the constructed objects for the main jury, which traditionally includes my friends: famous architects and renowned experts in wooden architecture. The authors talk about the process of creating a project: from the first thought, the first sketch to the completed object. And most importantly, students formulate their sense of conformity or non-conformity of the final result with the original image. In the evening of the last day, the jury announces its decision and presents diplomas to the laureates. According to the rules of the workshop, the jury has the right not to award the first prize, but this is very rare. The celebration is held jointly, so that young architects have the opportunity to communicate with the members of the jury and, I think this is very important, because it creates a sense of community and brings the contestants immediately to the level of professional conversation, not as with teachers or "stars", but as with colleagues … Thanks to this format of the workshop, all participants receive a completed object in their portfolio, which is always significant for architects, and experience in going through the entire cycle of implementing an architectural project. In addition, I am proud that the works of Drevolyutsia students receive first prizes at ArchiWOOD, Zodchestvo, and landscape architecture competitions. This means that our efforts are appreciated not only by the people involved in our process, but also by a wide range of professionals who are absolutely not engaged.
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zooming 1/3 House "Trap for the sun". Moscow region, the village "Green Grove". Architectural workshop of Nikolai Belousov: Nikolai Belousov, Nikolai Soloviev. 2014. Photo © Alexey Naroditsky
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zooming 2/3 House by the lake. Architectural workshop of Nikolai Belousov: Nikolay Belousov, Vladimir Belousov. 2018. © Drevolyutsiya
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zooming 3/3 Country house in Zavidovo. The village of Zavidovo, Tver region. Architectural workshop of Nikolai Belousov: Nikolay Belousov, Vladimir Belousov. 2018. © Drevolyutsiya
What do you prioritize in building the "Drevolution" program: mastering the skills of working with wood or the creative search of students and experiments with the form?
My task is to give students the opportunity to believe in themselves, teach them to respect themselves and open up. It is very difficult to do more in two weeks, too little time. And this goal is achieved in the course of an intense educational and creative process, thanks to which students establish a deep associative connection with the environment and clothe this connection in an architectural form made of wood.
In this regard, the results of the last year's workshop, which took place in the Lesnoy Terem Astashovo, in the Chukhlomsky district of the Kostroma region, were very indicative. Each of the objects created a year ago, in addition to high artistic quality and, in some cases, practical function, carried a deep philosophical meaning. For example, in the project “House Sprouted”, which received the Grand Prix, the authors: Ksenia Dudina, Nastasya Ivanova, Dmitry Mukhin, Yan Posadsky, managed to say goodbye to what has already left and will not return.
The ghosts of a dead village and crumbling houses fly away, flapping like wings with fans of rafters. And this was done flawlessly both from an architectural and landscape point of view. Or the twelve-meter swing, the "Above" object, created by the same team, was inspired by the flight of the swallows living in the tower, even when it was almost destroyed. This design enables a person to get off the ground, from routine and fly up like a bird over a forest.
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zooming 1/3 "Drevolyutsiya 2003" at the plant near Galich © Drevolyutsiya
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zooming 2/3 "Drevolyutsiya 2003" at the plant near Galich © Drevolyutsiya
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zooming 3/3 "Drevolution 2003" at a plant near Galich © Drevolyutsia
All objects told their own stories, and at the same time they were quite scrupulous, carefully worked out in details: in junctions, in intersections, in matters of ensuring spatial rigidity. This is an extremely important indicator for me that at our workshop students do not engage in experiments for the sake of experiments, but learn to create wooden architecture and do it in a meaningful, constructive and technologically competent manner. Students, young architects reconsider their perception of the tree, begin to feel it in a new way.
What, in your opinion, is the reason for the increasing popularity of wood all over the world? Due to the development of new technologies, thanks to which the possibilities for the use of wooden structures are expanding, or because of ecology and resource conservation issues?
I always tell students and young architects that wood is the first material that people began to process when they left the caves. It was from wood that people began to build houses to protect themselves from an unfavorable environment. Over the past millennia, technology has developed, giving such masterpieces as wooden temples of the Russian North, reaching thirty meters in height. But in our country this tradition is not developing on the scale and with the level of state support, as it happens in the world, especially in European countries. They realized long ago that building from wood is cheap and environmentally friendly. There, according to the law, it is prescribed to build houses for the disabled, nursing homes, kindergartens, nurseries, and so on from wood, because children get sick less in wooden objects and learn better.
But the main reason why I believe that the future belongs to the tree is the replenishment of this resource. We are building a house from wood and during the life of this house more trees will grow than were cut down. No other building material can be replenished: neither sand, nor clay, nor stone, nor iron ore will appear over the next millennia. It takes billions of years to make simple sand.
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zooming 1/4 "House of Poros" / team APIL SAW © Drevolyutsia
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zooming 2/4 "House of Poros" / team APIL SAW © Drevolyutsia
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zooming 3/4 "ABOVE" / Team APIL SAW © Drevolyutsia
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zooming 4/4 "ABOVE" / Team APIL SAW © Drevolyutsia
How do you assess the dynamics of change in interest in wood based on the experience of teaching at MARSH and conducting "Drevolution"?
Interest is constantly growing. At MARSH, for three years now, I have been teaching a pre-graduation semester course in wood for masters. And I can say that the guys are doing incredible work, with mock-ups, with details on a large scale, and with ostentatious material.
It seems that young architects really lack the opportunity to work with wood, and as soon as it appears, they begin to gush with ideas.
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zooming 1/5 Drevolyutsiya 2015. Object: Willow with a hollow. Authors: Strelnikov Dmitry, Bakhyshev Timur, Melnikova Olga, Radchenko Svetlana. Photo: Nika Demidova © Drevolyutsiya
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zooming 2/5 Drevolyutsiya 2015. Object: Shadow Theater. Authors: Deikin Alexey, Shcherbakov Fedor, Yakovlev Anton, Sayfutdinov Safiulla, Zhurkina Maria, Stakankova Ekaterina, Novikova Anna, Alexandrov Fedot, Kovalev Dmitry, Alexandrov Andrey, Portnova Oksana, Khokhlov Vladislav, Gribanova Anastasia. Photo: Nika Demidova © Drevolyutsiya
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zooming 3/5 Object: Four tatami. Team 4. Authors: Bobrova Anastasia, Gerasimchuk Nadezhda, Gribanova Anastasia, Kolesov Nikita, Naumov Leonid, Pestryakova Ekaterina, Rudneva Valeria © Drevolyutsia
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zooming 4/5 Drevolyutsiya 2016. Object: "Ghost House". WOOD stock team. Author: Dolzhenkova Alina (St. Petersburg), Egorychev Egor, Kolesov Alexey, Ovchinnikova Elizaveta, Stakhanova Evgeniya, Ulko Alexander © Drevolyutsiya
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zooming 5/5 Drevolyutsiya 2016. Team 171. Object: "Echo" Authors: Ivanova Anastasia, Medvedenko Nikolay, Nikitin Artem, Stepanov Artem, Chugreev Vsevolod, Shakuryanova Alfiya © Drevolyutsia
A similar situation with the "Drevolution". Thanks to the good work of the entire team and, first of all, the organizational curator Olga Starkova, the number of those wishing to take part in the workshop is constantly growing from year to year, as is the number of publications about the project. This year we received a record number of applications - 56 teams sent their project applications. These are 117 people. And, although I originally planned to invite only 30 students to participate, I had to increase the quota to 45. In total, we plan to make 5-6 objects, which we will present on August 4. I invite everyone to Art-Play.
