Extroverted Introvert

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 02:26

Mission

“Fitness club La Salute is not our first project with Andrey and Alexander Asadov. - says the customer of the fitness club La Salute, Larisa Khanukhova. - Together we built a bilingual kindergarten in Maly Poluyaroslavsky Lane, the best kindergarten in Moscow, I think. It was conceived as a fabulous theater, and in terms of education it is also unique. We have been engaged in educational projects for a long time. With the architectural bureau ASADOV we are now expanding our "School of Cooperation" in Taganka. As for the fitness club - in Lyublino sad architecture, panel housing. Therefore, in addition to a business problem, I had an idea to raise the status of the district with a new facility - a high-class European fitness club. It is affordable for residents of neighboring houses."

Extrovert / Introvert

The volume of the building of the fitness club is relatively simple: the U-shaped plan is turned with its "back" to residential buildings and is open towards the park, the right wing is two-story, the left wing is three-story. On the back-lintel, there is a step of transition from two floors to three, and the higher left part ends with a far-out console, which also takes on the role of a visor, since the main entrance is also located under it.

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1/7 Fitness club La Salute on Belorechenskaya street © Architectural bureau ASADOV
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2/7 Fitness club La Salute on Belorechenskaya street. Master plan © Architectural bureau ASADOV
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3/7 Fitness club La Salute on Belorechenskaya street. Plan © Architectural bureau ASADOV
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4/7 Fitness club La Salute on Belorechenskaya street. Floor plan of the 1st floor © Architectural bureau ASADOV
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5/7 Fitness club La Salute on Belorechenskaya street. 2nd floor plan © Architectural bureau ASADOV
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6/7 Fitness club La Salute on Belorechenskaya street. Plan of the 3rd floor © Architectural bureau ASADOV
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7/7 Fitness club La Salute on Belorechenskaya street. Section © Architectural Bureau ASADOV

In principle, a composition that is clearly readable and motivated by the function and characteristics of the site. However, the architects, having strengthened several features, added imagery to the building - they made it look like a lizard, which lay down in a ball in the sun and, raising its head, looks into the garden. The role of the tail is played by the fence from the side of the park: its triangular silhouette starts from the ground opposite the entrance, and then grows to the roof of the right wing, with the inclined pylons thickening as they approach the building, and at the beginning they are sparse. The tail is thus not volume; which is correct, because the lizard is able to throw him away. Further similarity is determined by the solution of the facade - the diagonal pattern set by the fence continues throughout the entire body of the building: metal panels of a brownish shade with gloss alternate with white ones, windows, long and inclined, are built into the dynamic pattern of oblique lines, all together shine like leather, and the diagonal creates a feeling latent mobility of the building-creature. The rounded corners work for the same effect: all three outside and the curved glass of the glass entrance under the console. And the "twisting", the curl of the building around the courtyard is emphasized by a large meander in the paving pattern.

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1/4 Fitness club La Salute on Belorechenskaya street © Architectural bureau ASADOV
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2/4 Fitness club La Salute on Belorechenskaya street © Architectural bureau ASADOV
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3/4 Fitness club La Salute on Belorechenskaya street © Architectural bureau ASADOV
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4/4 Fitness club La Salute on Belorechenskaya street © Architectural bureau ASADOV

Meanwhile, our lizard is also a bit of a chameleon: “the material on the facades is being transformed, used with different frequencies,” emphasizes Andrei Asadov. Indeed, the eastern wall facing Belorechenskaya Street is not brown, but terracotta-orange, and the panels are ceramic, which, first of all, makes the building noticeable, because the financial club should not "get lost" in the development, if only in order to attract clients. On the other hand, the reddish warmth also works on the image of the creature, and here you can wonder who is curled up here - a lizard, or maybe a fox. But the similarities don't matter. It is important that the glass "head" of the console with a bevel towards the ground looks towards the park and the Church of Tatiana Rimskaya, reflects it in itself. A dialogue is being built between two atypical and non-residential buildings against the background of a rather dull environment of large panel houses, which is logical for two public buildings, albeit very different, in a residential area.

The fact that our creature - a fox, a lizard or even a snail with a striped shell, turns away from houses, shows them an almost deaf back, is also more than logical. People come to training to escape from the stress of working days, relieve stress, and the monotonous windows of the cells of DSK sleeping products are not a landscape that can contribute to emotional relaxation. The trees of the park and the church, the building is at least somewhat unique, is another matter. So the fitness club is open to greenery, especially - the glass console above the entrance, the main gym, located in it, is well lit, open to a positive natural view and daylight. It is not surprising that Andrei Asadov characterizes the club building on Belorechenskaya as both an introvert and an extrovert: where necessary, it “folds up” and fenced off, and where possible it opens up.

Фитнес-клуб La Salute на Белореченской улице © Архитектурное бюро ASADOV

The cladding of the rounded corners was a challenge for the manufacturers of terracotta and metal cassettes: it was necessary to make completely non-standard elements, moreover, at an angle. All ceramic plates were carved according to complex patterns: the curvature was the same, but the drawing of oblique lines added complexity. Metal composite cassettes have a double curvature. They are also docked very neatly. They are over 5 m high, which makes the building appear more compact.

Flight and balance

The volume dynamics of this building is very sporty. Because the fitness club (forgive me the sports and dance terminology!) Is in the front balance. The building is directed towards the park. The main terracotta façade especially emphasizes this, because it is not solid, like a metal one, but it has two lower floors for a large extent, glass, and only one terracotta "leg" remains, and the whole body is directed forward and flies out to the park like a console. At the same time, the transparency towards the park is enhanced. That is, the weight and support visually remain in the dense terracotta part, in the “leg”. It is interesting that a narrow window has been added on the first floor - the massiveness of the wall is metered out, slightly lightened. The console, directed towards the park, rests only on the V-shaped pillar.

Andrey Asadov:

“Together with the project manager Tatyana Konovalova, we worked with the designers for a long time to achieve a clean and easy solution. As a result, they came up with a V-shaped graceful support. Behind the glass - only the continuation of the inclined struts, everything else - hanging consoles. This is due to the fact that the floor and ceiling of the cantilever part are made of prestressed concrete."

Columns with the letter V are a very expressive image in every sense. Structurally, they support the prestressed concrete, and visually, they support the athlete's muscles and tendons. These tense "muscles" - and tense "strings" - artistically express the real forces at work in the structure. The tilt angles of the columns and window-strips on the facade do not match. In the increased inclination of the columns, one sees as if another jerk before the start, additional acceleration is manifested. The V-shaped pillar is visible on several floors in the interior, both from the street through the glass and from the courtyard. In addition, no matter how trite it may sound, V is a victory, a victory, a symbol appropriate for any sports center.

Show through the looking glass

From the courtyard, where the improvement for open air sports is planned in the future, you can look either at the park or at the glass walls of the atrium. They form a kind of offline screens on which beautiful people in beautiful clothes move freely and beautifully. The glass wall of the pool also goes into the courtyard.

For athletes behind glass, transparency is all the more pleasant: both to look at people (nature) and to show themselves. This is the main luxury - transparency. This sports "theater" also has commercial significance: you see where what is located, you try new activities.

Cylinders inspired by Le Corbusier

The interior is built on a combination of white, orange and burgundy colors. The theme of inclined V-shaped pillars is continued in the interior by inclined bronze columns. Through the main entrance, the visitor enters a spacious double-height reception area, where there is also a bar, sofas and tables for visitors, from there - into changing rooms and gyms with panoramic views. Training halls can be seen from the public area through glass walls - and vice versa. The principle of total transparency, which is important for architects, remains. In addition to gyms, La Salute has saunas and steam rooms, a beauty salon, a saltwater pool and even a cardio theater. The latter was suggested by the customer Larisa Khanukhova: she took an active part in the interior design as a designer.

“The building of the club is outwardly dynamic, and inside we tried to keep the dynamics, give chic, looked for a bright detail,” says Larisa Khanukhova, the customer of the La Salute club. - This is how the idea of colored lamps came about: this shape of a cylinder with a beveled hole is in the church of Le Corbusier in Firmini. Functionally, our center offers not just fitness, but fitness and relaxation. The Italian name La Salute means health. We tried to create an appropriate visual image through design and art: we placed art objects there, decorated the cardio hall under the amphitheater of the city of Lucca”.

The theme of sports theater, as we see, appears more than once. The same purpose is served by the green roofs of the building, which are not yet used, but to which the architects planned the exit and provided for them an unpretentious sports surface. Rooftop sports - show for locals, fun for the participants, promotion for the club. The level of a club that has fitness or yoga on the roof will be prohibitive for a sleeping area.