Color And Line

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

The residential complex "Obraztsovy Kvartal", on the territory of which a kindergarten was built, is located next to the ExpoForum exhibition complex at Pulkovo Heights and belongs to the project of integrated development of territories called "On Tsarskoye Selo Hills". So far, only the houses of the first stage have been commissioned, and the area looks deserted, but there is no doubt that in the near future it will live a full life: all the land south of Pulkovskaya Gora and the observatory located on it has long been lined up for vast low-rise residential complexes from various developers while city officials are discussing the construction of a new railway line in the area.

Pulkovo Heights is a place with the potential of an ideal suburb for living. The ring road and the WHSD allow you to get to any point in the city relatively quickly, near the airport and a new highway to Moscow, and on the other side of the coin - numerous parks and palaces of Pushkin and Pavlovsk. Thus, at one point, both urban and natural goods are available, multiplied by the concentrated Petersburg identity emanating from the palace residences.

What is being built now is architecture, although low-rise, but textbook, which does not convey anything about the spirit of the place. On the other hand, it is favorably distinguished from other new buildings by a rational infrastructure. Along with housing, the developer is developing office and sports clusters, two schools are under construction, and a kindergarten has already been commissioned - an atypical building built according to the project and under the supervision of the A. Len architectural bureau.

ГБДОУ № 47 Пушкинского района Санкт-Петербурга © Архитектурное бюро «А. Лен»

The customer provided the architects with complete creative freedom, but within a very limited budget - the kindergarten, after implementation, was transferred to the city's balance sheet. The second obvious difficulty is strict standards, the observance of which leaves much less room for that very creative freedom. The A. Len bureau, however, managed to find a memorable image that fits the context and is implemented within the allocated budget.

The institution is designed for 140 children from one and a half to seven years. The building is traditionally located in the center of the quarter, surrounded by five-storey buildings. In the protruding part there are common areas - a small swimming pool, music and sports halls, and in the long one - group rooms with bedrooms, dining rooms and games rooms. The group blocks - there are six in total - are easy to read thanks to the bright inserts on the facade. For better navigation, the architects suggested leading their own colored path to the entrance of each group, but this idea was never realized.

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1/6 GBDOU No. 47 of the Pushkin District of St. Petersburg © Architectural Bureau "A. Len"
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2/6 GBDOU No. 47 of the Pushkin District of St. Petersburg © Architectural Bureau "A. Len"
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3/6 GBDOU No. 47 of the Pushkin District of St. Petersburg © Architectural Bureau "A. Len"
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4/6 GBDOU No. 47 of the Pushkin District of St. Petersburg © A. Len Architectural Bureau
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5/6 GBDOU No. 47 of the Pushkinsky District of St. Petersburg Image courtesy of © GBDOU No. 47 of the Pushkinsky District of St. Petersburg
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6/6 GBDOU No. 47 of the Pushkinsky District of St. Petersburg Image courtesy © GBDOU No. 47 of the Pushkinsky District of St. Petersburg

The main feature of the building is the irregular grid of windows. Such a solution is not typical for social facilities, whose facades are formed by the layout of premises that are strictly regulated by standards. However, having found the idea, the architects, with the help of programs for calculating the norms of insolation and the coefficient of natural light, "moved" and expanded the windows until they came to the optimal configuration. Simple rectangular volumes immediately received the desired sound and many associations, among which there are those close to both children - there are similarities with holes in cheese, and adults - a scattering of windows of different sizes, for example, resembles the Notre Dame du Ouch chapel. So architecture, understandable to children, unobtrusively introduces them to the classic techniques of modernism.

The head of the kindergarten Angelika Mayorova says that both the children and the staff liked the design: there is enough light, and the original configuration and safe construction allow using windows in the seasonal decoration of groups and include them in play scenarios.

The second important plot is color. In the first versions of the sketches, the A. Len architectural bureau offered a more saturated texture - with accents in the form of bright stripes instead of monochrome colored spots. The echo of this decision remained in the form of multi-colored fences of the entrance groups. Then protruding TV windows with contrasting frames appeared. The final version is laconic in a Mondrian way, nothing distracts attention from the dance of large and small windows. It is curious to imagine how the pupils choose the view and the window to their liking - you can look in them while standing, sitting and even, probably, lying down, inspired to play spies or to create an observation post to look out for a pirate ship.

Multi-colored facades with asymmetric windows, in addition to raising the mood, take on somewhat more pragmatic functions: it is easy for children and adults to identify their group, an image corresponding to a preschool institution is formed, and composition and proportions, imprinted in the subconscious, educate children in a taste for architecture. Against the background of typical houses with even rows of windows, the kindergarten looks like a contrast between the adult and children's world: life regulated by social norms is against as yet direct emotional manifestations.

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2/4 Plan of the 1st floor. GBDOU No. 47 of the Pushkin District of St. Petersburg © Architectural Bureau "A. Len"
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3/4 Plan of the 2nd floor. GBDOU No. 47 of the Pushkin District of St. Petersburg © Architectural Bureau "A. Len"