Sergey Skuratov: “The School Was Supposed To Become The Pearl Of The Garden Quarters. We've All Been Waiting For Her For 13 Years "

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

The competition for the concept of a school building on the territory of the Sadovye Kvartaly residential complex was held by Inteko, MGIMO and the New Look Foundation in April-June of this year. The participants worked on projects without a fee for almost three months, from mid-April to the end of June, and finally, on July 2, MGIMO, whose division should be the school, announced the results: the project of the consortium of AB Vostok and Martela was named the winner. The project was named “the most thoughtful from the point of view of economics and logistics”.

In recent years, it has developed in the Russian architectural environment that it is customary to say either good or nothing about the winners of competitions. If the customer voluntarily transferred the project to another author - this is still being discussed, and then gritting his teeth, but if a competition was held - everyone is silent, and nowhere, except in the lobbies, alternative opinions are not expressed. But this case, in our opinion, is in many ways special, and it should be discussed.

However, many of those readers who are interested in the modern architecture of Moscow will probably remember that the school building was the central part of the project for the entire Garden Quarters complex - a residential complex designed by Sergei Skuratov on the site of the Kauchuk plant.

In 2006 Skuratov won the competition, in 2007 he developed a master plan and a design code for the area, and invited several well-known Moscow architects to participate: Yuri Grigoryan, Vladimir Plotkin, Andrey Savin, Alexander Skokan, Sergei Tchoban and others, dividing the buildings among themselves and colleagues. This was one of the first examples for Moscow of combining different “hands” on the basis of a common “code” - a move that was subsequently implemented by Yuri Grigoryan in ZILart, Sergei Choban in “Microcity in the Forest” and in a number of other projects; in fact, this approach became one of the main ones in the design of large residential complexes in Moscow in the 2010s.

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  1/3 "Garden Quarters", fourth quarter. From left to right, houses designed by the architect bureau: Megan, Sergey Skuratov architects, "Art-Bla" Photo: courtesy of Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  2/3 Garden Quarters, first quarter Photo: courtesy of Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  3/3 Garden Quarters, Q3 Photo: courtesy of Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

But it must be admitted that the key features of the Garden Quarters were proposed by Sergei Skuratov. Namely, in the lower part, the architect made the complex two-level, building on this not only the division between private courtyards and the urban public space around the pond in the center, but also the spatial intrigue that connected the parts of the complex with hinged passages and supported by frequent cantilever extensions: houses then grow out of the ground, then hang over your head, all this, as well as the variety of author's solutions, make the urban fabric inside the Garden Quarters completely non-trivial.

The role of a figurative apotheosis was assigned to the school building - in 2007 it looked like a thin white bar with a console extended 21 meters, and emphasized the proportions of houses, in many cases vertical, hovering horizontally above the pond. Needless to say, for Moscow, many of the principles proposed and gradually implemented in Garden Quarters now seem fashionable, but then they were proposed for the first time.

Since then, several financial crises have happened, the project developer has changed, the construction of an office center has been canceled - the school has remained the only public building and the main focus. Its area has decreased, Sergei Skuratov revised the project, slightly reducing the console extension; the facades became copper. But the importance of the building in the ensemble and the idea of a “Road to School”, separated for the safety of children from the urban space around the pond, have been preserved.

There was no design code written for the school, on the contrary, it was fundamentally different, it had to "hold" the composition on itself. For many years, Sergey Skuratov was considered its author as part of the complex, which was widely known in narrow circles: many of those who were interested knew well about the project with a console over the pond. And now - an unexpected competition. No less than ten invitations were sent to famous architects, but the majority - everyone who designed in the Garden Quarters, and others - refused to participate in favor of Skuratov. Meanwhile, the competition took place, and now a completely different project is planned to be implemented on the site of the key object in the center of the complex. Sergei Skuratov took part in the competition, but did not win.

In Skuratov's project, modified in detail for the competition, which ended the other day, the building looks like this:

In the winning project of the consortium AB Vostok and Martela - as follows:

Sergey Skuratov the next day after the announcement of the results of the competition,

I published my project on the bureau's website, and then added the following commentary on my FB page:

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We are talking with Sergei Skuratov about the competition and the third version of the school building, developed on the basis of all the previous ones in the spring of 2020:

Archi.ru:

How did you take what happened?

Sergey Skuratov:

It came as a shock to me, I just can’t come to my senses, I couldn’t have such a dream in a nightmare.

"Garden Quarters" are deprived of the main accent, the core on which the whole composition was held after the building of the business center was canceled. The project that was proposed to us as the winner would be appropriate as part of a typical district and, perhaps, even decorate it, but in this case, in my opinion, it is a complete failure.

Presenting my project to the jury, I said: 16 houses of the Garden Quarters are a frame, for 13 years it has been waiting for its “pearl”. The school should become an image of absolutely modern architecture, architecture of the future, bright, open, flying. This would correspond to the ambitions of innovative education, which they are going to develop there, and the name "New Look".

I think we should be asking the right questions. The correct question in this case is - is such a center needed by Sadovy Kvartals? And yet - what future do we see here, in the winning project of the Vostok and Martela companies? In my opinion, this does not look like an innovative future, but rather like the past: the heavy form, blank facades, the yellow-pink color of the brick echoes the buildings of the neighboring five-story buildings. The project has exceeded the total area by about 2000 m²… My colleagues placed the entrance from the side of the pond, in a hole, which I think is completely wrong.

In our offer, the main entrance was always located on the side of the 1st Shibaevsky passage, from the city side, which would be convenient for children living outside the Garden Quarters: parking was provided there, and the entrance from the street level, immediately to the second tier, which is inside the complex corresponds to the level of residential yards and crossings.

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  1/4 View from the 1st Shibaevsky passage. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  2/4 View from the 1st Shibaevsky passage. The main entrance to the school. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  3/4 View from the 1st Shibaevsky passage. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  4/4 Top view. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

We are proud of the idea of the Road to School, a footpath located at a height of 5.7 m and thus isolated from urban traffic areas. It connects courtyards, residential entrances and schools, offering a safe path - the child simply cannot go anywhere but school or home. It was essential for us to create a security system using purely architectural means.

In the winning project, in order to enter the school, the child will have to not only go through the city space, but also, for some reason, go down the stairs into the pit.

Is your competition project significantly different from previous versions?

In the new competitive version, we made the project even more spectacular, brighter, lighter - we returned to white color, to transparency, we have a gradient from frosted glass to transparent there. The light top contrasts with the corten stylobate, which, in turn, builds connections with neighboring neighborhoods, where corten is often found at pedestrian level. Unfortunately, I had to abandon the large console in the direction of the pond, since over the past years the territory under it moved to the residential part of the complex. We changed almost all the technology, brought in all new developments and ideas. In fact, this is a new project.

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  1/4 View from the square in front of the school to the central zone of the Garden Quarters. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  2/4 View from the street Usacheva along the third quarter. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  3/4 View from the opposite side of the pond from the second block. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  4/4 View from the opposite side of the third block. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

We worked again, drawn the details, every little detail. We opened safe outdoor areas, multifunctional spaces inside, thought out interiors with lots of natural light and views of the pond, with wooden ceilings and comfortable communications between the classes.

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  1/4 View of the middle and senior Shola amphitheater. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  2/4 Transition between junior and high school. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  3/4 Sports hall. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  4/4 View of a multi-colored space. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

In the atrium and recreational space, the structure is thought out in accordance with modern approaches to school activities and buildings.

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  1/25 Site analysis. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  2/25 Shaping schemes. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  3/25 Shaping schemes. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  4/25 Scheme of the situational plan of the Garden Quarters (with the fifth quarter according to the SSA project). School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  5/25 General plan. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  6/25 Scheme of transport services. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  7/25 Scheme of perspective development of pedestrian flows. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  8/25 Scheme of standardized elements of the general plan. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  9/25 General layout scheme with networks. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  10/25 Preliminary calculation of insolation and illumination. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  11/25 Floor-by-floor functional diagram. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  12/25 Scheme of distribution of school flows. Entry group. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  13/25 Functional diagram of the basement floor at elevation -5.700. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  14/25 Basement plan at elevation -5.700. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  15/25 Functional diagram of the 1st floor at 0.00. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  16/25 Plan of the 1st floor at 0.00. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  17/25 Functional diagram of the 2nd floor at elevation +4.500. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  18/25 Plan of the 2nd floor at elevation +4.500. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  19/25 Functional diagram of the 3rd floor at elevation +9.000. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  20/25 Plan of the 3rd floor at elevation +9.000. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  21/25 Functional diagram of the 4th floor at elevation +13.500. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  22/25 Plan of the 4th floor at elevation +13.500. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  23/25 Section 1-1. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  24/25 Section 2-2. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  25/25 Structural diagram of the cantilever parts of the building. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

The interior, which I saw in the winning project, puzzles me, to put it mildly. In addition, we see only one picture, and in general, views from many points were simply not shown.

We have carefully thought out the proportions and rhythm of the facades, the third quarter starts with simple rhythms, and the first one ends with a complex one. And our school is in the middle of this space. All residential buildings in the central area overhang the road to the school by 3.6 m and the console of the school building also picks up this mark.

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  1/7 School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  2/7 Scheme of the southwest facade. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  3/7 Scheme of the north-east facade. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  4/7 Scheme of the south-east facade. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  5/7 Scheme of the northwest facade. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  6/7 Development from the 1st Shibaevsky passage. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

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  7/7 Development from the side of the pond of the Garden Quarters. School "New Look" as part of the residential complex "Garden Quarters", 2020 © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS

We created an "aerial perspective": the main building is four-storey, then a one-storey pause, and behind it is a three-storey elementary school, which is in the visual shadow of the third quarter. Under all the floating volumes there is a "clipping", a glass layer between the plinth and the building, it creates an additional feeling of flight and lightness. Many techniques have been thoroughly worked out in previous projects, but I am convinced that the third, current version turned out to be much more interesting.

Is your project expensive?

Not at all! There you can use ordinary glass, steel or composite lamellas, and corten is not an expensive material at all. I don’t know, maybe we are talking about some special savings. Obviously, for such an ambitious educational project with the participation of MGIMO, in such a place in Moscow as Garden Quarters, an appropriate level of funding is needed.

We attached a very moderate calculation of the design price to the competitive project - but while defending the project, I heard a strange phrase, uttered deliberately loudly: "You are too expensive an architect, Sergei Alexandrovich!"

Was the competition custom-made, by invitation?

By invitation, but free. We were told that the winner would be rewarded with a Stage P contract.

Did everyone who was invited participate?

We invited many famous architects, including my colleagues who worked in the Garden Quarters, plus AB ATRIUM, AB Asadov, Tsimailo and Lyashenko bureau and others. They all refused, because they know that this is my project, the school is a very important central part of the project for me.

Were the project defenses open?

Closed. I only managed to flip through the architectural album, I have not seen the technological part from Martela. From the interiors, I also saw only one picture.

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Here the interview of Sergei Skuratov ends, then we will try to reflect on this story. For too long no one discussed the results of the competitions, but only congratulated the winners. In this case, it is quite obvious that the competition is not so much for the so-called greenfield, which is perceived rather strangely, which has already been reflected in a rather heated discussion on social networks, where opinions, as often happens, were divided: many ardently support Sergey Skurov's project, others refer to changed conditions and requirements of the customer; the opinion was also expressed that in a school building the filling is most important, not the facade, and in this light, both projects are approximately equivalent.

So. The ethical side of the issue is approximately understandable, if only because many of the invited participants in the competition refused to participate - this is a strong indicator, as well as the fact that participation was free, but no open competition was announced. But there are a few more things: the status of the design code, the attitude to money and to competitive practice.

As we remember, "Garden Quarters" was immediately conceived as a project by several authors, which in recent decades has been practiced as a way of moving away from uniformity through an appeal to the style of a traditional city. Diversity becomes more authentic when more than one architect is involved in a large project. But a traditional city can be different: a conventional medieval city is built up chaotically, a conventional city of classicism - by different authors, but according to the rules. And there is also the highest variety - the ensemble; the word comes from the French ensemble, "together", but if you perceive it without logical exaggeration, in Russian it means something brought together not just how it happened, but systemically. The ensemble is invented, directed by the author, like a conductor in an orchestra. Garden Quarters is conceived as an ensemble - the work of an orchestra with a well-defined conductor, Sergei Skuratov, who for a long time with all dedication managed its development as a project luxurious by the standards of Moscow compromises. This large stayer complex has been developing for more than 13 years as an ensemble: an architectural project subordinated to a single will and designed for certain accents.

And he had a design code declared, a set of rules that we once compared with the genetic one at the suggestion of the author himself, but which, in fact, was not quite so - more precisely, it was the gene code for the houses of the invited authors, but apart from it the project assumed a "neural network", a certain center, a "head", a set of plots with an internal hierarchical, in essence, construction, which was not exhausted by the "code", just as the human brain is not exhausted by the presence of neurons. The very concept of a design code, in general, works at the lowest level, a higher degree of organization presupposes a project as an idea with a system of plastic and compositional connections and subordination.

A design code was not written for the school, since it was assumed that the general designer - Sergey Skuratov's bureau - would be engaged in it. What happened?

On the western corner of the territory, on the site of the canceled business center, a new 5th quarter appeared, not built into the overall system either in volume, plastic or compositional: it was not on the original plan of the four quarters, in contrast to them, it is not focused on the center, but only on Usacheva Street, its massive volumes in no way correspond to the general plan and does not fit into the ensemble, into the rules and proportions existing in it, in a plastic respect it is rather closed. Now the 5th block on the western corner of the complex is being designed by the Vostok bureau. Somewhat earlier, the same architects built the Magnum club house, black with rounded corners, on the northern corner of the Garden Quarters, on Usacheva Street.

Now, as a result of a recent competition, all the same authors, the Vostok bureau, offer a volume that “steps” into the center of the complex and takes the place of its main emphasis. Formally following the rules of the design code, in particular, using bricks for cladding, but destroying the ensemble, offering it a compositional center with completely new characteristics - its architecture is not open, but closed, does not float, but is buried in, not pointed, but rounded - that's it. this was not described in the design code, because all these are properties not of a code, but of a project, a plan that is at a slightly different level of artistic thinking than a design code and even a genetic code - let's call it a reasonable, well, or compositional level. Don't you think that such an effect is akin to the logic of the RNA virus? Rebuilding a piece of code that disrupts the system, its breathing? It does not seem? Well, let's move on.

Further about money. We are often imposed from various sources the idea that a creative person should not think about money: they say, what kind of creator are you if you ask for money, money - wow, money is low. In fact, this is an insulting lie, since it allows people who, on the contrary, are supposed to think about money, save on the most valuable and lasting part of the product - its artistic quality and conscientiousness of execution. This is in one case. In another case, as a personal value judgment, I would venture to suggest that the architect is thus unobtrusively offered to work for free if he is really interested in a good result. It turns out an effective element of pressure: if you want it well, do it yourself, but we will not give money out of principle, because, firstly, it is interesting to save money, and secondly, a number of characteristics of the result are not very interested, and thirdly, we think that you, creative ones, are wrong. people to feed. All these are exclusively my personal assumptions, but you must admit that we hear similar maxims, together or separately, all the time. In addition, here we are talking about school, school is a bright business, as a result, apparently, it should be cheap, and better free (?), Because - well, this is a school. And we forget that the school is located in the most, without exaggeration, a prestigious district of Moscow and is assigned to one of the most prestigious and richest universities. To be honest, this reminds me of the reasoning of some parents that clothes and food for children should be provided by the state, not because they are in poverty, there are different cases of real need and this is not about them, but because - well, these are children.

About school. Should she be beautiful at all? As Shrek from the cartoon said: my stomach is twisting and my palms are sweating, it looks like we are at school. What if the interesting appearance of the school building turns out to be a hoax, because the main thing is the atmosphere inside, and it can work well in a typical "Stalinist" building, well, for example, like in school 179, and vice versa, in a completely new and beautiful building you can lock it with a key all courtyards and roof exits, and spoil the emotional atmosphere regardless of the space. I got to a bad teacher, and you won't need any facade with an interior for free. This begs an objection - that's why we chose the Martela project, which work well with the programs of modern progressive schools. Well, besides, our people are used to typical school buildings, or rather, they are used to adapting to a certain degree of simplification of the visual environment, so three types of bricks on the facades will already be good entertainment. It turns out that we are talking, in fact, not about a school, but about the ensemble of Garden Quarters, which so far serve as a rare example for Moscow of interesting and high-quality, intriguing architecture and orchestrated urban space.

And about the school - in the sense that do we ever want to offer, regardless of the content, which can only be hoped for, a new image of the school? Not a usual spot in the middle of a neighborhood, but something spectacular, eye-catching. In principle, innovative schools are now striving for a bright image. Let us recall the already named Letovo, Khoroshkola, Wunderpark, Primakov's gymnasium and many others. But here the difference is that the building also served as the most striking element of the complex, and not as an addition to the "set meal", as is often the case. In this sense, instead of a step forward, a step has been taken back. Although, we admit that the problem refers to very delicate matters. It's a pity for them.

Next, the competition. As we know, the competition is a procedure by definition sound, democratic, progressive and stimulating healthy competition. And probably now it makes no sense to discuss that the jury often, as in this case (see the incomplete composition of the jury, see here), turns out to be less than half of professional architects, and the presentation and discussion are held behind closed doors. From a formal point of view, one could assume that young architects have won against the "master" by proposing something brighter and more progressive. But you cannot say so in appearance, and as a result, the competition is more like not a competition of professionals, but a procedure for legitimizing a decision, which has nothing to do, at least, to an aesthetic choice. That, in general, discredits the architectural competition procedure as such, leaving only a shell from the competition practice. Wasn't it easier for the customer to make an unpopular decision without unnecessary passes? Or is the procedure of legitimization in vogue today?