The private Wunderpark school of the Archstruktura architectural bureau Anton Nagavitsyn, located in the Moscow region, on Novorizhskoe highway, in Pavlovskaya Sloboda, surrounded by elite villages, is called the Russian Hogwarts, not only because middle and high school students there are divided into four houses, similar to the four faculties of Hogwarts in J. K. Rowling saga of Harry Potter, but also thanks to the English orientation in education. The school is taught in two programs: Russian and Cambridge, in the ninth grade there is an opportunity to pass an international exam for further admission to foreign universities. Everything at school is unique, both the tuition fee (from 132 to 300 thousand rubles per month), and the architecture and all its components. The Wunderpark School received two main prizes at once at the International Architecture Festival "Zodchestvo" - gold in the section "Buildings" and the Grand Prix "Crystal Daedalus".
The architecture of the school is emphatically futuristic: five beams on V-shaped supports radiate from a circular atrium in the center, which serves as a transformable public space, the center of school life and a dramatic architectural spectacle. Such a structure is not only outwardly effective, but also functionally conditioned. In the "beams" are located classes, which can be isolated from the atrium if necessary. In it, you can hold various events, not only intra-school, but also more ambitious.
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zooming 1/3 School Wunderpark / ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 2/3 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 3/3 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
The task of the architects, according to Anton Nagavitsyn, was to create a very honest architecture. The long, curved concrete consoles are supported by twin V-shaped supports that fold together to form the W - the main one in the school's logo. Under the consoles there is a free space where classes are held on wooden benches in good weather, which corresponds to the flexible formats of modern education. This whole structure is visible through: the sky is visible from the inside during the day, and the school glows from the inside in the evening. The supporting structure is filled with glass and brick walls.
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zooming 1/4 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 2/4 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 3/4 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 4/4 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
Architects skillfully compare materials of different properties. Brutal and futuristic concrete and disembodied glass are opposed to tactile bricks of various textures (the project uses Hagemeister clinker, model Manchester GT in NF format 240 x 115 x71).
Concrete and glass are inherently fluid materials, which is reflected in the architectural solution: the glass walls bend after the console. These spectacular curves can be observed both outside and in the interior, since along the entire facade inside, on the second floor, there is a kind of promenade with panoramic views of the surroundings.
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zooming 1/3 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 2/3 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 3/3 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
Along the promenade, there are powerful pylons faced with clinker bricks, which balance the brutality of concrete with a pleasant-looking, varied texture of clinker bricks.
Although formally clinker of the Manchester model is considered black, it shimmers with bluish, silvery, purple, earthy tones with black glossy sintering. The surface is infinitely complex, like a painting, and is perceived completely differently depending on the illumination of the sun or indoor lights.
If concrete and glass are materials that are cold and require maintenance (glass facades must be constantly washed, otherwise half of the effect from architecture will disappear), then clinker brick is a material that, in fact, has no age. Its surface becomes more beautiful and noble over time, it is not subject to pollution, has water-repellent properties and is self-cleaning.
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zooming 1/3 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 2/3 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 3/3 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
It was very important for architects to make sure that the same materials are used outside and inside. There are only four of them: concrete, glass, brick and some wood. Thanks to the curved glass facades, when you are outside, you can see what is inside, and when you are in the interior, you understand that materials seem to move from the facades into the building. The walls of the first floor and original "curtains" on the glass façade of the second are faced with bricks. These "curtains", covering those parts of the classrooms that should be closed, form a characteristic rhythm on the façade. They can be more or less wide, interspersed with wall partitions. The surface of the brick shimmers in the sun in different colors, partially reflecting the sky. Other facades are organized in a similar way.
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zooming 1/4 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 2/4 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 3/4 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 4/4 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
Realizing the materiality of brick, the fact that brickwork itself is an ornament, that it is interesting to look at and has a tactile feel, that is, pleasant to touch, the architects placed brick surfaces in certain places - where the human contact with the building is closest. Thus, the entrance pavilion with a portal displaced from the axis, located at an angle, is almost completely lined with brick.
The walls of the first floor, in the places where the wooden benches for the rest of teachers, students and parents are located, are also faced with bricks. Brick walls in the interior near wooden structures, which are actively used by younger students, are just as appropriate. That is, where a person spends a lot of time, he sees “warm”, richly detailed brick surfaces. Concrete and glass look more impressive from a distance.
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zooming 1/3 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 2/3 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
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zooming 3/3 Wunderpark School. ARCHSTRUKTURA Photo © Daniil Annenkov. Provided by LLC Firm "KIRILL"
If concrete and glass, as already mentioned, are fluid in nature, then a brick surface is perceived as an understandable, "modular", consisting of identical parallelepipeds. It was very important to balance the futuristic architectural space with solid brick pylons. For example, the entrance to a school has been transformed into a nerve-racking spectacle. On the facade of the entrance, glass waves meet, and in the lobby he finds himself under a huge inclined concrete disc: this is the underside of the central amphitheater, in the basement there is a wardrobe.
This is such a dramatic decision that it needs to be balanced with something understandable and orthogonal. They turn out to be brick pylons. In the interior, clinker - unlike the façade, where it shines silvery in the sun - is perceived differently: it has a deeper, velvety surface, especially in contrast to the orange details that match the color of the school logo.
Thus, the ambitions of the architects, coupled with the ambitions of the customers and a decent budget, turned the Wunderpark school into a guide for the study of avant-garde architecture and the magical properties of modern materials.
