Viktor Molchanov

A member of the jury. Department of Residential and Public Building Architecture, Southern Federal University, Professor, Ph.D.

Member of the Union of Architects of Russia

General comments.

1. There are few proposals for residential settlements and the proposals presented are schematic.
2. All participants focused primarily on the residential cell. There was not enough time and imagination for the settlement.
3. Participants’ proposals are mainly determined by technological factors such as technology, new materials, or technical solutions. Practically no one, with the exception of Project 999005, took into account social factors, i.e. a person, his life, forms of social communication. For the concept of the village, the concept of social interaction, taking into account the specifics of the way of life in the newest conditions, is important in the first place.
4. The living cell is solved very simplely, functionally. All projects are given a scheme of today’s city minimum apartment, where the lifestyle of the population engaged in the industrial sphere and in the service sector is reflected, i.e. work only outside the home. This is a diagram of the 20th century, an industrial era. The competition had to offer proposals for 21st century architecture with its post-industrial, informational civilization, exacerbated by the limitations of the kovid pandemic.

There is no place for work, professional and amateur in residential cells. Where is the workplace and recreation site?

How people will get to work, where they will work, and what kind of work will not be clear.

5. All decisions are formal, i.e. focused on solving engineering aspects. The layout of the living cell is formal because the traditional layout scheme is used.

The external form of the residential cell was formally because the authors’ main plan was focused on originality and ways of layout.

The form of the layout of residential settlements — the general plan, the placement in the environment — where it was presented, formally because they are usually not meaningful planning concepts, schematically or aggressively in relation to the environment, its landscape.

The structure of residential settlements is formal because it is mainly due to the ways of the layout of residential cells, and not scenarios of the future life of people in the settlement. The set of cultural and household objects is standard for urban modern development: pharmacy, shops, etc.

In some projects, the hypertrophied scale of residential formations vertically, in fact the repetition of high-rise apartment buildings, only new form and in natural conditions. It’s not good. The development of the dwelling vertically, its many storeys, the man above the person — this model is unacceptable for an adaptive form of resettlement.

From the anthill of the twentieth century make an anthill for people of the 21st century. I don’t think it’s a prospect.

The idea of people living in structures on water is controversial. As an idea interesting, but not original. In reality, are there people who want to live on the water?

Projects have not given answers, how people will communicate in modern times and in what environment, what architectural objects are needed for this.

From my point of view, we did not see a future model of resettlement and settlement.

No answer has been received about the structure of the housing module in the information society and the resettlement system in the mode of self-isolation and pandemic conditions.

Giant in size and capital expenditures of buildings, multi-storey communication centers are also from the last twentieth century. The idea of centralization, not cooperation and participation of residents in the creation of their habitat, is laid down in public service institutions.

Liked.

Originality and variety of solutions for different habitats — on the ground, on the water, in the air.

A variety of architectural forms of residential cells.

Often successful and technological layouts of residential modules, good opportunities for their development.

The idea of moving modules through the air is good.

The conclusion. Not all the projects submitted for the competition reveal the theme of the competition. Residential cell solutions are standard for urban lifestyles in the industrial era.

Innovations in the residential cell lie in the search for optimal and compositionally expressive forms suitable for layout, development and modernization, transformation and movement. The content of people’s forms, functions and lives at a promising stage is not simulated.

The principle of human concentration (high density and flooring) should be replaced by the principle of autonomy and disurbanism. The principle of state security and organization should be replaced by the principle of cooperation.

The proposal of the contestants on residential cell solutions and ways of layout, on the application of the latest construction technologies and new building materials is of interest.

Projects that show the most about the concept of residential settlements as an alternative environment for modern cities should be singled out.

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Elena Logotowskaya. with.

Professor of the International Academy of Architecture(IAM); Adviser to RAASN.

All-Russian competition with international participation:

«The concept of living space in the social models of the future» 2020 is the 2nd stage of the competition.

The authors and organizers of the two competitions envisaged a step-by-step solution to the formation of living space in different environments on planet Earth.

The organization and development of the creation of new spatial solutions of settlements (2-stage of the competition), consisting of autonomous residential cells (1 stage of the competition), was supposed to be the relationship between these two competitions. According to the organizers.

The first stage of the competition: the autonomous residential cell«COCON» is a continuation of the second stage of the competition: «The concept of living space in social models of the future.»

In the competition in question, I did not see the interconnected solutions presented in the 1st and 2nd contests.

Perhaps the authors of the first stage of the competition did not take part in the second stage of the competition and vice versa. I did not see any non-standard, innovative ideas in the presented works of the second stage of the competition. Some of the works had interesting ideas (verbally), but unfortunately in the graphic part of the project — all this was not displayed.

Competitions, this is the most important component of architectural creativity and the participation of young architects and students in the two competitions I consider positive, as all this contributes to the professional growth of participants.

Thank you very much to the architect O.KUVAKIN for organizing and holding these two interesting competitions.

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Oleg Kuvakin

Architect Member of the Jury

A big thank you to the Members of the Jury and all the participants of the Competition. In the past, there is an obvious inertia in the works of the contestants who have returned to the design solutions of residential cells, rather than in the design of a new living environment in the updated social models of the besy. This once again raises us with the problem of inertia in perception of reality and the absence of attempts to find new and promising goals for human development. Long-accepted stereotypes and norms firmly entrenched in the minds of young architects cannot always be ignored by them, or replaced by breakthrough ideas and futuristic plans of the new reality.

Many phase projects did not open the task of designing new forms of resettlement in the planet’s space using modern autonomous and futuristic forms of dwellings. There was no attention paid to understanding the functions of new agglomerations, transport arteries and internal connections in new models of resettlement.

Most of the participants in their projects returned to the concept of housing — a cocoon with autonomous energy consumption on a typical natural landscape, which corresponded to the task of the first stage of the Residential Cocoon Competition. This could be due to inattentive analysis of the task or to the enslaved thinking of the world sandwiched in reality.

In the same part, the contestants were offered the idea of developing vital solutions for humanity in the issue of resettlement in the new social form of society, the development of new vectors in the development of residential settlements, the key to which could serve architecture. Complexities have arisen in the visualization of the new world, where there is no need to accumulate human masses in overcrowded cities, monopolize power grids and communications, accumulate natural resources to create crises. Difficulties in presenting a new world, where your living space should not be inherited and where the usual monetary relations do not work, and there are no modern market mechanisms. All these utopian ideas were supposed to push the contestants to rethink the forms and functions in the new settlement projects they are building on the basis of high-tech residential cells. In aid of them were offered Remarky from the authors of the project revealing the essence of the idea. The jury noted the projects that most meet the task. We hope that among the contestants will appear architects ready to change our world for the better use of the tool available to them — ARCHITECTURE.

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