Standard Housing and Residential Development

Location:  Moscow, Russia       Status:  Competition       Area:  25700㎡       Program: Residence, Mixed-use       Date:  2017

Background history

   Over 3,000,000m² of apartment buildings in Moscow is a result of industrialised mass  construction in the 1960s. The apartment building, called Khrushchyovka, featuring in their fast, prefabricated construction, is a low-cost, concrete-paneled or brick three to five storied apartment building. The idea of prefabrication and standardisation was truly a success to provide housing in a short period in that age. However, this mass production idea behind it also brought up new problems. 

   One of the most complained problems is the poor construction quality. In a word, the cheap apartment blocks did not offer too much in terms of comfort. Residents have to live up with low ceilings, terrible sound insulation, and no elevators. They also have to stand the small living area of the kitchen and toilet.  Other problems come with the roughly planned neighborhood environment and urban design. The community always has a boring look because of the simple brutal parallel positioning of buildings and the facade that has a tedious aesthetics and so much alike. Communal life is also neglected considering the lack of definition between public and private spaces, and the monotonous landscape design that is missing the meeting center for intimate neighbors. 

Concept

   In contrast to the Krushchyovka neighbourhood, design of a contemporary residential block will ask for much more considerations to bring a better living environment. 

     1. One of the focuses will be how to bring back the intimacy and interaction between neighbours that were isolated by organisation of the Krushchyovka neighbourhood. In our proposal, we suggest a perforated community with different layers of public space from rich landscape parks to commercial plazas, so that the community is never an isolated private area from the outside, and people can always get access and share the public facilities with the residence. 

     2. The other consideration is to break down the big and monotonous scale of Kruschchyovka into a more human-scaled and diversified little community. So instead of the row houses,  we take a cluster of three buildings which have access to all directions and a centralised courtyard as the basic community unit to created a smaller, thus more intimate neighbourhood. 

By the guidance of these two principles, namely layers and clusters, we try to create a new  type of residential model that will bring people a community with more intimate connections with neighbours, more varieties in communal activities, and more natural area like parks. Besides, with the help of prefabrication technology, and green energy scheme, it will be not only easier and faster to build, but also more affordable to live in. 

Our goal is to create a ACTIVE Community, which has: 

- Access: more access for the public;
- Cluster: smaller living group with more human scale
- Transferrable: a transferrable community mode that can apply to other urban blocks
- Involvement: flexibility for residence to adjust the apartment to their on will
- Vibrancy: diversity in activities in the community
- Energy-Saving: eco-friendly with smart energy strategy.