Architects about facades

Modern private architecture in Russia has not become mainstream. Although it has been "modern" for 30 years (or 100, depending on how you count) and has managed to become commonplace, for example, in Scandinavian countries. In our built houses are very conservative — 19th century in the minimum.

It would be interesting to trace why this is so. There are many factors, for example, people don't have anywhere to be in a modern country house - people they know don't live in one. Often bold (expensive and complicated) designs are needed. The conventional house is more understandable.

But I have some thoughts on our native theme — finishing the facade. In order to give weight to the simple form of a modern house, it is proposed to use aged hand-formed bricks from the layered clays of the Austrian place X, a special shape, on order in two years. The market has agreed, it works. That's the way architecture gets pushed into the premium segment. You can't just go ahead and build a modern house without that brick, slate or zinc-titanium roof.

And you really don't have to be afraid of stucco, siding, faux stone or painted metal. Beauty — in beautiful combinations, proportions, accents. The facade does not have to withstand a nuclear strike or be inherited by great-grandchildren. The façade can be repaired and renewed. That's fine.

If you dissolve the neurotic knot imposed by sellers of "timeless" materials and insecure architects, it becomes easier to build.

What style of home is timidly gaining momentum to unfold in the future? It's the mega-trend that's exciting the decades, not the seasonal furniture sales, that's interesting.

I believe we are moving toward «big ethnicity» a style that points to the vernacular and, with globalization, to the natural.

Most would agree that ethnic, it's more of a low, rustic style, rustic houses. For thousands of years, architecture has reflected the trappings of power. Even the «modern»styles of the turn of the century extolled the power of technology.

But architecture follows society. Today we teach children to value each other, not as subjects of their king and country, not as an appendix to a shovel or a computer, but as citizens of the earth. It becomes a shame to have a personal palace, even if you are rich, and not ashamed to live moderately, to help the disadvantaged.

Earthlings will repopulate Mars, architects will rethink the past, dig beyond crusades and redivisions of empires to reach common roots.

This is the new fashion — mixing the image of Mediterranean shacks into Western styles. And, of course, the flourishing of eco-architecture, which lacks, however, human flavor.

It is obvious that the most popular building material of our clients — aerated concrete. In second place, by a margin, is porous ceramic block. The rest of the capital materials, rather exotic. I think this popularity remains beyond our analysis, in the middle and northern strip of Russia.

For cold regions so far have not come up with the ideal wall option, so these non-ideal materials people prefer quite reasonably.

We give our customers technical solutions for finishing walls and protect them from mistakes. But there are more readers than customers. So I want to warn readers: these materials are not afraid of precipitation, as many think, the enemy of these materials — moisture inside the house.

The biggest misunderstanding for builders and workers is that in winter, moisture from inside a warm house escapes heavily through the porous walls into the cold, dry environment. Gas and ceramic blocks, it's a sieve for steam.

So people!!! Don't lock up moisture in walls with a finishing or insulation layer! It's dangerous to both the finish and the integrity of the whole house. I write this because I've seen too many houses foolishly mangled by improper finishing.

It is remarkable that the Baroque was not a step aside or a degenerate architecture, as it may seem. It was a direct development of architectural thought. And that thought was not about adding more wispy decor.

There's an interesting cultural observation about the time machine. When the human imagination got to time travel by mechanism (it started in the late 19th century), time machines were depicted as large clocks, steam engines, and even bicycles.

The emergence of a new idea does not mean new means of achieving it. People think in familiar categories. The first expensive carriages were decorated with columns and capitals like a house, and the first cars were shaped exactly like carriages. It's the same story with the Baroque.

The revolutionary idea was to overcome the flatness, static and closed nature of the architecture of the time. Part of what we profess today was invented in Baroque times. Only achieved the desired effect then on the material of the time: the decorations became grotesque (depth), porticos bitten off (openness), the towers turned (dynamics). Heavy buildings revolted and came into motion. Stand-alone Renaissance facade decorations merged into an ensemble, a "general living impression" in Baroque architecture. Baroque craftsmen even planned scenarios of familiarity with the building, complicating the layout.

The lemon in the Baroque still life became cut and peeled, ready for celebration right now rather than in perfect eternity. In this sense, Baroque is more human, and closer to modern architecture than its austere predecessors.

The Baroque is more human, and closer to modern architecture than its austere predecessors.

The biggest mistake in building a house is to get a space inside as separate boxes with a window and a door, just like an apartment, only bigger. Life in these boxes is in itself dull, joyless, and not unlike a manufactured home in the city.

In these "containers" designers create niches of drywall, hang "beams" and multilevel ceilings, play with mirrors, and do everything to break up the confinement space. But decorating and furnishings don't completely solve the problem of boring, walled-off rectangular space.

The simple rectangle, the cube are the most artificial, man-made forms, and man wants a natural environment. Nature is blurry, complex, multifaceted, changeable, imperfect.

There is no need to strive for geometric logic, symmetry (unless you have an addiction). What looks beautiful on the plan will rub off on the soul. Suffice it to recall the Soviet districts built according to the geometric principle. I remember how dreary it was, despite the grandeur of the architects' designs. It's better when home architecture, not dominating, but dissolving.

Build a house, try to make the space interesting: connected volumes of rooms, lots of different windows, visual bridges, corners, turns, nooks, elevations and depressions (remembering about ergonomics), second light, breaks, visible roofs. Do not be afraid of oddities and irregularities - they will become native, they will be loved by children and grandchildren.

The architect can work with a scale of "tension. Just as in good sculpture we see the tension of some muscles and the relaxation of others, in design there are tools to convey the state. For example, a classical column with a thickening to the bottom creates a feeling of tension in the construction, as if it's bulging with gravity, we feel it's fundamental.

The good buildings, while actually static, have a distinct visual energy. We create homes that are ready to move, or vice versa, rooted in the terrain. Cottage decor can be muscular, trim or excessive.

Like a person, a building struggles with gravity. Equilibrium can be achieved either by the even distribution of forces, or by stressing individual parts of the "body" that take the load asymmetrically, giving other parts freedom. The viewer well understands and feels the degree of this tension. This is how architecture evokes real empathy.

This story began long ago. At first, ancient architects designed sculptural compositions: gods, palm trees, plants (ornaments) - they were essentially artists depicting nature in stone. Then the Greeks began to build stone temples depicting wooden houses, the everyday work of carpenters.

If you look at the Doric order, it is an exaggerated depiction of a wooden verandah with a canopy: pillars (columns), ends of joists-prostruts (triglyphs), ends of rafters (mutules) and even nail hats (gutta). And the real fragments and joints of the structure are masked, and others are depicted.

It is difficult to create the new. Ume clings to patterns. A century ago, Corbusier advised treating the house as a mechanism, a step revolutionary, but still with a reference to the other. Carriages and the first automobiles were created in the form of baroque houses on wheels. The facade decor carefully depicts the houses and materials of bygone centuries.

The fear of being oneself is a generic trauma of architecture.

In new houses, window frames are like black eyes - they ruin anyone's face. They come to us too late to avoid it.

I see websites "selling" only the inside of a window, but for a private home, the outside is important and always visible, because windows are the focal points. And the outside looks really bad. There are no classic frames or modern frames. They all look like some inexpressive washup - it seems that the frame was made of children's sausage balls. I will not mention the bluish-white color, it is gradually becoming a thing of the past.

Don't let yourself be fooled. Choose frames that are beautiful inside and out. The window should have intricately detailed bevels on the outside, classically shaped or sharply outlined, depending on the style. If you're thinking about facade design, think about the expressiveness of the window frames first.

One of the great glamour and beauty of the classic style is still the double glazed windows. Such windows are particularly expressive and have just the right amount of depth. Nowadays, you can find modern double-frame windows with double glazing and partial glazing that look exactly like the best classic windows.

It is interesting that at no other time did the enlightened architect, have the horizons that are available today. Even if he had the library of the empire or a university at his side.

We know from the biographies of artists what a creative burst and revolution of consciousness a visit to a foreign exhibition or a trip gave. After that it was a choice to do what they were used to or to dive into something new they had seen.

The amount of what we and our clients have seen is vast. Historical and fashionable styles, materials, approaches. Everyone has seen it all. What should we do with it all? Combine it? Choose? Create a new one?