A whole city will be spread under the Lakhta Center tower. "Lakhta Center": "As future residents of Lakhta, we are the first to need a comfortable environment" That is, the apartments will not be redeemed by anyone, including the top management of the company

"Lakhta Center" - A public and business complex under construction in Lakhta, the historical part of the Primorsky district of St. Petersburg, the key object of which will be the headquarters of the state concern Gazprom.

The complex includes a skyscraper and a multifunctional building, divided by an atrium into the South and North blocks. The total area of the premises is 400,000 m. It is planned to complete the project in the 3rd quarter of 2018.

The skyscraper became the northernmost in the world and the highest in Russia and Europe, surpassing the Moscow skyscraper "Federation Tower" by 88 meters, although in terms of number of storeys it is inferior to it and the 100-storey Grozny skyscraper under construction "Akhmat Tower". If we take the absolute height, then the Lakhta Center ranks second among the tallest buildings in Russia and Europe, second only to the 540-meter Ostankino TV tower. The height of the building is 462 meters with 87 floors, and 118 meters falls on a spire of metal structures weighing more than 2000 tons.

The architectural design of the completed Phase 1 complex, including the tower, was developed by the team of authors of CJSC "Gorproekt" under the leadership of the chief architect of the project, Philip Nikandrov, who was the co-author and chief architect of the Okhta Center project (2006-2010). The interior design of the complex is being developed by the European bureau Exclusiva Design Srl, which in 2014 won an open competition for the design of the interiors of the IFC's public areas.

According to the concept, the interior of the multifunctional complex Lakhta Center will be made in a futuristic style. The glazing of the tower will be smooth, without joints and edges. Thanks to this, an original optical effect will be achieved in the form of reflecting clouds rising along the wall of the building. Double-glazed windows are parallelograms and triangles (in the corners). There are no windows in the glazing because the building is air conditioned. Two buildings located on the sides of the high-rise dominant will be built with a height difference of 22 to 85 meters.

The highest point of the southern building will be farthest from the tower, while the highest point of the northern one will be directed towards the tower and the city. In March 2017, the first three elevators of the future forty were launched. Between the elevators there will be interchange nodes from the lower zone to the middle one, and from the middle zone to the upper one. A shuttle is also planned, which will deliver passengers to the observation deck without transfers.

Photos

Lakhta Center is a modern socio-economic business complex located on the shores of the Gulf of Finland in St. Petersburg. The construction is financed by Gazprom, and its central office will also be located here.

It has been going on for 6 years now. And the construction completion date was set for the third quarter of 2018.

Lakhta center when opening: grandiose construction of a public and business center

The center will include a huge number of facilities: a large medical center, a sports complex, a children's science and entertainment complex, an embankment, concert and conference halls, restaurants, offices of large companies, and much more.

The key figure of the complex is a skyscraper with a height of 462 meters or 87 floors, which has become the northernmost skyscraper and the tallest building in Europe. The top will become a beacon for passing ships, searchlights are built into its hexagonal top.

Lakhta center when opening: the latest information on work in progress

According to the latest information from the construction press center, the last tower crane has been dismantled in the complex. All construction work is currently ahead of schedule. The dismantling was supposed to be completed by the semi-final match of the 2018 World Cup.

The construction management expressed the hope that the appearance of the object will cause positive emotions among residents and guests of the "northern capital".

In June 2018, work is also planned inside the building, installation of the facades of the building and the MFZ, work with the facades of the entrance arch.

Lakhta center when opening: commissioning of the observation deck

From the executive director of the project Alexander Bobkov, information was also received that the observation deck, located at a height of 360 meters, which corresponds to the 83-87th floor of the skyscraper, will become available to visitors only by the end of 2019. This is due to the deadlines that will be set for the entry into the complex of the main tenants of the premises.

A fee will be charged for entering the site and at the same time about 50 people will be able to visit it, and it will start functioning stably in 2019-2020.

Since the bird's-eye view of St. Petersburg is amazing, an influx of visitors is expected: Petersburgers and tourists visiting the city. Special telescopes equipped with interactive maps will be installed on the observation deck, which will allow you to get acquainted with the sights of the city. According to preliminary data, 300-350 thousand people will be able to visit it during the year.

Beautiful St. Petersburg is hard to imagine as a city of skyscrapers, but high-rise construction is rapidly breaking into the city of Petra. The majestic Lakhta Center will soon become its first "swallow". At the same time, the Leningrad Tower will not be an ordinary skyscraper, but the second tallest among similar Russian and European buildings, bypassing the "Federation" in "Moscow City" and yielding only While the building is being built, there is time to learn interesting details about it.

General idea of the project

"Lakhta Center", "Lakhta Center" (both spellings are correct) - a public and business complex currently under construction. Its scale is explained by the fact that the headquarters of the largest Russian corporation Gazprom will become the key object of the skyscraper. Location of the complex - Primorsky The construction of the tower was started in 2012. Its full completion is planned for the third quarter of 2018.

The maximum planned height of the Gazprom tower in St. Petersburg with antenna/spire is 462 m. The top level of the very last floor will be 372 m above the ground. The mass of the building with filling will be 670 thousand tons. The complex will include not only the tower, but also a multifunctional building, which will be divided into the northern and southern parts of the atrium. The total area of the future building will be 400 thousand m 2 . How many floors are there in the Gazprom tower in St. Petersburg? The final number will be 87. The building will be serviced by 102 elevators.

Tower construction progress

Let's touch on the key stages of the construction of the Gazprom tower in St. Petersburg:

2013 - a foundation pit was dug for the building.
2014 - completion of the construction of the pit, the beginning of pile driving.
2015 - the completion of the so-called construction: the manufacture of a box-shaped foundation, reinforcement and concreting of the minus floors.
2015-2016 - erection of the first 50 floors of the skyscraper and 7 floors of the MFZ.
February 2017 - the 60th floor (260 m) was built.
April 2017 - work on the construction of the 67th floor (300 m).
May 10, 2017 - reaching a mark of 327.6 m and 78 floors, the skyscraper became the tallest building in the northern capital, "overtaking" the TV tower. The latter held this title for 55 years.

The concept of the Lakhta Center project

According to the project team, this tower, directed to the sky, like a rocket at the start, located on the shores of the Gulf of Finland, will form new standards of city life with its appearance and content:

developed social infrastructure;
modern offices that meet all global environmental requirements;
comfortable public spaces;
an abundance of green areas;
pedestrian and transport accessibility.

The main task of the so-called Gazprom tower in St. Petersburg is to rid the historical center of business and business activity, and at the same time the dominance of transport, transferring the focus of this activity to the outskirts of the city. The skyscraper will not only help the second capital to switch to a polycentric development model, but also attract significant investments, create new high-paying jobs, and create all the conditions for business development.

Architectural solutions

St. Petersburg is a city of contour lines, not skyscrapers. All of its historical high-rise buildings - St. Isaac's, Peter and Paul Cathedral - are the central points around which independent and integral ones lined up. bay, away from historical buildings.

The tower is designed to begin to form the "marine facade" of St. Petersburg. Its appearance does not at all conflict with the "face" of the city - the same theme of a lonely spire on the horizon, aspiration upwards, the contours of buildings, reminiscent of the outlines of the hull of ships.

The shape of the Lakhta Center, according to the architects, should visualize openness, lightness, freedom, the flow of spaces and the energy of the sea. They strive to give the complex the effect of weightlessness and organic unity with the surrounding city and nature. A special kind of double-glazed windows will help in this, which will allow the building to change its color depending on the mood of the sky.

What will be inside the complex

The popular name of the Lakhta Center - the Gazprom tower - is not entirely correct. The project of the "stuffing" of the complex impresses with its versatility:

It is planned to allocate only 43% of the total area for office space.
2.5 thousand m 2 will be occupied by a medical center.
7 thousand m 2 will be guaranteed to be provided to the children's scientific and educational center "World of Science", which will include lecture halls, laboratories, and an exploitatorium.
It is planned to open a planetarium in the building, in which 140 people will be able to simultaneously observe celestial bodies.
It is planned to build a transforming multifunctional auditorium designed for almost 500 people.
Floors 74-76 (330 m) are planned to be used as a two-story panoramic restaurant.
At an altitude of 357 m above the ground, on the 83rd-86th floor, there will be an observation deck equipped with powerful telescopes.
The MFZ will allocate 1.5 thousand m 2 for exhibition space.
An imposing amphitheater with 2,000 seats is also planned. Various water shows will be held on its stage with an area of almost 1.5 thousand m2.
A part of the complex will also be a covered pedestrian bridge, which will connect the space of the Lakhta Center with the park of the 300th anniversary of the city.

Other characteristics

Let's get acquainted with the interesting technical and design features of the Gazprom tower in St. Petersburg:

The skyscraper stands on 264 piles, each of which is 2 meters in diameter and 82 meters deep.
The reinforced concrete core is responsible for the stability of the tower.
The horizontal rigidity of the skyscraper is achieved by outrigger floors - there will be 4 pairs in total. The outriggers will keep the tower stable even if it loses 30% of its supporting structures.
Cold-formed glass technology is responsible for the innovative three-dimensional curvature of the facades of the complex.
The illumination of the Lakhta Center is light "pixels". Their color will depend on the season of the year.
Recycle waste will be an innovative garbage disposal.
Near the complex it is planned to open a metro station under the working name "Lakhta".

Finally, let's look at interesting facts related to the St. Petersburg tower:

Concreting of the bottom slab of the foundation of a skyscraper was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the most voluminous continuous pouring of concrete in the world. It lasted 49 hours, during which 19,624 cubic meters of concrete were poured.
400 thousand cubic meters of concrete will be spent on the construction of the entire complex.
The area of the glass surface of the tower will be equal to 77 thousand m 2 . The weight of each double-glazed window is more than 700 kg.
In July 2016, the skyscraper became the tallest building in St. Petersburg. He was able to achieve this title in just 10 months.
In August of the same year, Lakhta Center became the northernmost skyscraper in the world.

Surprisingly, the tallest skyscraper in Russia will be located in St. Petersburg, the city of contour lines. In addition to the height, the Lakhta Center project impresses with its versatility, well-thought-out concept and organic architectural solution.

"Lakhta Center":
what is it worth
for high-rise
frontiers

Partner project

Skyscrapers are the vanguard of the construction industry. Super high-rise buildings always require a special approach from their creators. In 2018, the construction of the Lakhta Center will be completed in St. Petersburg, which will become the tallest skyscraper in Europe. What technologies are used to build the St. Petersburg giant?

New Height of Europe

The public and business complex "Lakhta Center" is being built in the Primorsky district of St. Petersburg, on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. The headquarters of the Gazprom Group and Gazprom Neft will become its center, the other part of the area will be occupied by public spaces: a scientific and educational complex for children and youth, a planetarium, exhibition spaces, medical and sports centers, a multifunctional transforming hall and others.

The complex consists of four structures: a multifunctional building with an atrium, a stylobate (there will be parking and auxiliary facilities), the main entrance arch and a skyscraper 462 meters high. It is he who will become the highest not only in Russia, but throughout Europe. The Lakhta Center Supertoll will outgrow the current European record holder, the Federation Tower in Moscow City, by 88 meters, and will be in 11th place in the world high-altitude rating.

Construction site in the swamp

There is an opinion that Petersburg is built on viscous soils, and it is impossible to build skyscrapers here. Experts answer: you can build anywhere, but you need a good calculation. The construction of the St. Petersburg supertoll was preceded by a year and a half of engineering and geological research. The authors of the project studied the geological, geodetic, ecological, historical and cultural features of the site.

It turned out that weak soils make up only the upper layer. Under it lies the Vendian horizon - these are the oldest clays, which are 635-540 million years old. As strong as rock or concrete, these clays provide excellent support for a skyscraper. But getting to them is not easy: on the way, construction equipment has ice age deposits in the form of giant boulders and sandy loam with gravel. A complex of studies, calculations and full-scale tests became the basis for creating the Lakhta Center design.

Device: base

Piles and protective wall

From pressure and water in the upper soil layers, the foundation is protected by a five-sided underground structure along the perimeter of the base of the skyscraper. Its height is 30 meters, the length of the walls is more than 300 meters. Inside the pentagon, 264 piles are installed, going to a depth of up to 82 meters. Their diameter is 2 meters. These are the widest piles in the world. The piles of the foundation of a skyscraper are not hammered, but created right on the spot - in the ground. The shaft is drilled out, then the reinforcement frame is installed and poured with concrete.

Foundation

The foundation of the skyscraper rests on piles. It consists of three slabs separated by ten radial walls that radiate "beams" from the core. The most famous of the plates is the lower one, 3.6 meters thick. It was she who got into the Guinness Book of Records: builders laid 19,624 cubic meters of concrete in the base of the building in 49 hours. Moreover, the uniqueness of the slab is not in the physical size, but in the technique that provides the necessary bearing capacity with the optimal dimensions of the structure.

More about the record at the Lakhta Center site

Each pile under the tower is a separate complex engineering structure as high as a 30-story building. Control over its construction is a whole system, including video monitoring cameras lowered into the shaft and ultrasonic sensors installed in the reinforcement of the pile frame to determine the density and absence of voids.

Pressure test

The weight of the Lakhta Center tower will be 670,000 tons, putting pressure on the ground of a relatively small area. Under pressure, the soil will compact, and the skyscraper will settle - like any other building. The main task is to ensure that this draft passes evenly and the building does not deviate from the vertical. To monitor the behavior of the soil, underground structures and their interaction, a geomonitoring system has been created that combines 4800 sensors.

The sensors are located both in the ground and in all elements of the underground structures of the tower. So, 95 sensors “monitor” vertical displacements, 40 - the pore pressure of the soil, 336 measure the deformations in piles, 10 - the pressure under the base of the foundation, 2136 - the dynamics of forces in the foundation structures. All sensors are integrated into an automatic system. After the construction of every five new floors of the tower, the system issues a full report on what is happening with the soil, piles, and foundation. Such knowledge is useful not only for builders, but also for scientific research.

Vertical management

The sediment can pass evenly. But after all, the building itself can be built with a slope. This will not be surprising at a height of almost half a kilometer: an uncorrected deviation of 1 mm at the bottom will lead to a deviation of 1 meter at the top. "Lakhta Center" cannot afford a strong deviation: a skyscraper is stable "on a slope" only if it is specially designed this way (for example, Capital Gate is the building with the largest slope in the world: at 160 meters in height - 18 degrees of heel). The maximum deviation of the Lakhta Center core allowed by the project is 6 millimeters for all 462 meters. And the goal is to shift the deviation delta to zero, although in world practice no one has yet managed to reach absolute zero.

How can the St. Petersburg supertoll not turn into the Leaning Tower of Pisa?

There are examples of buildings in the world that successfully exist in a state of deviation from the vertical by meters. For example, the church of 1382 in Bad Frankenhausen: the deviation of the spire from the vertical is 4.45 meters with a “growth” of 25 meters.

Device: design

A skyscraper cannot simply be built "as long as there are enough bricks." There are various systems that ensure the stability of super-tall buildings. At the Lakhta Center tower, it consists of a core, outriggers and load-bearing columns along the perimeter of the building.

It is a "pipe" with a diameter of 24.5 meters with a reinforced concrete wall thickness of 0.8 meters. Responsible for vertical stability.

Outriggers

The outriggers located on the technical floors consist of an annular beam around the core and diagonal metal trusses and columns extending from it. These elements transfer forces from the core to the outer columns and reduce the support moment at the bottom of the building, as well as impart horizontal rigidity - for example, they dampen the swaying of the tower from the wind. There are five outriggers in the Lakhta Center tower, of which four have the form of double floors, and the fifth is atypical, in the form of a powerful reinforced concrete "washer"

Made of composite materials - steel core with reinforced concrete shell. This solution was applied for the first time in civil engineering in Russia. Thanks to him, the cost of columns is significantly reduced, and the construction time

reduced by 40%, other things being equal.

Twisted shape

According to the creators, the Lakhta Center tower was conceived as a modern interpretation of a high-rise dominant that stands out against the background of the traditional horizontal building of St. Petersburg. Its "brothers" - the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, the Admiralty Needle, the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral - adorn the city center, while the new supertoll will become an organizing element in the rapidly developing Primorsky district. The new skyscraper will play the role of the main focus of the business space that will appear on the line of the city's "marine facade".

“The shape of the building symbolizes the energy of water, the flow of spaces, openness and lightness,” the authors of the project explain. – The effect of weightlessness and maximum fusion of the future complex with the environment will be enhanced by the use of a special type of glass, due to which, depending on the time of day, the high-rise building will change color, which will create the feeling of a “living object”.

Device: facade

The Lakhta Center tower twists 90 degrees around its axis. In the construction of such a building there are certain features. For example, due to expansion, contraction and "torsion", all 189 thousand components of the tower's metal structures differ from each other (strictly speaking, only two are identical). Facade elements also differ in shape and curvature: 16,505 panels cover an area of 72,500 square meters, while 71% of the double-glazed windows differ from each other in size and geometry. The size of each double-glazed window is 2.8 by 4.2 meters, weight is 740 kilograms. To service such a whimsical structure, a special facade maintenance system (abbreviated SOF) has been developed. With its help, the facades will be kept clean and, if necessary, repaired.

How to collect 189,000 parts and never make a mistake?

A vision for the future

Conquering heights is always a matter of having the appropriate technology. Elevator, ventilation, electricity - at one time it was skyscrapers that were the first to experience all these "novelties". After a successful start, the production of technologies became massive: they moved from the category of exclusive goods to the category of minimum standards in the construction of typical housing and public buildings.

The construction of skyscrapers is due to the development of modern lifting construction equipment, the invention of building stability structures, the introduction of new fire safety technologies, modern high-strength building materials. High-rise construction is an area where an order for high-tech solutions is formed, which will then move to other areas of our life.

"Walking" mechanisms for the construction of a skyscraper

St. Petersburg "Lakhta Center" is actively introducing technologies - something for the first time in the regional and Russian construction market, something - in the world. The significance of this construction project for the construction industry can be assessed later, but it is already clear how the environment is changing: joint production enterprises appear, qualified personnel grow, suppliers use new technical solutions - this is how new heights in quality standards are mastered.

They prepared in advance for pouring the bottom plate, because it is impossible to “remake” the work. The members rehearsed everything they could. For example, 13 concrete supply plants trained in the manufacture of a concrete mix according to a unique recipe until they reached its absolute identity.

The pouring speed was more than 400 cubic meters per hour, and the mixers made more than 2,450 trips. The process was organized in such a way that local residents learned about the event from the media - there was no additional traffic jam on the busy Primorskoye Highway, no noise from the construction site.

The deviation delta is monitored by surveyors. They have seven systems of equipment (optical and laser) in their arsenal, duplication helps to double-check the instrument readings. Three of the seven geodetic systems are presented in Russia for the first time, but have managed to prove themselves well at the world's leading construction sites.

World geodetic premiere - a pulsed high-speed laser scanner with a two-axis compensator. The device is used for the first time in the construction of a skyscraper. With its help, the builders of Lakhta Center check the position of metal structures inside the concrete environment during the manufacture, for example, of composite columns with a steel core inside the concrete structure.

To maintain the core in a strictly vertical course, a "space" technology is also used - the Trimble 4D Control geodetic device. It uses a satellite signal and a system of geosensors installed at the construction site. With the help of GPS and GLONASS readings, the system determines the exact coordinates of the core and the displacement delta, which is constantly corrected based on the received data.

BIM is used for assembly, a relatively new technology for Russia. It is a virtual three-dimensional model of the building that combines all the data of the project documentation. When adding a time dimension, a virtual technology for erecting an object is built: projects for the organization of construction, work performance, supply logistics. In Lakhta Center, one more application was added to the standard use of the model. Due to its complex geometry, the tower is assembled from metal structures, each of which has a single possible mounting location. The correctness of the assembly is controlled, including with the help of BIM. The structures delivered to the site have barcodes associated with the BIM model. The part code clearly indicates its installation location in the overall design.

Builders say about the St. Petersburg Supertoll that it is “handmade”. We are talking about the uniqueness of solutions, and as for labor, they automate everything that is possible. For example, for the construction of the core, a “sliding” (automated) formwork system is used.

Formwork is a form for concreting formed by two rows of panels, the space between which is the future wall of the core. Concrete is poured between the shields and hardens.

Ordinary formwork needs to be loosened, rearranged to a new place and reassembled - a huge waste of time and productivity. And the automatic one, as the concrete is poured, “moves” with the help of hydraulic jacks.

Such self-propelled tools are very popular at the Lakhta construction site. The wind protection on the tower works according to a similar principle - its panels slide after the formwork. The "walking" mechanisms include a crane in the core of the tower - the first of its kind in St. Petersburg.

Architect Philip Nikandrov tells how Gazprom's Okhta Center in St. Petersburg turned into Lakhta Center and explains why an architect should be more important than developers and officials

Philip Nikandrov, chief architect of Gorproekt /Evgeny Egorov / Vedomosti

Philip Nikandrov designed skyscrapers for St. Petersburg and Moscow that have every chance of becoming new city symbols - the Lakhta Center tower on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and the Evolution tower in Moscow City. The architect worked for 15 years in the international bureau RMJM, in offices in the UK and in the Middle East, from where he returned to Russia in 2004. He began designing skyscrapers in the 2000s while working in Dubai. At home, he led the design of two skyscrapers according to his concepts that won international architectural competitions - the Evolution Tower in Moscow City in 2005 and the Gazprom complex in St. Petersburg in 2006.

The Lakhta Center tower in St. Petersburg, where Gazprom structures will move, will be put into operation in autumn 2018. It will become the tallest building in Europe (462 m).

- The construction of the Lakhta Center is being completed. But at one time, the decision to build a tower for Gazprom in St. Petersburg caused a scandal. Tell us about the history of the project and why did you move from Okhta to Lakhta?

- This story began on a plot of about 5 hectares in the place where the Okhta flows into the Neva. On the site of the demolished in 2008 Petrozavod was once the Okhta shipyard, in the XVI-XVII centuries. here was the Swedish fortress Nienschanz, and before that, back in the 13th century, the Swedish fortress Landskrona. In fact, the history of St. Petersburg began with the fact that in 1703 Peter I took Nienschanz by siege, and three weeks later he founded a new city downstream of the Neva, starting to build a fortress on Hare Island. The old earthen fortification of Nyenschantz was subsequently destroyed. When in 2006 " Gazprom” announced a closed international competition for the construction of headquarters on this site, I collaborated with the British company RMJM, which was shortlisted from a solid list of Pritzker laureates. We were able to present an interesting concept that was liked by the customers and the majority of the jury members, while winning both the open Internet voting and the voting at the exhibition of competitive projects.

The concept not only embodied the historical genetic code of the site in its forms - we proposed the museumification of Nienschanz and Landskrona by tracing its outlines in the paving and in the numerous atrium spaces of the complex, which also provided for an archaeological museum for artifacts found during the excavations carried out at the expense of Gazprom. True, the archaeologists, having received their reward, declared the entire site "Petersburg Troy" and demanded a ban on construction, while having no scientific plans to conserve the site or recreate an earthen fortress, except, of course, a pure remake - to build a hidden in the 17th century. fortification from scratch again, and then declare it a monument. Having been approved by the Glavgosexpertiza in 2010, the project was closed, and the authorities of St. Petersburg immediately declared the entire site a monument and banned any construction on it.

But the project on Okhta was closed mainly not even in connection with the protests of UNESCO about the very fact of high-rise construction in the so-called buffer zone near the historical center, but because of the illegitimacy of the city's high-rise regulations, when gross violations were discovered when it was adopted as part of the PZZ [ rules of land use and development] of St. Petersburg. In 2010, the Supreme Court overturned it. At that time, about 120 projects were actually suspended, located in the territories of the industrial belt around the historical center, which UNESCO considered a buffer zone (there is still no such status in determining the boundaries of the historical center of St. Petersburg as a world heritage site). But this whole story developed against the background of the emerging pre-election political protest, in which the construction of a tower for opposition movements in St. cultural space of the city” (they came up with such a thing!). Built in the 1960s. The 300-meter TV tower against the backdrop of the spire of Peter and Paul and three dozen smoky industrial chimneys, exceeding the mark of the top of the dome of Isaac, no one seemed to notice. That is, all this was not so much about architecture as about politics, this landmark project “smelled of power” too much.

Philip Nikandrov

Chief architect of "Gorproekt"

Born in 1968 in Leningrad. Graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Leningrad Civil Engineering Institute. In 1994 he joined the Union of Architects of Russia

Works at Lengiprogor: Workshop No. 3, participation in projects for Severodvinsk

Moved to the Personal Creative Architectural Workshop (PTAM) of Yu. K. Mityurev

He became the chief architect in the offices of the UK, Middle East and Russia of the international architectural company RMJM Scotland Ltd. (since 2011 - director and co-director of the European studio RMJM). In 1999 he received a professional license to carry out independent architectural activities

Appointed Chief Architect of CJSC "Gorproekt"

Initially, the idea was not accepted with hostility, in 2006 an architectural competition was held, there was an open exhibition of all concepts, there was controversy, but already in 2007 serious money flowed into a protest campaign to discredit the project on Okhta. I don’t know for sure who financed this, but it was about moving from the capital of the country’s largest taxpayer, the amount of tax deductions from which was comparable to the total annual budget of St. one region to another.

- You yourself did not perceive that project as a threat to the historical image of St. Petersburg?

- No. I would certainly be embarrassed if it was built, say, opposite Palace Square or the Peter and Paul Fortress, similar to the 300-meter London tower The Shard, standing across the Thames directly opposite the Tower, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Our site was far beyond the historical urban ensembles. We then built a 3D model of the city, carried out our landscape-visual analysis, looking at all the points from which streets the tower would be visible, and found only 5–6 streets, on the axis of which a new dominant sat, and all these streets were outside the so-called golden triangle. Five kilometers from Palace Square is quite a decent distance.

But in the end, Gazprom made a strategically correct decision - to move the construction site from the disputed territory and away from the historical center. Since 2011, the project has been developing in Lakhta, on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, on a site of an alluvial area, 5 km from the border of the historical center. RMJM could not survive the international economic crisis and the work with it did not go further than the concept. So, along with the Lakhta Center project, I moved to work as the chief architect at Gorproekt, which won the tender for the general design of the facility in 2011. Since then, the project has been completely and repeatedly revised, only the idea of the silhouette of the tower-spire, symbolizing the flame that Gazprom brings to people, has remained from the previous concept. But now it is 462 m, it will be the tallest skyscraper not only in Russia, but also in Europe for many years to come.

Now Lakhta Center, as a new public and business cluster, is the flagship of the agglomeration practically in the center of the lagoon ring of the Gulf of Finland, surrounded by a ring highway, in the orbit of which Greater St. Petersburg will develop in the 21st century. And the tower on the shore of the bay, as a new city-wide dominant, forms the sea facade of the city directly opposite the new passenger port, which receives 5-7 cruise liners at the same time in the summer tourist season, and this is more tourists than daily arrives through Pulkovo Airport.

What was there before in this place?

- There was a sand base - they stored sand for construction sites.

- So the tower is on the sand?

- No, it stands on 264 piles with a diameter of 2 m to 82 m deep, they pass the first 30 m of weak soils and abut against hard clay. The foundation slab was continuously poured for more than two days (a Guinness Book record).

The area of the site of the first phase is 8 hectares, there will be large landscaped spaces: three public squares, an open amphitheater with a stage against the backdrop of the bay, an entertaining science museum with a planetarium, and a concert hall. The tower is completed not by the office of the head of the company, but by an accessible viewing platform, an unconditional center of attraction for tourists. The facility is also certified gold by LEED, making it a national flagship for energy efficiency and environmental friendliness, yet it is the headquarters of the largest energy company growing in step with progress.

– What is the ratio of the areas to be occupied by Gazprom and public areas?

- Less than 45% of all areas are allocated for office functions, the rest are public spaces and functions, including recreation. Gazprom has another 7-hectare site nearby, where they will build the second phase, where there will be more office space.

- Does Gazprom pay for everything?

– Investor of the first phase – “ Gazprom Neft”, this company was originally the builder and developer of the project through its subsidiary. But in the end, all the main brands of the Gazprom group of companies will settle in the complex. Now they occupy comparable areas in St. Petersburg in different business centers and pay rent. In the long run, their own building is a clear savings for them.

- Do you suppose that the fate of Lakhta is not the Montparnasse, but the Eiffel Tower? (The 210-meter Montparnasse tower, the only skyscraper in the historic center of Paris, became the object of criticism. Two years after its construction, high-rise buildings were forbidden to be erected on this territory.)

I really hope so, but history will judge. However, any architect is convinced that he is right. Although, I think the creator of the Montparnasse tower was also proud of it. We - architects, designers - live and work in a difficult time in the context of the ideology of universal consumerism, which forces many of our colleagues to kill their own buildings, following the path of momentary architectural fashion, constantly inventing new styles and thereby devaluing the value of the previous ones. This makes life difficult for investors, especially when it comes to high-rise buildings. The construction period with height increases in direct proportion. And it may turn out that, having invested in a concept that was trendy at the time of the start of the project, you will get an object obsolete by the time the construction is completed. That is why so many pseudo-classical buildings are being built in Russia (which is considered bad taste in Europe) - in this way, customers are trying to save investments and deceive time. But they only deceive themselves, all these "pseudo" and "quasi" will never become classics, but will forever remain in the category of miserable parodies. The style of the facades and forms of Lakhta Center is timeless, it is not tied to any architectural fashion.

- Is the tower reinforced concrete?

- A reinforced concrete core in the center and concreted steel columns along the periphery, between them there are steel beams and reinforced concrete ceilings on steel corrugated board - this is the most popular type of construct for megaskyscrapers now, it is called composite. By 2020, when the tower is fully occupied, it will no longer be included in the list of the 20 tallest towers in the world. But we live in the context of Europe, and there were no tasks to set high-altitude records. The task was initially to find harmony with the place in the urban context of St. Petersburg.

- How was it built?

- Many of the advanced building technologies used have already been tested earlier at other sites, but on a more modest scale. For example, the facades are unique: this is the world's largest cold-formed facade (after the Evolution tower): the glass is curved and strictly follows the spiral geometry of the form, as if it flows continuously. In addition, an intelligent ventilated facade is used here: in summer it will prevent heating of the premises when the ventilation valves are open, and in winter it will accumulate solar energy due to the greenhouse effect, reducing energy consumption for heating when the ventilation valves are closed. The facade maintenance system is also unique: special rails are laid according to the shape of the building, along which beams with a cradle will move for washing or replacing double-glazed windows. Architectural lighting and anti-icing systems are integrated into the same rails. Anti-icing measures are extremely important here - no one has built such tall buildings at such a northerly latitude and in such a humid climate. Special sensors will monitor when it will be necessary to turn on local heating in places where icicles may appear during the cold season.

The city certainly needs such objects, they position it much further than its usual niche as a museum city or Venice of the North. Petersburg, like Venice, is a flat city. But the height of ordinary buildings outside the historical center has grown several times, but the height of the dominants has not, now the average height of historical architectural dominants in the center is 50–60 m, like an average residential building on the outskirts. And this new scale dictates the scale of new high-rise dominants. But until recently, such dominants were not built in the city.

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Turned out to be the highest

Skyscrapers and high-rise construction in general are a trend associated with the increasing density of our cities and metropolitan areas, as, indeed, all the phenomena of our life. The trend is positive if urban planning, as well as the design and construction of skyscrapers, are professionals, and a frightening phenomenon if amateurs do it, and this also happens.

- Do you think that increasing the building density is progressive?

– Increasing building density is progressive and inevitable. It is progressive, because as a whole on the planet, with an increase in density, habitation becomes more and more compact and, thus, significant territories remain or are freed from development, remaining on the balance of natural ecosystems. Inevitably, because with the growth of the world's population, the general trend to save resources, including energy and all types of infrastructure, is intensifying.

- Now they talk a lot about the need to build garden cities, but they continue to build anthill cities. What must happen to society in order for progressive urban tendencies to prevail?

- In a nutshell, do not answer. Russia is now a prisoner of several trends at the same time - an industrial society still prevails, but in megacities, where traditional production is replaced by an innovative and service economy, elements of a post-industrial social order are already visible. For example, Skolkovo can be seen as a prototype, or rather a showroom, of such a garden city. Although it is created in some isolation from the real economy of the country and has signs of Potemkin villages, but such is the fate of many pilot projects.

In Russia, the mass housing construction of the era of industrialization, which began with the Khrushchev era, still prevails. Until now, millions of adult children live with their parents, millions of divorced spouses continue to share living space, not to mention the millions of people living in communal apartments and dilapidated houses. New buildings are still competing for buyers' wallets with the same Khrushchevs and Brezhnevs: such a miserable competitive background does not promise us a special quality of economy-class houses under construction and improvement of the urban environment. In Western countries, on the contrary, there is an overproduction of housing, so there is no such scale of mass housing construction, they build much less there, which means that the competition is much higher and the quality is better. This also applies to social housing, which is also being built, but according to government orders and not as massively as we do, which makes it possible to use individual projects for each specific site and even involve well-known architects in these projects.

Only serious competition in the field of housing construction can revive the institution of real architectural competitions and return the quality of architecture to new construction. As for the already built "anthills", then, unfortunately, we have to live with it, and for a very long time.

But we must understand that progressive urban trends do not promise a decrease in building density in our cities, it will continue to grow with the growth of urbanization. Which will continue until at least the middle of this century, when, according to forecasts, 70% of the world's population will live in cities. But it could be completely different cities.

– Polycentric or monocentric development, agglomeration or conurbation – which path should Moscow and St. Petersburg choose?

– General plans and planning plans of both megacities, as well as all Russian urban planning as a science, are still based on the fundamental principles of urban planning of an industrial society since the industrial revolutions of the 19th century. This means: industrial zones were built at a distance from the downtown, and sleeping residential areas were located nearby, stadiums, parks for the rest of citizens, etc. were built separately. However, if we get rid of such functional zoning and zoning of cities according to the old schemes of centric development and life of a post-industrial society, creating a mixed building in which housing, retail, offices, schools, universities, cultural and sports facilities will harmoniously coexist along well-maintained and landscaped streets and squares, then a further increase in the density of cities due to an increase in the number of storeys of the building can be carried out without destroying such harmony, but, on the contrary, reducing the need for daily migration. The fact that now the majority of the population lives in one area, works in another, and goes shopping or relaxing in a third, only creates a transport collapse. The answer to this challenge is the polycentric development of our cities.

– It has already become a commonplace that developers scold architects for “excessive prettiness”, and developers' architects for simplifying projects at the expense of quality. Can these parties come to an agreement? And How?

- This is an eternal dispute and a struggle for a share in the budget. The developer will strive to optimize, if not cut, then optimize the budget allocated for architectural expressiveness, quality of details and landscaping. And the architect, on the contrary, will (and is obliged by definition) to fight for an increase in the budget for aesthetics and quality. But it is possible to agree. If, for example, we accept the principle of minimalism in the high sense in which it was formulated by [German architect Ludwig] Mies van der Rohe: "Less is more." That's just to measure "more-less" here should not be a developer, not an official, but an architect.

– Do you agree that it is a professional challenge for an architect to make a good project of a cheap but high-quality house? Do you have such projects?

- I absolutely agree, this, in principle, is the highest exam. Of course, it is great luck for any architect to receive an unlimited budget for the realization of his architectural dreams and fantasies, but, in my opinion, to build beautifully on a small budget is a much more honorable merit and a higher mission worthy of applause.

Recently, we received such an order - a project of a typical residential building for rent. The result should be the concept of a rental house, which will be centrally owned and managed by a single homeowner. For this business to be successful in the marketplace, the new homeowner must offer not only affordable fees, but also housing that is exceptionally attractive to potential tenants in terms of quality and aesthetics. This is the task and the professional challenge you are asking about.

– At a recent forum on high-rise construction in Yekaterinburg, you drew a picture of an ideal city of the future. What should it be?

- So that most of its residents feel comfortable living in it, without dreaming of moving to another city. So that people born in it want to live their lives in it. We are talking about an environmentally and socially safe urbanized urban space that is in harmony with the environment and provides - by virtue of its layout and functional equipment - convenient and easy access for citizens to the main elements of a complex social infrastructure, including employment, education, healthcare, culture, trade. , recreation and sports. As for transport, its structure is already changing with the process of “uberization” and with the advent of unmanned vehicles and drones, and the goal for the person of the future, in my opinion, is to travel less around the city in a car and walk more and / or use bicycles and hoverboards . The pattern of daily migration within the city has already begun to change, online shopping and couriers have begun to slowly but surely kill traditional trade, in developed countries street retail, malls and hypermarkets with huge parking lots are slowly dying out as a class. But people need to stay mobile enough to travel between cities or travel around the world. I think that virtual reality will reduce the share of business tourism and business trips, people will travel to visit relatives or to see the world. And if tourists massively aspire to a city, then it means that it is already successful in some ways, and thus has won its place in the present and future.