St. Petersburg, Russia
Sergei Tchoban and Anton Boldyrev of SPEECH architectural office have designed the Veren Place Sovetskaya, a residential complex consisting of two blocks of different heights placed on a shared plinth.
This architectural design has been awarded a 2021 International Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The taller of the two blocks complete the facade of 10-ya Sovetskaya Ulitsa and plays an important architectural and urban-planning role in connecting the new building with its historical surroundings.
The lower block faces the territory inside the street block. The roof of the plinth supports a green internal courtyard for the use of residents.
The ground floor of the complex contains a central vestibule giving access to all three staircases, residents’ personal storage spaces, and premises, which are rented out (small shops, cafés, and services).
The facade is made of large-format panels of fibro concrete.
The building’s ground floor is faced in dark-grey fibro concrete, which has been polished to give it the appearance of granite; all the top floors are of a light-grey material with elements, which have been carved into three-dimensional shapes (the art critic Mariya Orlova helped devise these ornaments).
The interior decoration of the public spaces employs patterns taken from the facades and architectural fantasies by Sergei Tchoban.
To save space in the one-level underground car park, given the space limitations for development in this city, the car park has a lift instead of a ramp.
The car park provides access to both buildings and the internal landscaped courtyard on the complex’s plinth.
The complex’s architectural image harmoniously combines typical St. Petersburg restraint in colors and plasticity with rich facade detailing.
The fluid contours of the bay windows, the precise rhythm of the horizontal cornices and string cornices, decorative ornamental inserts, and expressive texture of the densely fluted facade are just a few of the artistic devices used by the architects to give this residential complex the look of a respectable and truly Petersburgian house which, on the one hand, is unmistakably a work of modern architecture and, on the other, can be expected to serve long and age gracefully.
Project: Veren Place Sovetskaya Residential Complex
Architects: SPEECH Tchoban&Kuznetsov
Lead Architects: Sergei Tchoban and Anton Boldyrev
Landscape Architects: Neskuchniy Sad
Client: Veren Group
Photographer: Dmitry Chebanenko
