Constellations

MASTERPLAN FOR AN ART RESIDENCE COMMUNITY

2012. NIKOLA-LENIVETS, RUSSIA

The contest aims to create a self-sufficient community combining art, life, leisure and work, in harmony with the natural environment in which the project is located, the valley of the Ugra Natural Park and the village of Nikola Lenivets, 200 Km west of Moscow. The demand program consists of collective accommodation for artists in residence, single-family homes, temporary housing and an exhibition and nursery pavilion.

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The situation of the enclave in the midst of a natural environment, and the extreme climatic conditions to which it is exposed, makes it necessary that the future settlement is conceived as a self-sufficient complex and in terms of energy, water and food. Inspired by the forms of occupation of the territory of the existing villages, and through a revision and reformulation of the planned program, one arrives at a spatial planning that is based on the concept of the Constellation. Like stars in the cosmos, the program spreads over the territory as isolated points in the landscape connected to the basic infrastructure. This system allows to exploit the formidable landscape conditions of the place while producing minimal visual and physical impact on the environment. The analysis of the program, topographic and climatic conditions will result in a mapping of "unique points", where strategically locate the different units of use.

Three different areas function as constellation focuses or "points of gravity", containing the intensive use program (accommodation and artist's ateliers) and meeting areas. Placed in strategic positions and in relation to the energy and transport networks, each area is linked to a type of existing landscape, the field, the orchard and the forest, being organized around patios, that function like communal space and grant Their particular identity. The architecture is materialized through a catalog of modules of wooden huts of simple construction that can be realized by the local community, connected to each other by means of elevated footbridges of the floor that allows the circulation during the periods of great snowfall.

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