Palazzo STRE

The site is located in Moscow on the land of a former dacha neighborhood, which emerged at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Nowadays, the countryside has given way to the city. Time, historical occurrences, and a lack of respect and appreciation for the architecture, the memory and the spirit of the place have significantly altered the atmosphere and mood of the surroundings. With this in mind, we decided not to play around with «dacha» origins, but to work with the current context of the urban environment, representing the building not as a dacha, but as an urban mansion. In referring to this typology, we could not fail to take into account the local architectural and building practices that were interrupted after 1917 and therefore, we relied on historical prototypes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Almost all of these urban residences are characterized by a sophisticated, layered composition (both asymmetrical and symmetrical, but always arranging a private inner courtyard), facade cladding in light-colored either brick or brick tiles, large windows, the use of architectural ceramics and varying storey heights. Forming the appearance of the building, we deemed it necessary to draw on these characteristic design elements, whilst allowing ourselves the option to reinterpret and apply them in our own subjective manner, guided by our own authorial approach, which combines both the ideas of modernism and a reverent attitude towards the fundamental aspects of architecture in its traditional understanding.