Vol 2, No 1 (2017)

The author considers the history of design, construction and further development of the modernist residential complex Neighborhood Gardens, built in St. Louis (USA, Missouri) in 1935. The paper provides analysis of the main underlying ideas, the reasons allowing it to be reborn in the XXI century. The author gives an example of the reconstruction of multi-storied housing in France, implemented on the same principles and led to even seemingly similar results. The connection between the architecture of social housing of the New Course in the United States and the architecture of Soviet workers’ settlements, which were designed and built by the USSR People’s Commissariat of Industry and the departments that left it in the second half of the 1930s and the second half of the 1940s, was not clearly identified. The paper draws attention to structure and proportionality of the residential ambiance to a person and the opportunity, given in the American example, reconstruction and revival of such architecture in Russia.

The article is devoted to the historical analysis of Samara’s public spaces at the level of +/- 0.000. Today our city is a collection of fragments from different eras. They differ greatly in the types of planning organization of the public level, the functional saturation and scale of development. From the pedestrian historical compact city, the transition to a modernist type with a micro-district mono-functional building was made. The urban environment has become disparate. In the zero urban level, gaps emerged associated with the lack of of open spaces in pedestrian accessibility and inadequate concentration of public components. Today Samara continues to be built up with neighborhoods with a predominance of residential functions, while not paying attention to the organization of public spaces. The solution to this problem will be an approach based on the creation of a pedestrian city at the level of +/- 0.000, which will be able to form a continuous network of public spaces in the lower level and qualitatively transform urban fabric. The article considers the historical evolution of public spaces in Samara as a necessary precondition for the future of the project.

The author considers architectural cuts as a specific type of architectural models existing either as a passive result of a section through the finished form of an object, or as a relatively independent formal experiment that initiates the emergence of a higher «adventure» level of the arkho-function. The authors derive the principles allowing to transform the standard lattices underlying this type of models. The methodological necessity of the formal transformation of the section is justified with the aim of overcoming deadlocks, projecting the section in passive mode to testify the withering of the architectural intrigue.

Nowadays there is a gap between architecture and a human, its spiritual deficiency, dehumanization of urban space and dwelling. The use of phenomenological approach can bring forth an ethical turn in theory and practice of architecture. Trying to distinguish the main principle of such approach, the author focuses on theoretical and philosophical basis of so called ‘sensual’ architecture and studies practical methods, which are used by modern architects when working with space, material, light, water, and sound.