Capital City is an ambitious redevelopment area to the north of Moscow River, close to the Moscow Expo Center and the White House. The scheme is developed in accordance with the strict urban regulations and guidelines that apply concerning the programmatic brief and general urban composition.
The project consists of two towers to the north, 62 and 73 stories, preceded by a conical dome in the front. These major volumes are connected by an urban, publicly accessible landscape on different levels, enabling visitors to choose different, interconnected routes to and through the scheme. Commercial and leisure program occupy the lower stories and include department stores, restaurants and fitness facilities. The intermediate stories of the towers and dome are mainly commercial, with the upper stories accommodating apartments of various layouts and sizes.
To visually reduce the scale and mass of the towers the overall form is non-orthogonal and twisted in plan to create slender silhouettes. This transgression is also apparent within the façade geometry, with the vertical emphasis of the lower stories changing to horizontal to the top of the towers. The transformation of weight from the top to the base and its consequent materialization balances the movement towards the sky, as a natural reverence for height.
Due to the continually changing spatial relation between the outer façade and the fixed and pragmatic layout of the vertical core, almost no floor plan is identical. This variety requires a flexible floor plan system for both the offices and the apartments. For the latter, an intermediate, flexible layout system is introduced which creates the individual apartments and organizes the interior layouts. To maintain maximum flexibility between the core and façade and the cantilevering floor plans, the structure is accommodated principally within the perimeter, thereby reducing the requirement for internal columns to a minimum.
design 2002-2004, realisation 2004-...
