View From Within: Prestige under Glass

Constructive Typology

An atrium is an enclosed central courtyard in an Ancient Roman house. The first atriums dating back to Ancient Rome, where they formed a part of the dwelling space, turning ordinary courtyards into cozy halls, filled with light and warmth. As centuries went by, architects began to include atriums in the design of public buildings. Construction of atriums spread around the globe after architect John Portman designed an atrium for the Hyatt Regency hotel.

Construction of full-fledged atriums in Moscow became possible only recently, the main reason being that the domestic construction industry had never before produced high-quality double or triple glazing that could be use for building atriums.

The older generation, perhaps, remember that before renovation the atrium section of GUM, Moscow’s landmark department store, used to be filled with water from melting snow during the winter thaw as the fragile domestically-produced glass cracked under the weight of the rain and snow. As a result water trickled through the glass ceiling on to the floor. Glass roofs, covered with condensation didn’t delight visitors for very long.

In time construction technologies developed and new materials were invented. In the early 1990s high-quality foreign-made glass panes became available on the Russian market, and several years afterwards Russia itself began to produce glass fit for glazing atriums. This dispelled fears among developers and prompted them to begin building edifices with transparent roofs. But atrium houses are still rare in the capital.

In Russia there are not so many experts in this sphere, and, considering the Western origin of such a style, real estate market consultants recommend developers to seek assistance from the leading transnational companies with solid reputation.

“Erecting atriums is a very specific type of construction, and few companies, even on the international scale, have sufficient experience,” says Andrei Patrushev, PR director of Knight Frank. “Besides, it is necessary to take our climate into account. This means, a consultant should examine the experience of atrium construction in cities lying in the same latitude as Moscow, for example, Toronto. Otherwise, construction and future operational costs will grow.”

Knight Frank experts believe that when choosing between construction of an ordinary building and an atrium house, the latter is, of course, preferable to the former as long as the site meets certain requirements and the project depth of the building is not less than 25 meters.

However, it is practically impossible to compare the volume of investment required for construction of an ordinary house and of an atrium house. Everything depends on a specific project. Architects usually resort to sophisticated atriums with numerous slopes if they seek to accentuate the edifice, to make it dominate other buildings in the area.

Such design solutions are used mostly in the construction of office centers, shopping malls and hotels. Atriums differ greatly in terms of geometry, orientation and zoning of premises.

An atrium may have direct access to all the floors of the building or it may be fully closed; some atriums form a light well for other premises, from which it is separated with windows. As a rule, floorings in modern atriums are transparent. Light steel carcasses and the optical properties of translucent materials used in the construction of atriums, help daylight spread throughout the building.

Atrium Arithmetic

The construction of atriums is considered expedient given the architectural characteristics that help to decrease the thickness of walls and in doing so to expand the total space available for use and, consequently, to increase the profitability of the square meters available.

Moreover, an atrium in the design of a certain building helps to achieve a better layout of public zones inside. Mikhail Gets, head of the commercial real estate department with Blackwood, believes that although construction of atriums is expensive and complicated, they are, nonetheless, in great demand today.

This is due to the fact that in spacious buildings distances between supporting columns are too big and it is difficult to meet the requirements for illumination. Furthermore, certain elegant features need to be introduced both in the exterior and the interior of such spacious buildings.

The light that fills the building through an atrium’s glass ceiling helps to make use of the space in the middle more effectively without round-the-clock electric lighting, while the area inside can be arranged to accommodate a caf?, a restaurant, a lobby, etc.

In a group of buildings merged into a single complex with an atrium the total space of walls is higher than that of the roof and the air cushion formed as a result holds in the warmth.

In many edifices built recently a buffer effect or the principle of a double fence is used. A space between the walls in the atrium is used for forced air circulation. Experts believe that summer overheating can be easily prevented with the help of shadow tents, built into the roof and the southern wall, as well as with ventilation.

Commercial Component

An atrium is by no means an element that directly affects the commercial success of a building, but, Blackwood experts believe it enhances the status of a building and its prestige. With offices and retail outlets situated along the atrium’s perimeter visitors are given an excellent view of all the floors, while otherwise they would be lost amid numerous shops, restaurants and entertainment establishments.

The glass-covered courtyard in retail centers is always in high demand from tenants, mostly owners of expensive boutiques. And it is hardly surprising that rental charges in the atrium zones are 15 to 25 per cent higher than in the other parts of the mall. The most prestigious brand shops in GUM, Petrovsky Passazh, and the Smolensky Passazh department stores face the atrium zone.

Atriums in office centers are usually built to serve functional rather than aesthetic purposes, maintains Viktoria Bekasova, market research consultant with Colliers International. As a rule, a decision on building an atrium is determined by economics, since both the construction and further exploitation of an atrium is expensive. That is why developers decide to erect an atrium only if, given the specific layout of the building, its central part is not sufficiently illuminated, which may reduce the chances of such premises being leased.

Moscow’s Most Famous Atriums

Moscow has dozens of commercial buildings equipped with atriums. Some of them, such as GUM, Gostinyi Dvor, Petrovsky Passazh were built many years ago, but their atriums were reborn only after recent renovation.

Albeit small in size, the atrium in the Okhotnyi Ryad shopping and entertainment center attracts attention. It is built in the form of a dome, the roof of which is covered with a map of the northern hemisphere. The dome makes one revolution per day and shows the time in the largest cities of the hemisphere.

An enormous atrium has been built at a retail center in the square near the Kursk train station. The glass structure blended so well with the architecture of the mall that it was decided to call it simply “Atrium”.

A prestigious atrium adorns the retail center at 42, Rublyovskoye Shosse. The inner courtyard of the new building of the Bolshoi Theatre is also covered with a glass dome. Many administrative buildings are adorned with atriums, as for example, the office building occupied by the Moscow city department for investment construction programs in Vozdvizhenka.

An atrium is the key element of the office center at 31, Novinsky Boulevard. The Mezhdunarodnaya is the first atrium hotel in Moscow.

Developers also continue to include atriums in their new projects. For instance, an atrium is set to link the old and the new buildings of the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko musical theatre, being erected on Bolshaya Dmitrovka street.

The site that is to be vacated after the planned dismantling of the Rossia Hotel will be used for the construction of a new hotel with an atrium. The Moscow government building in the Moskva-City International Business Center will have several atriums at intervals of eight floors, and will be equipped with helipads.

The first-ever residential estate adorned with atriums will soon be built in Strogino, northern Moscow. The Yantarnyi Gorod estate will have seven atriums each two meters high in two 29-storied buildings, at intervals of four floors.