Architecture Competition Columbarium – The Chamber of Memories Honorable mention - Artem Alendeev and Kristina Ukhina

We’d like to take the opportunity to introduce you to one of our Honorable mention winners for our "Columbarium – The Chamber of Memories" competition – Artem Alendeev, Kristina Ukhina from Russian Federation!

Artem Alendeev, Kristina Ukhina from Russian Federation

Though OSTAP group is a young company officially founded in 2020, we have a great experience both in design and building processes, which we got while working in the leading architectural studios in Moscow. We don’t have employees yet, but for each project we collaborate with relevant professionals.

Brief information about the projects that you/your company have been involved with. For instance, what scale have you focused on/preferred, any significant projects where the company/ individuals have been involved?

We are working on projects of different scales from interiors up to cities masterplans. We have completed several competitions, were listed in two, held here in Moscow. We work on several interior projects: apartments in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg, interior of the university department and an office interior. While working in the leading architectural offices in Moscow, we worked on mixed-use complexes, the Renovation of the Museum of Fine Arts and others.

What does architecture mean to you and what is the role of an architect in your society?

Architecture is a set of random coincidences, which can lead to any number of results. Project is a way to arrange all the randomness, according to our view of the ideal. All together it is a sum of ideas of a perfect world, technologies and processes, occurring in the society.

Why do you participate in architecture competitions?

Based in Moscow, we are excited to have the opportunity to work in different cities and countries, as the context of places influences architecture very much. Through competitions we can try to work on different functions, ideas and scales. Each competition is always a challenge for us.

Joseph Brodsky said in his Nobel Prize speech: “Poetry – is not “the best words in the best order”, it is the highest form of language”

Competitions allow to feel more deeply the essence of architectural language, to formulate the idea in a poetically accurate manner, to gather lots of meanings in one image. The search of a clear solution is fully connected with the formation of the new language, doesn’t matter if it uses well known symbols, or creates new ones. The terms of the competition are a kind of a Technologyy Roadmap, all the next steps, from choosing the direction of the work to the finished project, depend on the will of an architect and his professional and personal experience.

The result of the competition is always a check-up of an architect’s progress. The ability to feel and understand the context is as important as the process of searching the solution. Finally, “Paper Architecture” influenced all the contemporary architecture and culture in general, and architectural competitions now are its true successors. We can say, that the creative statement during the competition – is a highest form of architecture, as it is a pure manifestation of a will of an architect.

What advice would you give to individuals who struggle to decide whether it would be beneficial for them to participate in architecture competitions?

Competitions is a wonderful opportunity to try lot of different things, to work with different professionals, to study different places, stories and functions. It is always a hard, but very interesting work, which is an improvement in one’s professional skills.