What should a modern courtyard space be like?

What should a modern courtyard space be like so that the child is interested and safe in it? How many meanings, scenarios of pastime, benefits and entertainment can be put into this space for children of different ages – from curious toddlers to active and freedom-loving teenagers?

The answer to these questions is precisely known by the creators of the Yanila quarter — the St. Petersburg developer Lenstroytrest.

Yanila is a residential complex in the Vsevolozhsky district from Lenstroytrest, in the Yanino microdistrict. Yanila consists of several queues and is being built in stages. The urban planning concept of the project was developed by architect Ryrd Gitema from KSAR Studio (the Netherlands) and Semrén & Månsson, a Swedish architectural bureau. In total, 43 houses will be built in the Yanila residential complex, designed for a total of 11 thousand people. The complex covers an area of 42 hectares.

A large-scale project has been implemented in Yanino for ten years. Currently, it is almost completely completed – the developer is simultaneously completing the last 6 houses. The idea of the project is to create a self–sufficient neighborhood modeled on quiet and cozy European suburbs.

Journalists were convinced of the passion with which professionals relate to their work during the press tour within the framework of the XVII competition “Consumer Confidence” called “With their own eyes”.  The press tour was attended by journalists of the newspapers “Real Estate and Construction”, “Construction Weekly”, “Concierge, TT Finance portals, bn.ru , Fontanka, gazeta.spb.ru , Moika78, Big City Life, telegram channel Peter Real Estate New Buildings. I took a tour of the quarter  Ksenia Kolotenko, Head of the External Communications Department of Lenstroytrest Group. The theme of the first press tour was the developer’s approach to creating and filling children’s and adolescent spaces.

Starting with the search for seemingly simple answers to questions: “What is missing for a child in urban spaces”, “why is it difficult for parents to be on the street with children and how to change it”, “how to make a yard a place for discovery and magic” — the developer has developed his own Standard of landscaping, which was called “Yards, alleys the whole world.”

The Standard was developed in collaboration with the Druzhba Architectural Bureau (Moscow), involving an entire expert community: environmentalists, inclusion specialists, traumatologists, psychologists and pediatricians, architects and specialists in children’s motor activity. Thanks to this interdisciplinary vision, the developer has formed the principles of designing playgrounds where it is interesting for children and convenient for parents.

“The environment must be holistic. And its creation requires complex solutions at the design stage of the neighborhood,” says the book “Courtyards, Alleys and the whole world”, which has become an image part of the standard, a kind of history for the creation of such courtyards.

The Standard is based on a large–scale study – surveys of residents and the developer’s team. The problems of modern courtyard spaces have been identified, in which there are often no areas of interest to teenagers, and parents do not have the opportunity to get involved in the process of playing with the kids.

Game elements for developing interaction skills, spaces for self–expression, quiet and secluded corners where you can hide, share secrets with friends or just relax from active games, as well as various “climbing walls” for conscious risk – all these are components of a modern courtyard.

The game zones in Yanil were created with this approach in mind. And the developer is ready to share this standard with the professional community. The image part of the book is publicly available. But there is also a technical part of the standard, which is a working tool of the developer and is available only within the company. It describes specific workflows and checklists for all departments.

“In the course of our research, we noticed that there is a huge gap between the idea and the implementation,” Ksenia Kolotenko, Head of External Communications at Lenstroytrest Group, shared during the meeting. – It is often associated with budget cuts – unfortunately, there is no escape from this story. But here it is important to understand what you can sacrifice. For example, some developers are trying to save money on replacing the source materials, size or functionality of game structures. But this fundamentally changes the meanings inherent in the product. Also, a common problem is the lack of understanding of the operating rules by the management company. You can create beautiful, diverse, interesting courtyards, but if a management company comes that does not know how to take care of it, where to get the components, all efforts will be in vain. Therefore, you need to think in advance about how to exploit later everything that was created with such care and attention.”

The yard can really be a place of attraction. A place where you want to leave your apartment even after a hard day at work or school, when you don’t seem to have enough strength for anything. And if the space in this courtyard is competently zoned, the flows of vacationers are divided, each resident has his own pastime scenario – then strength is quickly restored, and the circle of friends is wider.

Источник: www.bsn.ru