When working with architecture, you inevitably experience déjà vu from randomly visiting locations or projects from your portfolio.
The first time this happened to me was during the Horizon hotel project in Sochi. I accidentally wandered into the area where the building was being constructed, convinced I was there for the first time, but the place felt eerily familiar: the surrounding houses, roads, vegetation. Around the next corner, I saw a banner gallery with renders from the studio. I vividly remember the chills running down my spine.
There were also more complex locations, like the center of Grozny or the watchtowers in the Argun Gorge. There, we designed bypass tunnels along the Chishki-Itum-Kali-Veduchi route back when we were with NPO Mostovik. Eleven years have passed since we assembled the renders, but the identification was instantaneous, as if I had just transferred the vertical model to Max yesterday.
In Moscow, the effect is different: since I regularly encounter projects we worked on in the studio, it’s interesting to observe how a project lives after completion or how construction progresses. I will attach photos of one such project, High Life, for which we are creating renders, to today’s photo selection.
PS But the key skill after working on a project is the ability to navigate the terrain with your eyes closed.