The Union of Russian Architects and the Russian Aluminium Association initiated on past April 2019 a large-scale event titled \u2018AlumForum\u2019, which hosted the \u201cAluminium in Architecture\u201d award, the First All-Russian Competition devoted the Aluminium solutions in architecture, construction, design. We talked about this event with Nikolai Shumakov, President of the Union of the Russian Architects, and with Irina Kazovskaya, co-chairwoman of the Russian Aluminium Association<\/p>\n\n\n\n
by Mario Conserva *In cooperation with the PR team of the Union of Architects of Russia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Aluminium Association of Russia is making itself ready for an important event. On March 26-28, 2020, Italy will host in Parma the First Russian-Italian Aluminium Forum, a discussion platform for all market participants, authorities and experts, where they will be talking about ways of industrial development, possibilities to increase demand for aluminium, being the material of the future, and agree on constructive cooperation between Russia and Italy in the field. A year ago the Union of Russian Architects and the Russian Aluminium Association initiated a large-scale event titled \u2018AlumForum\u2019, which hosted \u2018Aluminium in Architecture\u2019, the First All-Russian Competition with international participation. How did the union of architects come up with an idea of organising the AlumForum in Moscow?<\/strong> What makes aluminium attractive for architects and urban planners?<\/strong> Mr. Shumakov, at the beginning of the interview you paid a compliment to aluminium as a practicing architect. Can you please expand on how you apply this material in your projects?<\/strong> A question to Irina Kazovskaya. What are the strategic plans of the Aluminium Association for the upcoming years?<\/strong> Does it mean the \u2018ode to aluminium\u2019 will continue? When is the next AlumForum?<\/strong> Further information regarding AlumForum 2020 is available here: www.alumforum.ru<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Union of Russian Architects and the Russian Aluminium Association initiated on past April 2019 a large-scale event titled \u2018AlumForum\u2019, which hosted the \u201cAluminium in Architecture\u201d award, the First All-Russian Competition devoted the Aluminium solutions in architecture, construction, design. We talked about this event with Nikolai Shumakov, President of the Union of the Russian Architects, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2423,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[868,869,850],"class_list":["post-2425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eventi","tag-aluminium-association-russia","tag-building-and-construction","tag-extrusion"],"openstation_lock":null,"openstation_contributors":[],"openstation_attached_media":[2423],"yoast_head":"\n
\nAs part of the preparation for the Forum, we met Ms Irina Kazovskaya, co-chairwoman of the Russian Aluminium Association, and Mr Nikolai Shumakov, people\u2019s architect of Russia, chief architect of Metrogiprotrans Institute, President of the Union of architects of Russia, speaking about the role of the light metal in the architectural applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou know\u201d, Nikolai Shumakov says, \u201cit seems that all periodicals of Russia, including the radio and television, have published my answer to this question. Honestly: I do not understand why it happened just now, while architects have been considering aluminium as one the most needed construction materials for decades. The Forum \u2018pecked\u2019 like a chick through an egg shell: now it is time to make aluminium available to the public, make it a priority in construction and finishing. And I am not exaggerating at all. As a practicing architect, who has been constructing the underground for over forty years, I can sing an ode to this phenomenal metal. It is light, strong, machinable, castable, mouldable, corrosion resistant, heat and electricity conductive, completely recyclable\u2026 Open any source of information \u2013 an encyclopaedia, a reference book, the Internet \u2013 and you will learn so many interesting things about aluminium! Moreover, this is a very efficient material, too, which reacts easily to all design concepts, no matter how unrealistic they might be. Speaking of building and construction, we are accustomed to list: stone, wood, brick\u2026 whereas aluminium can replace all these materials in one successfully. In recent years, the most prominent globally renowned architects have been using aluminium in their projects. In one of the interviews, my Japanese counterpart Kengo Kuma remarked: \u2018When I need to make a building hover, I use aluminium\u2019. Since all my professional life is architecture of metro, I can rephrase this saying as follows: \u2018When I need to create lightness and airiness under the ground, I use aluminium\u2019. Basically, this is an answer to the question about the origins of the \u2018AlumForum\u2019: it simply couldn\u2019t but appear today because it had to happen the day before yesterday\u201d.
\u201cIndeed, an application of aluminium in construction and architecture has been gaining momentum among Russian experts recently\u201d adds Irina Kazovskaya. \u201cThey, if you will, have discovered the taste, or, as Italians would say, hanno scoperto il sapore, of this light and beautiful metal. Stand panels, suspended ceilings, windows, doors, staircases, roof sheets \u2013 all these pieces are made of aluminium today. It is irreplaceable in construction. We can see that its applications are really endless\u2013 from deluxe individual projects to mass construction and pedestrian bridges. At the same time, there is a stable association between aluminium and innovations. But it was not a long time ago that some people considered this material to be exotic. Aluminium was called \u2018winged\u2019 metal exclusively, with a reference given to its use in aircraft engineering. Now it is high time were named it to the \u2018metal of the future\u2019, which has already come.
It should be mentioned, that it took the Russian aluminium industry only several dozens of years to make a gigantic leap in its development. I will tell you more\u2013 hi-tech products from local aluminium, for example bridges, became demanded by the global market, including advanced European countries\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI have answered this question partially, but I can continue\u201d, Nikolai Shumakov says. \u201cDo you know that aluminium is an element of the 13th group of the Mendeleev\u2019s Periodic Table with atomic number 13? As it is well known, 13 is a magic number, you never know, what it will bring you, there is some magic in it, which makes you believe in miracles. So, aluminium is a wonderful metal. I have mentioned its physical properties already, but its aesthetics are no less interesting. I will not open a secret if I say that the population of the Earth is growing, cities turn into megapolises, there is a catastrophic shortage of space, both for people and buildings.
We have been urging our fellow constructors to keep urban development well-proportioned all the time, but they go on rising, trying to solve settlement problems by building skyscrapers. Well, aluminium can make a multi-storey building look light, let it not be really so; and in combination with glass a building will benefit from the reflection, too. I believe that glass and aluminium make a unique match, a couple which is destined to live a long and happy life of common urban development. Sometime ago, glass attempted to join concrete\u2013 we all remember architects being crazy about this movement. Something\u2019s turned out to be a success, but, on the whole, they are extremes: heavy rough concrete and radiant glass. They were lucky with aluminium: its lightness is complementary to glass, but simultaneously, the metal looks quite massive and brutal due to its strength and durability. Recently, I learnt a new word\u2013 \u2018extrusion\u2019 \u2013 sounds nice and strange. Of course, I am joking. In fact, this is a well-known hot working and forming process used to shape some metals, mainly aluminium. Extrusion makes it possible to shape aluminium the way you want, which you cannot do to either wood or steel. And here aluminium becomes a real architect\u2019s find. It allows you to fantasise and model any structure to make a project a unique masterpiece.
Irina Kazovskaya added: \u201cI will support my colleague\u2013 special characteristics of aluminium leave wide room for creative architectural solutions, because it can simulate a tree and even a wild stone. We know such examples. As for aluminium extrusion, this process is available in many industries; it is used in pipe and wire production, which is especially important, by the way, for underground and high-rise construction.
Equally important is the fact that in our country, where there are several climate zones \u2013 from high arctic tundra to subtropics \u2013 aluminium performs excellently at various temperatures. To make it absolutely clear let me remind you that dozens of years ago in Oimyakon (Yakutia) the absolute sub-zero temperature of \u201367.7 \u00b0C was recorded! Aluminium becomes stronger, while other materials lose their strength at low temperatures. This is the magic of \u2018number 13\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI will be delighted! And you may consider this opinion unbiased: the entire Metrogiprotrans Institute is proud of the awards we won in the First All-Russian Competition with International Participation \u2018Aluminium in Architecture\u2019. We won \u2018silver\u2019 and \u2018gold\u2019 in the \u2018Best Interior Solution\u2019 nomination. A section of the underground from \u2018Business Centre\u2019 to \u2018Savyolovskaya\u2019 station of the Big Circle Line (the Moscow Metro) was awarded the golden diploma; the jury awarded a section of the Kalininsko-Solntsevskaya Line (from \u2018Business Centre\u2019 to \u2018Ozyornaya\u2019 station) the silver diploma. I can say that we use aluminium locally and globally; we use it both as a finishing material and as functionalism in architecture, when materials should be consistent with functions of a construction project. In other words, lightness, strength and range of temperatures are the features, which increase reliability of such a technically intricate facility as the metro. This is a functional consistency of aluminium with our construction both under and on the ground. In addition, of course, there are aesthetics and visual attractiveness. One should not forget that, as a rule, new metro stations are constructed in existing residential districts. It means that we must be very delicate to fit new facilities in the running architectural and urban context. By the way, there is a new station \u2018Michurinski Prospect\u2019 on the Kalininsko-Solntsevskaya Line with its exterior and interior stuffed with aluminium. By its name, it is clear that both the district and the Avenue and the metro station make a historical reference to Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, an outstanding Russian biologist, who was a father of the Russian fruit farming, selection and breeding of new types of apple trees. Aluminium panels in the entrance hall and column facets are decorated with work pieces of Lyudmila Shurygina, a talented artist, imitating blossoming branches and succulent fruits. We used glazed ceramics, granite, glass, steel and, of course, aluminium as finishing materials\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUntil 2023 we plan to double the market and make it 2.5 million tonnes, thus developing the aluminium industry. It implies modernisation of existing and development of new processing capacities and creation of new products. A global share of aluminium consumption in construction is 25%;this number is very impressive by itself. In Russia trends are the same. Moscow and regions use aluminium solutions in construction and road infrastructure more and more actively. In 2018, aluminium bridge structures were installed over the Yauza river in Moscow and in Krasnoyarsk, the capital of Siberia. Aluminium bridges \u2013 the first in the modern history of Russia \u2013 have been in operation for two years now in the Nizhny Novgorod region.
This experience has proven efficiency of large-span bridge structures. Light, strong, environmentally-friendly aluminium guarantees excellent operational performance. A long lifetime, low operational costs and convenient assembly make the experience of Nizhny Novgorod and Krasnoyarsk quite attractive for other regions. Suffice it to say, the Russian Aluminium Association is developing two dozens of aluminium bridge construction projects now. Innovations in our industry develop new technologies and increase tax proceeds significantly\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSoon, in Spring 2020\u201d, says Nikolai Shumakov.\u201cOne may make applications both for the Forum and the competition. I am confident to say it, because we have a very reliable and heavyweight partner \u2013 the Aluminium Association of Russia. This is an authoritative organisation uniting aluminium suppliers and consumers, processing companies, scientists and practitioners\u201d.
Irina Kazovskaya added: \u201cThe Russian aluminium industry moves forward intensively and leading world experts admit this. However, up until recently Russia has not had a dedicated international forum to act as a strategic partner, have a dialogue with a professional community and develop the hi-tech aluminium industry. Italians are the largest aluminium equipment manufacturers in the world. They have an invaluable experience in construction, re-construction and restoration of aluminium structures. This is why the Aluminium Association and the union of architects of Russia discuss a format of such a forum actively with their European colleagues.
Nikolai Shumakov concluded: \u201cWe are ready to facilitate the process by all means. The 2019 \u2018Aluminium in Architecture\u2019 award demonstrated a competence of our professional union in the issue. We started to cooperate with the Russian Aluminium Association closely during the preparation for the Forum, we found the common language easily confident that we maintain the common cause. We develop one of the most critical areas of the Russian industrial complex and create optimum conditions to expand the aluminium market and neighbouring sectors, where aluminium is used, so simple and so multifaceted. In a word, a magic element\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n