External enclosing structures of a rural house in Siberia: Soviet experience

Dranitsa Mariya Vyacheslavovna Engineer, Siberian Federal University 660041, Russia, Krasnoyarskii krai, g. Krasnoyarsk, ul. Svobodnyi, 82 mari.dranitsa@mail.ru

Introduction

The external enclosing structures of rural houses in Siberia changed throughout the Soviet period. For a long time, wood was the main material for the construction of low–rise houses in Siberia, and the houses themselves were of the manor type, which became widespread in the XVII-XIX centuries as a result of the transformation of traditional peasant dwellings, in which residential, economic and production functions were integrated. With the growth of industrialization of the XX century, with the advent of brick, reinforced concrete and many other factories of building materials, fundamental changes occurred in the materials of wall enclosing structures of low-rise construction.

The relevance lies in the fact that the considered Soviet experience of external enclosing structures, namely "obroztsovo-indicative" projects, can be used at the present time, for fast and high-quality construction of rural settlements

Goals and objectives of the study

The purpose of the study is to study and analyze the use of external enclosing structures of a rural house in Siberia Soviet experience.

Tasks:

- to consider the features of the use of building materials in rural settlements of Siberia of the Soviet era;

- to analyze the experience of using external enclosing structures of low-rise housing construction in Siberia of the Soviet era;

- to study the use of external enclosing structures in the design and construction of "exemplary" rural settlements

Materials and methods

For the present study, the external enclosing structures of low-rise housing construction in Siberia in the Soviet period are considered as the object of research. The subject of the study adopted methods - analysis of scientific literature and system-structural analysis of rural houses in Siberia and their external enclosing structures built in the Soviet period

The results obtained

Historically, the first types of organized spatial distribution of the population include the formation of a rural settlement. A feature of the architectural and planning organization of villages, its external appearance, the formation of houses should be considered the organic unity of the natural environment with external enclosing structures ^[2].

Later, the beginning of the twentieth century was marked, first of all, by typological experiments in low-rise construction, a new stage of Siberian rural houses in architectural and planning development began: their regular planning structures were significantly improved and developed, capital construction of central parts was formed, a new architectural appearance was formed. The following periods of methods of financing the construction of rural houses can be distinguished (Figure 1).

Figure 1 – Periodization of methods of financing rural homes in Soviet-era Siberia. Source: author's development

During these years, the peasant house underwent changes. Instead of a single family-wide room, separate rooms began to be used. Due to the rapid development of industry, housing for workers, including the manor type, began to be actively built. Such housing was simple, in the form of traditional peasant huts (Figure 2)^{[4,5,6, 12]}.

Figure 2 – Wooden house of Irkutsk province. Photo 1900-1930 years ^[14]

At the beginning of the XX century, reinforced concrete began to be used, it was also used in individual housing construction. Reinforced concrete has become in demand in many cities of Russia, but in Siberia at the beginning of the XX century it was not widely used in rural homes ^[7,8].

In the early years of the Soviet state, when collective forms were the main form of organizing people's lives, there was a noticeable decrease in the design and construction of low-rise housing. But it prevailed in working-class towns and cities in the early 1920s.

At the end of the 1920s, the promotion of projects of two- and three-apartment residential buildings, which were proposed by the Collective Farm Center for the development of villages and settlements, began. In the same years, traditional wooden construction in rural Siberia prevailed, few houses had an improved layout of the residential area. Demonstrative construction was carried out. Siberian houses built according to an "exemplary" project were built on a stone base made of wood. The exterior walls imitated stone architecture, for this purpose the houses were sheathed with a profile board, and the corners stood out "for rust" ^[9].

The 1930s were a time of searching in the field of low-rise housing construction. Local materials had increased attention. Factory-made prefabricated wooden parts for low-rise buildings began to be used in standard projects. Experimental construction was carried out and special production facilities were created. In the mid-1930s, the village preferred the traditions of the peasant hut, they began to combine modern technologies and details (frame-panel construction, terraces) with folk methods (log house on the basement). In 1935, the Agricultural Project and the People's Commissariat of Agriculture summarized and presented the experience of low-rise housing construction in the "Album of collective farm dwellings". At the end of the 1930s, the first nationwide standard projects were created for low-rise construction. The main goal of the development was more economical planning and design solutions, but they were not yet mass-produced. The proposals were adapted to local conditions, the amendments concerned the thickness of the walls ^[8]. The experiment proved unsuccessful for Siberian rural houses, as the specifics of the way of life of the population, operational and economic features and climatic processes were underestimated ^{[9, 10]}.

In the post-war years, individual housing construction in rural areas began to develop to a greater extent. Ordinary wooden huts were used in the restoration of destroyed villages and villages. Also, external enclosing structures were often made of local building materials, in particular frame houses filled with slabs of pressed straw ^[8]. In Siberia, the construction of workers' settlements resumed in the early 1950s. But in such houses there were no necessary amenities, since it was unprofitable to lay engineering communications, due to the low density of rural development ^[10].

Gradually, Siberian houses began to be built taking into account regional specifics. Numerous experimental and standard house designs have been developed using factory-made parts.

In the mid-1960s, blockaded houses and mansions became part of serial developments. Some zonal institutes were engaged in the design of single-family two-five-room residential buildings made of local materials. Over time, the construction of residential buildings on individual projects began to revive. By the early 1970s, the first experiments on the construction of blockaded houses with apartments on two levels were carried out in Siberia. The priorities of the standard design and the change of norms hindered the creative search for new external enclosing structures. However, the acquired experience in the construction of settlements of a new type made it possible to realize the need for reasonable design and construction taking into account specific conditions – transport, economic, natural and many others, as well as the prevailing way of life and traditions.

Various design schemes and materials were used in the construction of rural houses in Siberia: log technology, light frame with panel filling, arbolite (a mixture of wood chips and concrete). Despite the development of frame-panel technology, the design and construction of houses based on a traditional log house in Siberia continued ^[11,12,13].

At the end of the XX century, the change of socio-economic conditions was reflected in Russia and in the exterior structures of low-rise housing. The revision of design standards contributed to the development and implementation of new design approaches. This has led to a noticeable increase in the typological diversity of houses with different versions of wall fencing.

Since 1980, "exemplary" rural settlements in Siberia have been actively designed and built (Figure 3). Settlement development project Ilyicheva, Shushensky district, 1980 – 1981, authors architects V.K. Shadrin, N.A. Kovaleva, A.V. Kaverzina ^{[1, 3]}.  

Figure 3 – Street in the village Ilyichevo of the Shushensky district 1980-1981. Photo of 1990 ^[1]

When creating experimental houses, the authors paid special attention to external enclosing structures. 20 houses were built in the experimental zone: 3 with walls made of arbolite blocks (filling – sawdust, local materials), 3 brick (Figure 4), 5 wooden paving stones (Figure 5), 9 with walls made of expanded clay concrete panels (Figure 6).

Figure 5 – Brick house in the village . Ilyichevo of the Shushensky district 1980-1981. Photo of 1984 ^[15]

Figure 6 – Wooden house in the village Ilyichevo of the Shushensky district 1980-1981. Photo of 1984 ^[15]

Figure 7 – A house made of expanded clay concrete panels in the village . Ilyichevo of the Shushensky district 1980-1981. Photo of 1990 ^[15]

The appearance of each house had an individual appearance with the preservation of traditional features of rural construction in Siberia. The panels of fully assembled houses had a strip or ordinary cut with a finishing layer of marble chips, a corrugated or smooth surface. For the cobblestone houses, a planed beam was used on one side. Settlement development project Ilyichevo was awarded the prize of the USSR Council of Ministers in 1982 ^[15].

It is worth highlighting such a phenomenon as "country houses". Garden or country houses are a new type of dwelling common in 1980-1990, which involves seasonal or temporary residence for farming. In Siberia, the construction of log wooden houses began to have an individual character ^[12].

Conclusions

Thus, radical changes took place in rural settlements of Siberia during the Soviet period, and this was reflected in the external enclosing structures. The traditional wooden materials were replaced by factory-made materials. At that time, they tried to unify low-rise rural houses. Standard projects were developed that could be adapted to the Siberian climatic conditions.

The revision of design standards contributed to the development and implementation of new design approaches. This has led to an increase in the typological diversity of housing with various types of external enclosing structures.

During this period, "exemplary" rural settlements in Siberia began to be actively designed and built, for the construction of which materials of factory-made external enclosing structures with the addition of local materials were used.

The considered Soviet experience of external enclosing structures, namely "obroztsovo-demonstration" projects, can be used at the present time, for fast and high-quality construction of rural settlements.

The relevance lies in the fact that the considered Soviet experience of external enclosing structures can be used at the present time, for fast and high-quality construction of rural settlements.