Pinezhie houses

RUSSIA, ARKHANGELSK OBLAST

Pinezhie houses

Firmly tied together illustrations of wooden houses

Pinezhie is the municipality at the eastern part of Arkhangelsk Oblast, that unifies the upperstream and downstream of the Pinega river settlements. Tourism strategy here is focused on the virgin nature, caves, distant village culture and that special house construction that form the unique northern vibe. Our team had been working under the brand that ties all these values together. One of its first implementations was designing a set of standalone information boards, that could provide residents and tourists with information on how the old houses were built, what structure do they have inside and why they were so awesome for their time. Look for yourself and feel mesmerized:

Client: Ministry of Culture of Arkhangelsk Oblast

Work: design, illustration, website

Status: active

2021

Inspiring and researching

Main hero of this project was our awesome illustrator Katya Antoshkina, part of our small crew, who went to Pinezhie for a week for inspiring and studying the details of northern houses construction. She has been visiting the lonesome old buildings with the team, who provided her with all the needed information, that could help her lately during the working process.

Working on the Pinega projects was an amazing experience. Looking at the northern life, as if frozen in some cozy past, to feel the energy of the local matriarchy. Climbing inside barns and old five-wall and six-wall houses was the most interesting part of my work.

Katya Antoshkina

ARTIST, DESIGNER, ILLUSTRATOR

House schematics

Drawing house illustrations was the time of constant communication and cooperation between ours and the Pinezhie working team. There has always been a balance between the graphical convention style and the will to put in all the details. We wanted illustrations to look clean and sharp with focus on accents only, that makes all the difference between seemingly look-a-like houses.

Illustration of a five-wall house by Kate Antoshkina

Construction guides

For those who got fascinated with the northern building traditions after the walk, can try to build one themselves with the unique scaled-down model of a russian northern barn. We have designed a series of guides of how to build them, using the set of ready elements. The ready toy barn can hardly bear the height of a kid.

How to create a barn with your own hands guide

Here's the exciting process of building a toy barn at the VDNKh "Russia" expo in 2024 on the Arkhangelsk stand with the regional team and common visitors. Everyone is pretty satisfied with the result.

Web

Those, who cannot come and see all the engineer beauty for themselves, are welcomed on the web landing, that we've made. It has all the essential information and illustrations for personal study. Visit pinegariver.com

pinegariver.com briefly tells the story of northern house construction

Visit pinegariver.com

How does it look today

All the posters are playing the main role and used for touristic groups out there across Karpogory. The most interested participants could take part in building a barn themselves, like in a photos below:

We appreciate the well-made schematics that vividly illustrate the way houses look inside and help guides use it as a visual material during helding expeditions.