Houses of Karkashadze
The firm sign «Houses of Karkashadze» is fixed on each house,
built construction company "ZARS"
A house is built, first of all, for those who will live in it, live cozily and comfortably.
Houses of Karkashadze have unique appearance, an appearance of old Odessa houses but at the modern technical and technological level. It means that these homes are built not only for those who will live there but for all citizens of our unique city, for every Odessite. What’s created and restored is the traditional spirit of our city, a spirit of creative work, joy, and optimism. So, what are the most characteristic features of Houses of Karkashadze?
Stylishness, recognizability, and at the same time unique individual facade of each house. Houses of Karkashadze are the environment traditional to our city yet a new area of habitation for modern people. Dovzhenko Street, French Boulevard, Kirpichnyi Lane by the descent to the seashore — what a uniformity of style and at the same time diversity of architectural forms, gracefulness and desire to rise higher, high artistic taste of architects and inspired work of those who actually created these masterpieces — talented engineers and highly-skilled workers.
All this became possible thanks to such wonderful building material as red ceramic brick. Brick is the oldest building material; it was already mentioned in the Bible and involved throughout the entire conscious history of the mankind. What kind of brick is used to build Houses of Karkashadze? Only ceramic brick based on clay, a natural material. Surely, clay turns into brick after a quite complex production process! It includes formation from clay mix, drying, and firing. As a result, we get a highly durable, water- and frost-proof wall building material which at the same time has porous structure that gives our homes warmth in winter and coolness in summer.
Brick used in Houses of Karkashadze contains at least 30-35% of air pores. This hollowness consists of the following: 15-16% are the pores in dense, solid brick material (this is a parameter strictly controlled during laboratory tests of brick’s water absorption), and up to 20% is taken by hollows specially made in bricks during formation process. These hollows are round-shaped only, have not more than 16 mm in diameter, and cannot exceed 30 in number, because the hollow space is limited by the 20% parameter.
The above parameters must comply with requirements to seismic resistance of buildings set forth in the State Construction Norms of Ukraine Concerning Seismic Stability of Buildings which became effective in our city as of 1 February 2007. Consequently, seismic resistance became a new and wonderful quality of our homes ensured by high durability and monolithic structure of brickwork combined with inclusion of monolithic reinforced concrete cores and monolithic reinforced concrete partitions into brickwork. All exterior walls of our homes are 2.5 bricks (or 64 cm) thick. Of these 64 cm, 20-22 cm are taken by hollows, which means that these walls are breathing. This is the hollowness which provides us special comfort, like the one when we wear clothes made from pure high-quality wool that gives us warmth in winter and coolness in summer. But in this case, this excellent clothing is the clothing ’worn’ by our houses. This clothing is designed to withstand the coldest statistical five days during Odessa winter when the temperature drops 18 degrees below zero Centigrade.
So, ceramic brick is the trademark of Houses of Karkashadze.
Another trademark is color facade plaster. What is it?
As in the long-lasting material which our brick is, color plaster of our facades must have the same quality. This is a high-quality three-layer plaster in which the thickness of the upper, cover layer (third layer) is not 2-4 mm like in regular high-quality plasters but 10-12 mm, and this layer consists of such wonderful materials (this is the plaster used on the Odessa Opera Theater) as: white cement, slaked lime, river sand, marble powder, mica, and stable natural colorant. Why, then, this plaster is so beautiful and so long-lasting?
After the cover layer was applied and partially dried, the upper plaster film is carefully scrubbed off (manually only) using steel brushes and we see a wonderful texture of this material with marble and mica inclusions.
Facades glitter with different-color lights on sunny days and please your eye with fresh colors on gloomy autumn and winter days. That’s why Houses of Karkashadze’s facades are so beautiful any time of the year. These facades are always light and joy, a pride for what a man can do. But some 20-25 years will pass, and facades will inevitable get covered in dust. Will they please one’s eye then? Surely they will!
This facade needs no restoration, just sand-blasting. It is a very simple procedure which requires no scaffolding.
Elbow hydraulic hoist, dry sand, and compressor are all you need to ensure that in just a day or two a very complex facade will once again shine with its original glitter.
Surely, a lot of work is put into this facade when building it: complex architectural forms for masons, multilayer color plaster for plasterers — all this is not easy, it’s a very expensive work which requires highest skills. But this work is done for ever. This is a work for today and for the future days and years, for us and our descendants.
Of course, all Houses of Karkashadze have all modern amenities: thought-out apartment layout with ceilings 3.20 m high, marble vestibules and stairs with smithery and stucco, high-speed elevators, autonomous heating, well-kept cozy green backyards with playgrounds for children and places for rest for adults. All this is done with heart to provide comfort and convenience to people who live in these houses and to please eyes of passers-by walking the streets where Houses of Karkashadze are built or being built.
These houses commemorate a wonderful personality, outstanding builder, and a very hardworking man Givi Silovanovich Karkashadze who realized his dream in the best houses of our city built for the Odessites.
Karkashadze’s traditions continue, being embodied in day-to-day work of his followers and friends to whom he will always serve as an eternal and inspiring example.