Understanding of the Stalinist Empire style allows finding an alternative to postmodernism architecture in the conditions of the current crisis of the Russian civilization. The aim of this work is to characterize the architectural style of the Western Siberian cities and show the general and particular character in its consecutive development. Theoretical prerequisites for this work lie in the fact that the general paradigm of Stalinist Empire style was formed during the proletarian cultural revolution, i.e. realization of the collectivism principle and associated creative remaking of the architectural heritage. Stalinist Empire style in the Western Siberia represents the economic regional analogue of such a collectivist architectural synthesis of traditions and innovations.

The architectural genesis of the Stalinist Empire style is considered by means of the systems and sociogenetic approaches. The genetic approach to the Stalinist Empire style is used to describe three stages: genesis, differentiation and integration. This triad expresses the main tendencies in the development of the Stalinist Empire style in Western Siberia with a gradual approximation to the increasingly rigid type of the architectural environment. It is concluded that the Stalinist Empire style represents a polystylistic synthesis of traditions and innovations, such as neoclassicism and constructivism, order and extraorder forms, collectivism and statehood based on the conceptual continuity of the world, national and regional style directions. The internal and external forms of the Stalinist Empire style are functionalism, neoclassicism and art deco.

The Stalinist Empire style is aesthetic, expressive and consecutive in all its analogues. It is characterized by a clearly defined trend to beauty, dynamic stability and architectural organization. This relates also to the Western Siberian variant that achieves a stronger artistic effect in the paper architecture. The pedagogical socially-organizational function of the Stalinist Empire style is upbringing of new personality. The specific character of the Stalinist Empire style in Western Siberia is greater combination, rigidity and structuredness of the architectural environment as a result of negative system selection from unfavorable conditions. The Stalinist Empire style of metropolitan is a discrete system, while that of Western Siberia is a rigid system.

This article is devoted to saving natural landscapes during the urban development in Siberia. The different concepts are studies and proposed for the territory in Siberia. The proposal includes the functional zoning and calculating parameters of landscapes during the urban development of this territories.

The article is devoted to the design activity of the famous Belgian architect Victor Horta (1861–1947), one of the founders of the European art Nouveau (Art Nuoveau). The interest in this unique architect is due to the fact that he lived a very long and creative life, and left a huge creative heritage. In 1967, his best Art Nouveau works received a well-deserved recognition and became the property of world culture. The paper presents the analysis of architectural, compositional and structural features of a number of buildings erected in Brussels. Four of them are included in the list of UNESCO world heritage sites in 2000. Including the Tassel House (1892–1893), The Hôtel Solvay (1894–1900), The Hôtel van Eetvelde (1895–1897) and The Horta Museum (1898–1900). Some aspects of his scientific, pedagogical and sociopolitical activities are also considered.

The paper describes the Orthodox church historical heritage in Tomsk which in the 20th century was mostly lost because of ideological reasons. For the first time, a list of all historical Orthodox churches of Tomsk is studied. A comparative analysis is given to all types of Orthodox churches, which are parish, home, monastery, cemetery churches and chapels. A preservation of these objects in nowadays is evaluated. As a result, a combined table is developed for 84 objects and the cartographic reconstruction is proposed for all historical church objects of Tomsk from the 1750s to the 1950s.

This article in the historical and professional context reconstructs the process of creating, characterizes the architectural and artistic quality of the Orthodox Cathedral in the name of the Transfiguration of Christ in Zhytomyr, created in the second half of the 19th century and is currently one of the category of the rarest monuments of the historic Russian temple architecture, but exists outside the bounds of the cultural space of modern Russia.

The paper is devoted to Stalingrad Tractor Plant, one of the main plants of the Soviet industrialization. The spatial planning pattern of the plant, its settlements, industrial architecture, public and residential buildings are considered herein. Notably, that one of the largest tractor plants in the world was put into operation within the shortest time. Its construction gave a start to the urban development in the north which embodied the advanced ideas in the city planning and architecture of that time. Leading foreign and Russian experts were involved in design and construction works. It is shown that design solutions of residential areas (Upper and Lower) combine both the traditional and innovative principles of the city-planning in the 1920–30s, including the tractor plant and its settlements. It is concluded that whereas residential buildings the early 1930s are characterized by rationality, simplicity, public buildings are expressive and diverse, and represent consistent design principles. The attribution of other objects is also clarified in this paper.

The paper describes the introduction of new planning techniques in West Siberia cities in the 1950–60s. An analysis of the documents show that the architectural reform initiated a collision between two housing approaches, the universal and regional. The economy of construction was in the first place for central authorities. They counted on the potential of new housing industry and the overall implementation of existed methods of open planning from the foreign experience. The Soviet architects tried to prove the unacceptability of that approach. In West Siberia, new engineering solutions did not eliminate adverse climatic factors, but sharpened and complicated their impact. The reform resulted in the difference between engineering and scientific works. As a result, in the 1930–50s architects returned to closed planning, archival documents are used in this study.

The paper considers the development of modernism in the wooden architecture in the city of Tomsk in the context of national trends. The paper studies design features and specificity of wooden decoration of buildings made in the modern style or with the use of architectural elements performed in accordance with the variation of the neo-Russian style and “northern mo dernity”. The originality of the author's interpretations of style trends and those of the professional architects is described.

The relevance of the study is stipulated by preserving wooden buildings in the cities of Russia and Siberia and the loss of valuable decorations of buildings, in particular. Despite the wide range of works involved in studying modernism in the architecture of Russian cities, not all aspects and trends of phenomena observed in Tomsk architecture in the early 20th century have been investigated so far.

The purpose of this paper is to study the wooden buildings of Tomsk made in the modern style or with architectural elements of this style.

The paper uses the methods of comparative and architectural analyses. It is considered how modernist-style wooden buildings have been designed and built in the in the cities of Siberia, and in particular, the city of Tomsk.

It is shown that by the beginning of the 20th century, the folk traditions are combined with the works of professional architects. Wooden buildings, made in the modernist style, are distinguished by complex compositional solutions. This is evident by the mansions designed mainly for a circular view. The attitude to the wood has changed, not only in terms of building and finishing material, but also as a means of a new architectural and artistic embodiment of the independent artist idea.

The paper deals with minimization of cost expenses on insulation and operation of buildings. The thickness of thermal insulation of enclosure structures are calculated using the proposed quadratic equation with cost parameters, such as heat production, heat insulation, facades, heating system, and cost expenses. The dynamics of the consumer price index and the cost of energy carriers for the population are analyzed in order to obtain the necessary set of initial data. The study is conducted on the example of Moscow and the Moscow region. Newly erected buildings, both with single-layer and multi-layer walls are considered as well as the building insulation at a stage of repair or reconstruction. The obtained optimum values of the heat resistance vary several times, both significantly lower and higher than the standard values depending on the specific task.

This paper presents a 2D-simulation of the main stages of the tricalcium silicate hardening which reflects a possible mechanism of radical reactions with regard to the spin state of the interacting particles. The principles of the universal static model are used for 2D-simulation. It is shown that the particle charge determines the ionic mechanism. In this case, the electron spin direction does not affect the reaction process. It is demonstrated that the spin direction is important for the interacting particles.

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to obtain the cement brick having high physical and mechanical properties due to the additive based on ultrafine ash particles obtained after the wet ash discharge at Omsk power-and-heating plant. Methodology: The mechanical and mechanochemical grinding is used to generate ultrafine ash particles. Research findings: Research investigations show that the use of ultrafine ash particles the size of which varies between 0.3 and 0.9 μm, allows up to 30% cement saving and increase the physical and mechanical properties of fly ashcement and fly ash sand-lime bricks. The compressive and flexural strength of the former increases by 35 % and 32.4 %, respectively. And the compressive strength of the latter increases by 30 %, while its thermal conductivity reduces by 6.5 %. The addition of ultrafine ash particles to cement brick composition improves the ecological situation in the region. Practical implications: The proposed technique can be used in the production of cement brick with improved physical and mechanical properties. The optimum ash/cement ratio is 30:70.

This paper focuses on ecological and environmental management problems involving the industrial wastes. The paper proposes the production method for foamed materials on made from copper ore tailings. The goal of the study is to evaluate the industrial waste applications in the production of heat-insulating materials. The chemical composition of wastes and its high dispersion indicates to its potential use in the frit synthesis without complete melting of the mixture. Frit is synthesized from a two-component blend consisting of 80 % waste and 20 % caustic ash. The synthesis temperature does not exceed 900 °С which is a better alternative to the conventional glassmaking temperature of 1500 °С. It is shown that the optimum porous, uniform structure with the average pore size is not over 1 mm forms in samples prepared at a foaming temperature of 850 °С followed by a 10-minute curing. The resulting materials has a density of 250 kg/m3 and increased strength up to 1.7 MPa.

This article deals with the improvement of thermal efficiency of heating boilers with furnace wall waterflow. During one cycle in a PK-38 boiler the average level of the heat flow decreases by 25–30 %. The incident heat flux is measured with a thermal probe which, however, gives a large error in the measurement results. Experiments show that the error depends on the penetration of the thermal probe into the outer surface of thermal zone as well as on cavities in sealing the thermal probe, and different thermophysical properties of the latter and metal material of the heating surface. The accuracy of the measured parameters is affected by the thermal probe sealing. It is found that the distortion of temperature fields is more significant at the lower boundary of the thermal probe junction at frequently used sealing. Studies show that the waterflow leads to the restoration of local coefficients of thermal efficiency to the previous values. The obtained results can be used in boiler design and allow improving the measurement methods for thermal efficiency of heating boilers with furnace wall waterflow.

The paper describes the widespread types of filtering materials and their specifications. It is shown that a filtering material is characterized by a number of parameters influencing both operating parameters of filtering systems and the efficiency of conditioned natural water purification. Changing these parameters, it is possible to predetermine the operating parameters of filtering systems and the quality of purified water. At a design stage of filtering systems it is necessary to determine the effective parameters of the filtering material, such as the height of the working layer, fineness and heterogeneity of fractions, and filtration rate to achieve the high quality purified water. It is shown that the finer fraction of the filtering material allows to increase the filtration rate preserving the quality of obtained water and, respectively, the productivity of filtering systems due to the increased specific surface of grains despite the increase in the load resistance and pressure losses.

Industrial waste can be considered as technological and economical raw materials in related industries, and their disposal in compliance with environmental legislation can be environmentally efficient. Nowadays, researchers search for an effective but relatively cheap absorption material to extract various contaminants from water. Of great greatest interest are the industrial waste that can be used in wastewater treatment technology as a secondary raw material. As a rule, active coals are used in drinking water systems and deep wastewater treatment. In the Tyumen region, this type of sorbent is quite expensive, since there are no natural coal deposits. The sawdust sorbent is proposed to applied as fuel briquettes. The sorption properties of the modified pine sawdust in relation to oil products are studied herein. The correlation analysis is carried out for each type of sorbent exposure. The solution regression and correlation coefficients are calculated. The obtained equations of regression are used to construct absorption isotherms characterizing the dependence of sorption capacity on the concentration of petroleum products in the solution. The sorption activity of sawdust increases by 1.4–4 times depending on the type of modification and intensification. It is shown that the total exchange capacity of pine sawdust on the model solution is only 19.4% lower than the that of activated carbon, which is very expensive for the Tyumen region. In the case of sawdust used for water purification, two environmental problems are solved simultaneously: cheap and effective cleaning of oil-saturated surface runoff and recycling of wood waste.

The paper presents the strength analysis of variable rigidity slabs on elastic support with the variable subgrade ratio. The analysis is based on a solution of the differential equation of the slab flexure using the finite element method. The results are obtained for different slabs on the elastic support. The results are presented for the different thickness of the upper layer of the two-layer slab on the elastic support with the variable subgrade ratio.