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BOAT REVIEW GHB 10.5m powercat Makedo

• Simple open layout maximisies the impression of space
• Professional quality from an amateur design and build project
• Excellent performance and efficiency

Meet Simon and Anna Ganley. Experienced sailors, eight years ago they set their hearts on a powercat. It didn’t take long looking around the second-hand market to reveal that the only way they’d get what they wanted was to design and build it themselves. Makédo is the result.

The couple’s design brief was simple enough: “We wanted a powercat for exploring the [Hauraki] Gulf and the east coast of the North Island. It had to be reasonably fuel-efficient, comfortably fit our family of four and fit within a 12m marina berth,” said Simon.

By qualification, Simon’s a civil engineer with a solid background in GRP composites. Like Anna, he’s also been around boats most of his life, and while he’s never built a boat of this size before, he has built and maintained several GRP skiffs.

Simon’s refreshingly humble about his design skills – “I just followed my nose” – however, he wisely sought the opinion of his plans from several experienced friends, including designer Greg Elliott, before starting to build. For the record, he got a universal thumbs-up.

Aiming for semi-displacement speeds, the slippery hulls are only 730mm wide, with a beam-to-length ratio of 14:1. Flattened sections aft help prevent squatting, as do fine bows to help prevent the boat trying to lift onto the plane. The result are hulls closer in shape to those of a sailing catamaran than those of a typical powercat.

The downside of such slim hulls is that they’re not great load carriers, which Simon addressed by keeping everything as light as possible throughout the build, along with a respectable 860mm bridge-deck clearance.

The basic layout was arrived at via a method not mentioned in boat design textbooks – Simon and Anna traced out the full-size accommodation plan on the back lawn using lengths of rope.

“It was really cool seeing it all evolve on the lawn,” joked Anna.

Makédo ’s construction is a foam-cored, epoxy sandwich: Corecell foam for the hulls and Divinycell for the bulkheads. The hulls are laminated using triaxial glass, with biaxial for the bulkheads. Carbon fibre was used strategically, such as where bulkheads joined the hulls, the chamfer panels, the cabin-top and window mullions.

The hulls were laid up in a single set of half-hull-shaped female MDF moulds battened with pine stringers. This method has many advantages, including:

Only one set of half-hull moulds is required; they’re reversed 180 degrees for the second set of half-hulls.

Most of the interior can be installed before lifting the half-hulls from their moulds, which helps keep the designed shape.

Joins are located on the centrelines rather than the gunwales.

Most of the laminating is done horizontally and therefore assisted by gravity.

Besides the half-hull moulds, simple female moulds were used for the chamfer panels, bridge-deck floor, and cabin-top.

The boat was assembled in the backyard from essentially a giant kitset. The four half-hulls (two inners and two outers) were glued and glass-taped together in pairs to create the twin hulls. These were then glass-taped to the bridge-deck, followed by the cabin sides, cabin-top and window mullions. The hulls were canted inwards by five degrees at gunwale level, which shortened the width of the bridge-deck by 180mm.

Read quickly, this sounds like a quick process. It wasn’t.

It took the Ganleys five years of part-time work to get from the drawing board to a complete but unpainted boat. Simon averaged around 15 hours of work on the boat weekly, with Anna helping out whenever another set of hands was required.

The assembled boat was transported to Hobsonville, and although the Ganleys had measured the width of their driveway in advance, it was a nervous process watching their boat being manoeuvred past the house with centimetres to spare.

Clay Murray of Advanced Marine Spraypainting at Hobsonville did the filling, fairing and painting, which he fitted into slack periods between other jobs. Consequently, it took nearly a year. However, Simon and Anna finished Makédo ’s interior during this time and launched her in 2021, some six years after their decision to design and build.

Since then, the Ganleys and their two children, Samara and Finn, have spent two summers cruising Makédo . While this last summer was pretty forgettable weather-wise, during the previous one they got as far north as Whangaroa.

On the water

Test conditions were perfect for powerboating – a sunny late autumn day with a breeze barely enough to ruffle a seagull’s tail feathers. Conceptually, Makédo ’s accommodation is all on one level, with nothing in the hulls apart from tankage. The three doors between the cockpit and cabin can be folded into their cupboard, as can the panel at the rear of the galley. This makes the transition between indoor and outdoor living seamless and creates a space that seems much larger than it really is.

The only separate compartment is the heads, accessed from the cockpit. The cockpit has seating on either side and across the stern, the lids of which all lift to reveal lockers, one of which houses the LPG bottle. Fuel and water tanks are located midships within the hulls.

The helm station is centrally located on the midships bulkhead, with cut-outs to access twin sleeping spaces beneath. These queen bed-sized areas have about 1.2m headroom – enough to sit in bed with a book. While this style won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, any lack of privacy is more perceived than real, and the advantages of lighter weight and ease of construction more than compensate.

There is another smaller bunk/storage compartment tucked in behind the helm under the dining settee and another settee longitudinally to port. This settee is Anna’s favourite spot underway, and the substantial sliding drawers beneath it are predominately for food storage. The L-shaped galley features a counter/breakfast bar aft, with more sliding drawers beneath.

The Ganleys have a well-established routine for leaving and entering their Hobsonville marina berth and required no help from the Boating New Zealand crew.

Underway, Makédo certainly felt light and responded instantly to any passing wakes. We can’t comment on how Makédo handles a decent seaway given the benign test conditions. Simon reports that Makédo handles downwind conditions almost enjoyably and motors upwind easily with no issue until the breeze goes above 15 knots, after which he backs off a bit. Makédo doesn’t enjoy being beam-on in breezy conditions, like any launch. However, Simon has found that altering the course 10 to 20 degrees to a series of reaches removes this uneasiness.

Makédo is powered by twin Yamaha 60hp high-thrust outboards, which easily push the slim hulls to a comfortable 12 to 14-knot cruising speed.    

“You can go a long way at that speed,” said Simon.

Makédo ’s equally happy at displacement speeds of around seven knots and tops out at 20 knots. Fuel consumption at 14 knots is a highly respectable 17.8 litres per hour, both engines, dropping to 15lph at 12 knots.

Makédo in lightship mode (half water, half fuel) displaces slightly less than three tons and has been designed to displace 3.6 tons in standard trim. Fully loaded for the Xmas cruise, displacement is more like 4.2 tons, and although the boot-top disappears with this load, Simon’s found the extra weight doesn’t affect performance and makes Makédo more stable. Having seen his spreadsheets, Simon’s painstaking attention to weight calculations is a significant reason for Makédo ’s performing as designed. This is an area where many amateur designers fall short.

At the wheel, the helmsperson can see both outboards and due to the boat’s 4.78m beam, it feels like one’s piloting a much bigger boat than 10.7m loa. The hydraulic steering was well weighted, and Makédo ’s extremely easy to steer. As expected, the slim hulls with minimal rocker ensure good tracking, and the turning circle at cruising speed is generous. Of course, Makédo can be walked around 360 degrees on the spot at low speed using both engines.

Minuses? Makédo is light and frisky, which being a catamaran, isn’t an issue at anchor but could be for some in a seaway. A slight trim aft could be easily solved by moving the water tanks slightly forward. The engine controls are cable operated and, at close to 10m long each, push the limit of cable technology. While this makes it fiddly getting the engine revs synchronised, it’s only a minor issue. Windscreen wipers remain on the ‘to-do’ list, as are extra handholds up front when accessing the forward deck from the side decks.

Boating New Zealand has tested production boats costing many hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Makédo with considerably more extensive improvement lists than this.

And the name? Anna runs her own marketing and design business, and Makédo comes from one of her favourite sayings, “Make do but make it fancy.” Very apt.

Makédo is an authentic and modern example of the Kiwi DIY attitude and, considering it’s a first attempt at design and build, is highly impressive. Ganley’s discipline, commitment and focus are even more impressive throughout the building process. To pull off designing and building a boat to this level of professionalism whilst holding down full-time jobs, bringing two children into the world, and meeting the usual commitments of mortgage, lawns, house painting and kitchen renovations, is truly unique.

Simon and Anna, you smacked this one out of the park.

Seawind 1370

Solar panels on the vast roof help keep the batteries charged.

Sessa Yacht Line C47

Sessa vessels have a CE CLASS B rating – certified offshore to 200 miles, for winds up to force 8, and waves up to up to four metres high. Very capable, therefore.

Legacy Marine L45

The L45 is intended to fulfil the role of a luxury motoryacht capable of operating in typical New Zealand coastal conditions.

Lazercat 950

The helm station is well-equipped and simple to operate, thanks to the simplified switching that’s been implemented.

The Figure 8 Voyage

FINDING A FIGURE 8 VOYAGE BOAT: Pacemaker 40 by Ganley

 Posted on January 12, 2015 by Randall

  9 Comments

In September I promised the Figure 8 Voyage Board of Directors—a body ably chaired by my wife and comprised of her as well—that a Figure 8 vessel would be secured by year’s end. Now it is January 9, and I remain like Ishmael upon the strand searching the horizon for a ship.

Except I don’t get to the strand much. Instead I spend hours in front of the computer sifting through ads, peering deeply into grainy photos, computing ratios, sending notes to designers asking for their boat’s scantlings and whether another fuel tank can be slipped into the bilge.

It is not unimportant work, but it doesn’t feel much like progress.

I won’t say things are desperate when they aren’t, but things are urgent. Launch day is but seven months away. For those unfamiliar with projects of this kind, that may seem buckets of time. It isn’t. There is a vast amount of work to be done, and finding the boat is but the beginning.

Having examined most of the worthy metal boats that the western US and Canada are currently offering, I now feel constrained to extend my search range. To New Zealand, for example, and because I have a friend there, Chris Bennett (my co-inspector of the Fastwater 44 ) whose opinion I trust and who expressed a willingness to do leg work for free.

I asked for this favor because I knew in Whangarei floated a Waterline 48  of sound reputation; in photos she appeared in good nick and thoroughly up to the task. But after a morning aboard, Chris found her too fussy and with windows too large (we all have our peccadilloes, and big windows in a voyager are atop Chris’s list), but his conversation with the broker unearthed a more promising craft, a Pacemaker 40 designed by Kiwi Denis Ganley of Ganley Yachts .

The Pacemaker held immediate appeal because of its similarity to the Freya 39, a Randall favorite famous for seaworthiness and speed. (More on the Freya design here . That they are high-latitude worthy is clear in this article .) For an all-too-brief time back in the 80s Freya’s were built in glass by Gannon Yachts not far from my San Francisco home, and I nearly purchased one just prior to crewing the Northwest Passage this summer. Once back the focus turned to metal boats, and the Freya was out.

Thus this Pacemaker in steel struck a chord. While he was at it, the ever-resourceful Chris happened upon a Pacemaker owner, Richard, who had been soloing all over the south for years.

Emails flew.

Profile and Interior of Gannon’s Freya 39.

Profile and Interior of the Ganley Pacemaker 40.

Basic Stats for the Pacemaker 40 in New Zealand

Launched 1985.

Steel, aft cockpit cutter, soft chined (?), extended fin keel with skeg hung rudder (propeller unprotected).

LOA: 39.4; LWL 34; Beam: 13; Draft: 6.5.

Displacement: 20,000 lbs; Ballast: 5,510 lbs; Sail Area: 746 sq. ft.

Displacement to Length Ratio: 227. Ballast to Displacement Ratio: 22% (after personal increment). Sail Area to Displacement Ratio: 16.26. Capsize Ratio: 1.92.

Sails: foresail furling; staysail hank on; main on track.

Plating: (reported by Richard of the other Pacemaker) Keel, 3/8ths; hull, 1/4; deck 1/8 with extra framing. Denis Ganley’s philosophy regarding scantlings, plate thickness for his many steel boats, and many other things:  “STEEL, the Strongest Material.”

Tankage: 70 gallons fuel; water unknown.

Insulation: Laid in rather than sprayed, but thickness unknown.

Engine: 36 (ratio of horsepower to displacement in tons, 3.6)

Steering: wheel to quadrant.

Power: four wet cell batteries for 480 amps in the house bank.

An Apt Comparison?

It could be that the similarities between the Freya and the Pacemaker are all in my head. Certainly the differences go well beyond just hull material. For example, the Freya is nearly two feet narrower. The canoe stern of the Freya is in the Pacemaker a powerful reverse transom; the Freya’s keel is cut-away full but the Pacemaker’s is fin, and ballast in the former is a whopping 11,000 pounds to its 26,000 pound displacement, whereas in the latter it’s but 5,500 pounds to 20,000.

Still the sameness of length, general hull shape, deck house, layout and rig stand out. So too do her sailing characteristics. The original Freya was a three-time Sydney-Hobart race winner, and in the 1980s Jim Gannon of Gannon Yachts won a second and then a first overall in the single-handed Transpac’s big boat division. Less illustrious, perhaps, but nonetheless impressive was that Pacemaker-owner Richard had reportedly won an “informal race off the Great Barrier Reef for five consecutive years.”

Another similarity gleaned from my correspondence with Richard was that Pacemakers, like Freyas, are highly responsive, but with a tendency toward weather helm and tenderness. Last summer, Neil Thomson of Sausalito invited me for a day of sailing aboard his Freya,  Fitzroy . Winds were a typical 10 – 15, increasing in the afternoon. We began the day with a reef in the main and never took it out.

Just so the Pacemaker. Richard attributes these characteristics in his boat to her being too lightly ballasted. He corrected much of this, he says, by removing the steel punchings in the keel, replacing them with lead and adding to her ballast by 1,000 pounds. Then, in the space he recaptured by switching to much denser lead, he added a 700 liter fuel tank. Now she is plenty stiff, he reports.

“I would definitely take my Pacemaker around the Horn,” says Richard.

Pacemaker Fitness from the Figure 8 Perspective

The Pacemaker 40 is built for singlehanding. S he’s simple on deck and efficiently laid out below, and though one of the smaller yacht’s I’ve investigated, she has a reputation for speed. That her distant berth in New Zealand would require a two month sea trial ending in San Francisco Bay was not unattractive, though time consuming. More difficult was the extensive refit and modifications that would be required here or there. These included such exotic items as extending the skeg forward to protect the propellor from ice, replacing and adding ballast, fitting a hard dodger, and slipping in a new engine and more fuel tankage.

All doable. None optimal.

The Ganley Pacemaker 40 close hauled in a light breeze.

Ganley Pacemaker 40 in profile.

A clean foredeck. Note sissy bars, higher than normal lifelines, high coaming around the deck hatches.

A cockpit made for singlehanding: winches within easy reach of the wheel, floor-design a “T” to allow easy passage around the steering pedestal.

An ample stern rack–likely too big.

Simple bow-works.

Stainless Steel caprail. What can’t be seen in the photo is that this rail is welded to a raised flange and all the lifelines are bolted to that. No fastener holes in the deck.

Anchor Locker. The deck is 1/8th plate. Are those frames very close?

Forepeak with small passage to anchor locker.

Main salon.

Wrap-around galley. Engine access is under left-hand countertop.

Double sinks with molded stainless steel lips. Unique.

No water staining under portlights.

Nav station to starboard with electronics panels above.

Quarter berth to port.

Engine…would need renewing for the Figure 8.

Main wiring array easy to access but could be neeter.

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9 Comments on “ FINDING A FIGURE 8 VOYAGE BOAT: Pacemaker 40 by Ganley ”

I’m no expert but I find this one compelling. The right size, with speed, single-hand friendly, traditional, and probably sturdy as heck. Plus, from NZ, where all the boats are charmed. I assume you will be purchasing first class tickets for any laborers required to work on this. I’ll go pack now.

I would gladly give you my first class ticket, if I had one. You will find the middle seat back in row 476 has a lovely view.

Have you considered a 37′ Fisher Pilothouse FRP for $80K with 88hp in So Calif or 46′ Super Fisher FRP for $200K with 120hp or 41′ Island Packet pilothouse FRP with 100hp… ?

Not really. Beautiful boats, and if I was ONLY doing the NWP or Chile Channels or the like, then maybe. But not for long ocean passages under sail. Too slow, no?

I have just read your blog and found it very informative and Keen to learn more.

We are seriously looking at this vessel and were wondering if you would further share your thoughts and any knowledgeable contacts in New Zealand on this vessel. Our purpose is regular trips in the pacific far away from the ice.

Good luck with your adventures.

Greetings. Sadly, I don’t know anything more than I reported in that post. I never saw the boat in person, and my contact (Chris) has since returned to his native BC.

My reasons for not pursuing had nothing to do w/the boats condition or general fitness: -I was in California. It, a long way away. -The boat would, I thought at the time, need some serious retrofitting in terms of necessary fuel/water tankage.

I still love the design, but really can’t offer more than admiration.

Best of luck,

Hi Randal thank you for taking the time to reply. I appreciate your comments. Best of luck with your adventures. I am a keen follower. 🙂

No worries, mate. I’d be interested in your thoughts on the boat if you purchase it. I’m a fan of the Freya design, many of which were built in glass near where I live in San Francisco. Yours is quite similar and, from looks, seems quite seaworthy.

Hi Randall Did Richard send you any photos of his peacemaker? I sold my very loved peacemaker to a Richard some years ago. Cheers Bill

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• http://www.ganleyyachts.co.nz/
• New Zealand
• Ganley Yachts Ltd, PO Box 23, Greenhithe, Auckland

Ganley Yachts Ltd offer stock steel and timber designs from the drawing board of the late Denis Ganley.

Denis Ganley was a leading yacht designer in New Zealand who specialised in steel yacht design aimed at both the amateur and professional builder.

The reason for designing mostly in steel is that many of these designs were intended for offshore and serious coastal cruising and so they provide the ultimate in strength and safety. There are over 1,000 of these designs either sailing or under construction around the world.

Denis Ganley received many accolades during his 35 year career, inlcuding winning the 1986 Steel Award for best Consumer product with the Pacemaker 40 design (a first for these awards). Many of his designs have made remarkable passages offshore and have successfully competed in various regattas and other events.

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Custom Built/eigenbau Ganley Yachts (1997) For sale

Description, custom built/eigenbau ganley yachts (1997) - 395,000 eur.

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Steel Construction Plans

• Thread starter aitchem
• Start date 16 Jul 2005
• 16 Jul 2005

Hi, I have found Stadtdesign and Radford Yacht, the best so far. Some others which look pretty ugly. I am looking at the 45 foot range. Does anybody know of others available.? Also any experience of current build costs per ton.? thanks aitchem  

Have a look at Dudley Dix at www.dixdesign.com and go to the radius chine section. I have a Hout Bay 33 which I am very pleased with - he has designs in the size range you are looking at.  

• 17 Jul 2005

Try Van de Staddt.. I had a 36CC and now want the 48' "Tasman"... cannot help with the cost..(I' m too far away ) BrianJ  

• 18 Jul 2005

richardandtracy

Try Bruce Robers at http://www.bruceroberts.com . They do some modern shapes & the Spray type - a classic sea kindly old tub. Regards Richard.  

Denis Ganley is another and his stock designs are available Here. Look under Ganley Yacht Plans>Steel Designs>Designs Performance Cruisers. There are several around the size you mention in radius or hard chine (his boats disguise the chines very well if you intend going that way). They have a good reputation for blue water cruising. Denis together with another designer designed our own boat, but is closely based on one of his stock designs with a known reputation as we did not want the risk of christianing an unproven custom design. Unfortunately Denis is no longer around to support his designs, he and his wife were killed in a car accident en route to the builder's yard to see ours (and another) in its finished state. If you want performance keep well away from the traditional designs and go for fin keeled. On ours the skegged rudder was also designed out and replaced with a balanced spade built of timber/glass composite (which requires redesigning the ballast position due to the big weight saving in the rudder at the rear of the boat). Apart from being a much better peforming rudder and a big weight saving, you do not have the disadvantage of the steering having to swing a dirty great heavy piece of steel backwards and forwards. If you go the skeg rudder way for anyones design, pay particular attention to the skeg fixing at the hull plating end. Fatigue from flexing commonly causes weld (and sometimes bottom plating) cracking there if inadequate structure inside the hull. Everywhere, watch the weight very carefully and you should end up with a boat around the same displacement as a typical strongly built glass boat. It is easy to add extra tonnes by oversizing the interior fitout structure or, heaven forbid, as many do by adding extra thickness to the hull plating. John  

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AT&T says a data breach leaked millions of customers’ information online. Were you affected?

FILE - The sign in front of an AT&T retail store is seen in Miami, July 18, 2019. The theft of sensitive information belonging to millions of AT&T’s current and former customers has been recently discovered online, the telecommunications giant said Saturday, March 30, 2024. In an announcement addressing the data breach, AT&T said that a dataset found on the dark web contains information including some Social Security numbers and passcodes for about 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former account holders. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

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NEW YORK (AP) — The theft of sensitive information belonging to millions of AT&T’s current and former customers has been recently discovered online, the telecommunications giant said this weekend.

In a Saturday announcement addressing the data breach, AT&T said that a dataset found on the “dark web” contains information including some Social Security numbers and passcodes for about 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former account holders.

Whether the data “originated from AT&T or one of its vendors” is still unknown, the Dallas-based company noted — adding that it had launched an investigation into the incident. AT&T has also begun notifying customers whose personal information was compromised.

Here’s what you need to know.

WHAT INFORMATION WAS COMPROMISED IN THIS BREACH?

Although varying by each customer and account, AT&T says that information involved in this breach included Social Security numbers and passcodes — which, unlike passwords, are numerical PINS that are typically four digits long.

Full names, email addresses, mailing address, phone numbers, dates of birth and AT&T account numbers may have also been compromised. The impacted data is from 2019 or earlier and does not appear to include financial information or call history, the company said.

HOW DO I KNOW IF I WAS AFFECTED?

Consumers impacted by this breach should be receiving an email or letter directly from AT&T about the incident. The email notices began going out on Saturday, an AT&T spokesperson confirmed to The Associated Press.

WHAT ACTION HAS AT&T TAKEN?

Beyond these notifications, AT&T said that it had already reset the passcodes of current users. The company added that it would pay for credit monitoring services where applicable.

AT&T also said that it “launched a robust investigation” with internal and external cybersecurity experts to investigate the situation further.

HAS AT&T SEEN DATA BREACHES LIKE THIS BEFORE?

AT&T has seen several data breaches that range in size and impact over the years .

While the company says the data in this latest breach surfaced on a hacking forum nearly two weeks ago, it closely resembles a similar breach that surfaced in 2021 but which AT&T never acknowledged, cybersecurity researcher Troy Hunt told the AP Saturday.

“If they assess this and they made the wrong call on it, and we’ve had a course of years pass without them being able to notify impacted customers,” then it’s likely the company will soon face class action lawsuits, said Hunt, founder of an Australia-based website that warns people when their personal information has been exposed.

A spokesperson for AT&T declined to comment further when asked about these similarities Sunday.

HOW CAN I PROTECT MYSELF GOING FORWARD?

Avoiding data breaches entirely can be tricky in our ever-digitized world, but consumers can take some steps to help protect themselves going forward.

The basics include creating hard-to-guess passwords and using multifactor authentication when possible. If you receive a notice about a breach, it’s good idea to change your password and monitor account activity for any suspicious transactions. You’ll also want to visit a company’s official website for reliable contact information — as scammers sometimes try to take advantage of news like data breaches to gain your trust through look-alike phishing emails or phone calls.

In addition, the Federal Trade Commission notes that nationwide credit bureaus — such as Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — offer free credit freezes and fraud alerts that consumers can set up to help protect themselves from identity theft and other malicious activity.

AP Reporter Matt O’Brien contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island.

The spiraling 246m high Evolution Tower is located on plots 2-3 of Moscow-City high-rise business district on Presnenskaya Embankment of Moscow river. New multi-function center occupies the territory of 2.5ha in area, 2ha of which is a landscaped terraced civic plaza, the integral part of the new city piazza, the central open public space of Moscow-City business downtown.

ivic plaza includes 10m high ceremonial stairs (leading from embankment and pedestrian Bagration Bridge to the higher terraced levels) as well as landscaped areas with green lawns, trees, water features, travellators and feature lightboxes.

Evolution Tower

Location: Moscow, Russia

Typology: High-Rise, Office, Mixed-Use

Years: Construction 2011-2014

Status: Built

Height: 246m

Design team: GORPROJECT  (2011-2015), 

RMJM Scotland Ltd 

(original concept 2005-2007)

Under the piazza levels the 2-storey retail mall connects the Evolution Tower with metro station and pedestrian bridge over Moscow river, thus integrating the new development into the large Moscow-City district, the Europe's newest and most ambitious high-rise cluster (7 of 10 highest European skyscrapers ae located here), housing over 4 million square meters of office and retail areas with associated transport and engineering infrastructure.   

The Evolution Gallery mall houses food court and 6,000m2 family entertainment and educational center for various children activities (the first center of that kind in Moscow). 

The 82,000m2 office tower has 52 levels rotated 3 degrees each floor with overall twist reaching 156 degrees clockwise. With world’s largest innovative cold-bent glazing the tower façade provides seamless floating reflection that rotates the panoramas of Moscow skyline vertically, where the reflected clouds moving up enhance the dynamic visual impact of the twisted tower, an unprecedented optical effect in the world architecture.  The Crown with supporting steel structure made of two twisted arches provides the helipad at the very top as well as the open observation roof decks at Levels 51-52 featuring the best panoramas of Moscow riverside with views towards the historical center. 

From the very beginning the developer and architects have set an ambitious task to create a recognizable and symbolic tower, the new icon of contemporary Moscow.  The sculptural DNA-shaped twisting tower symbolizes the evolution spiral with the white façade ribbon wrapping over the roof in a form of 90-degree twisted infinity symbol, which speaks of philosophical concept of evolution and celebrates the development of human civilization. From spiraling onion domes of St. Basil to the iconic Tatlin Tower concept the Russian architecture was obsessed with idea of spiral. The simple and innovative design was based on principles of twisting square-shaped floor plates with vertical structural RC frame supported by a central core and 8 columns with continuous beams and 4 spiraling columns at the corners. 

The proposed structural scheme with cantilevered continuous RC beams and cantilevered floor slabs  picking up the overhangs from the twisted floor plates appeared to be simple, efficient and economical. The complex sculptural tower façade envelope was built using the innovative cold-bent glazing with flat double glazed units cold-formed in 3D within the aluminum frame under its own weight to avoid stepping in geometry. This approach appeared to be both more energy-efficient and more cost-efficient solution in comparison to the stepped curtain wall units previously applied in some twisted unitized facades. 

The multifunctional architectural glass by Guardian significantly reduces the solar gain whilst providing the double glazed unit thermal performance equal to standard triple glazed unit normally used in Moscow to withstand harsh winter conditions. The use of innovative TWIN elevators by ThyssenKrupp saved 2 shafts within the core (10 TWINs instead of 12 double-deckers in the original concept) and contributed to the overall project sustainability with lesser power consumption per passenger. Other sustainable design features include green roofs over the retail mall and integrated coil floor heating under landscaped civic piazza levels using the return water in winter to melt the snow and ice for the safety of pedestrians. The reinforced concrete formwork by PERI, including self-climbing ACS formwork specially designed for the twisting corner columns, allowed to achieve the impressive speed of RC frame construction of 6 days per floor due to perfect site logistics by Renaissance Construction as main contractor. 

All innovative design solutions and optimizations secured the delivery of this fairly unique skyscraper within the project plan and almost within the budget of the standard ‘benchmark’ high-rise building. This turned out to be a major achievement of the design and construction teams. 

The organic twisting silhouette dominates on its background of extruded glass towers greatly contributing into the overall composition of the high-rise Moscow-City cluster. The development delivered a significant open public space on the landscaped roof of the retail mall, thus providing the perfect mix of business uses with public and social activities of the civic plaza and the mall with its food court and core family entertainment function. The synergy of that mix with large underground car-park complemented by the direct link to the metro station and pedestrian bridge as means of main public transportation secured the successful project completion with the recent entire tower acquisition. Bold shape and timeless aesthetics as added values brought by its unique architecture materialized in a commercial success of this project with the tower being fully acquired for corporate headquarters even in the context of oversupply in the Moscow office market. The outstanding quality of architecture and its fine detailing, state of the art building services and communications of Class A office Tower together with the highest level of transport accessibility  (direct access to metro station from the lobby, large car-parking, proximity to boat pier and helipads) make this property very attractive for tenants and visitors. The beautiful riverside panoramas from offices are complemented by green roof and water features of the large 2ha terraced civic piazza as the main recreational outdoor space with direct link from the office tower lobby. 

The highest quality of façade cladding, glazing, vertical transportation and MEP equipment from leading European and international suppliers provided the truly Class-A office environment with the luxury of minimalist spirit in the architecture of the new landmark on the Moscow skyline. Even before its completion the sculptural spiral of Evolution Tower, more often appearing in commercials, posters and magazines, became a new icon for modern Moscow as the symbol of its business ambitions and fast development. The Evolution Tower also became the monument to the courage of its developer (Snegiri Group) and investors, who built the great deal of trust with architects, engineers and contractors by investing their efforts and funds in a challenging adventure of designing and building the unique and innovative skyscraper for the capital of Russia. 

Evolution Reflections

Philipp nikandrov.

2018 Primetime Emmy & James Beard Award Winner

In Transit: Notes from the Underground

Jun 06 2018.

Spend some time in one of Moscow’s finest museums.

Subterranean commuting might not be anyone’s idea of a good time, but even in a city packing the war-games treasures and priceless bejeweled eggs of the Kremlin Armoury and the colossal Soviet pavilions of the VDNKh , the Metro holds up as one of Moscow’s finest museums. Just avoid rush hour.

The Metro is stunning and provides an unrivaled insight into the city’s psyche, past and present, but it also happens to be the best way to get around. Moscow has Uber, and the Russian version called Yandex Taxi , but also some nasty traffic. Metro trains come around every 90 seconds or so, at a more than 99 percent on-time rate. It’s also reasonably priced, with a single ride at 55 cents (and cheaper in bulk). From history to tickets to rules — official and not — here’s what you need to know to get started.

A Brief Introduction Buying Tickets Know Before You Go (Down) Rules An Easy Tour

A Brief Introduction

Moscow’s Metro was a long time coming. Plans for rapid transit to relieve the city’s beleaguered tram system date back to the Imperial era, but a couple of wars and a revolution held up its development. Stalin revived it as part of his grand plan to modernize the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s. The first lines and tunnels were constructed with help from engineers from the London Underground, although Stalin’s secret police decided that they had learned too much about Moscow’s layout and had them arrested on espionage charges and deported.

The beauty of its stations (if not its trains) is well-documented, and certainly no accident. In its illustrious first phases and particularly after the Second World War, the greatest architects of Soviet era were recruited to create gleaming temples celebrating the Revolution, the USSR, and the war triumph. No two stations are exactly alike, and each of the classic showpieces has a theme. There are world-famous shrines to Futurist architecture, a celebration of electricity, tributes to individuals and regions of the former Soviet Union. Each marble slab, mosaic tile, or light fixture was placed with intent, all in service to a station’s aesthetic; each element, f rom the smallest brass ear of corn to a large blood-spattered sword on a World War II mural, is an essential part of the whole.

The Metro is a monument to the Soviet propaganda project it was intended to be when it opened in 1935 with the slogan “Building a Palace for the People”. It brought the grand interiors of Imperial Russia to ordinary Muscovites, celebrated the Soviet Union’s past achievements while promising its citizens a bright Soviet future, and of course, it was a show-piece for the world to witness the might and sophistication of life in the Soviet Union.

It may be a museum, but it’s no relic. U p to nine million people use it daily, more than the London Underground and New York Subway combined. (Along with, at one time, about 20 stray dogs that learned to commute on the Metro.)

In its 80+ year history, the Metro has expanded in phases and fits and starts, in step with the fortunes of Moscow and Russia. Now, partly in preparation for the World Cup 2018, it’s also modernizing. New trains allow passengers to walk the entire length of the train without having to change carriages. The system is becoming more visitor-friendly. (There are helpful stickers on the floor marking out the best selfie spots .) But there’s a price to modernity: it’s phasing out one of its beloved institutions, the escalator attendants. Often they are middle-aged or elderly women—“ escalator grandmas ” in news accounts—who have held the post for decades, sitting in their tiny kiosks, scolding commuters for bad escalator etiquette or even bad posture, or telling jokes . They are slated to be replaced, when at all, by members of the escalator maintenance staff.

For all its achievements, the Metro lags behind Moscow’s above-ground growth, as Russia’s capital sprawls ever outwards, generating some of the world’s worst traffic jams . But since 2011, the Metro has been in the middle of an ambitious and long-overdue enlargement; 60 new stations are opening by 2020. If all goes to plan, the 2011-2020 period will have brought 125 miles of new tracks and over 100 new stations — a 40 percent increase — the fastest and largest expansion phase in any period in the Metro’s history.

Facts: 14 lines Opening hours: 5 a.m-1 a.m. Rush hour(s): 8-10 a.m, 4-8 p.m. Single ride: 55₽ (about 85 cents) Wi-Fi network-wide

Buying Tickets

• Ticket machines have a button to switch to English.
• You can buy specific numbers of rides: 1, 2, 5, 11, 20, or 60. Hold up fingers to show how many rides you want to buy.
• There is also a 90-minute ticket , which gets you 1 trip on the metro plus an unlimited number of transfers on other transport (bus, tram, etc) within 90 minutes.
• Or, you can buy day tickets with unlimited rides: one day (218₽/ US$4), three days (415₽/US$7) or seven days (830₽/US$15). Check the rates here to stay up-to-date.
• If you’re going to be using the Metro regularly over a few days, it’s worth getting a Troika card , a contactless, refillable card you can use on all public transport. Using the Metro is cheaper with one of these: a single ride is 36₽, not 55₽. Buy them and refill them in the Metro stations, and they’re valid for 5 years, so you can keep it for next time. Or, if you have a lot of cash left on it when you leave, you can get it refunded at the Metro Service Centers at Ulitsa 1905 Goda, 25 or at Staraya Basmannaya 20, Building 1.
• You can also buy silicone bracelets and keychains with built-in transport chips that you can use as a Troika card. (A Moscow Metro Fitbit!) So far, you can only get these at the Pushkinskaya metro station Live Helpdesk and souvenir shops in the Mayakovskaya and Trubnaya metro stations. The fare is the same as for the Troika card.
• You can also use Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Rules, spoken and unspoken

No smoking, no drinking, no filming, no littering. Photography is allowed, although it used to be banned.

Stand to the right on the escalator. Break this rule and you risk the wrath of the legendary escalator attendants. (No shenanigans on the escalators in general.)

Get out of the way. Find an empty corner to hide in when you get off a train and need to stare at your phone. Watch out getting out of the train in general; when your train doors open, people tend to appear from nowhere or from behind ornate marble columns, walking full-speed.

Always offer your seat to elderly ladies (what are you, a monster?).

An Easy Tour

This is no Metro Marathon ( 199 stations in 20 hours ). It’s an easy tour, taking in most—though not all—of the notable stations, the bulk of it going clockwise along the Circle line, with a couple of short detours. These stations are within minutes of one another, and the whole tour should take about 1-2 hours.

Start at Mayakovskaya Metro station , at the corner of Tverskaya and Garden Ring,  Triumfalnaya Square, Moskva, Russia, 125047.

1. Mayakovskaya.  Named for Russian Futurist Movement poet Vladimir Mayakovsky and an attempt to bring to life the future he imagined in his poems. (The Futurist Movement, natch, was all about a rejecting the past and celebrating all things speed, industry, modern machines, youth, modernity.) The result: an Art Deco masterpiece that won the National Grand Prix for architecture at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. It’s all smooth, rounded shine and light, and gentle arches supported by columns of dark pink marble and stainless aircraft steel. Each of its 34 ceiling niches has a mosaic. During World War II, the station was used as an air-raid shelter and, at one point, a bunker for Stalin. He gave a subdued but rousing speech here in Nov. 6, 1941 as the Nazis bombed the city above.

Take the 3/Green line one station to:

2. Belorusskaya. Opened in 1952, named after the connected Belarussky Rail Terminal, which runs trains between Moscow and Belarus. This is a light marble affair with a white, cake-like ceiling, lined with Belorussian patterns and 12 Florentine ceiling mosaics depicting life in Belarussia when it was built.

Transfer onto the 1/Brown line. Then, one stop (clockwise) t o:

3. Novoslobodskaya.  This station was designed around the stained-glass panels, which were made in Latvia, because Alexey Dushkin, the Soviet starchitect who dreamed it up (and also designed Mayakovskaya station) couldn’t find the glass and craft locally. The stained glass is the same used for Riga’s Cathedral, and the panels feature plants, flowers, members of the Soviet intelligentsia (musician, artist, architect) and geometric shapes.

Go two stops east on the 1/Circle line to:

4. Komsomolskaya. Named after the Komsomol, or the Young Communist League, this might just be peak Stalin Metro style. Underneath the hub for three regional railways, it was intended to be a grand gateway to Moscow and is today its busiest station. It has chandeliers; a yellow ceiling with Baroque embellishments; and in the main hall, a colossal red star overlaid on golden, shimmering tiles. Designer Alexey Shchusev designed it as an homage to the speech Stalin gave at Red Square on Nov. 7, 1941, in which he invoked Russia’s illustrious military leaders as a pep talk to Soviet soldiers through the first catastrophic year of the war.   The station’s eight large mosaics are of the leaders referenced in the speech, such as Alexander Nevsky, a 13th-century prince and military commander who bested German and Swedish invading armies.

One more stop clockwise to Kurskaya station,  and change onto the 3/Blue  line, and go one stop to:

5. Baumanskaya.   Opened in 1944. Named for the Bolshevik Revolutionary Nikolai Bauman , whose monument and namesake district are aboveground here. Though he seemed like a nasty piece of work (he apparently once publicly mocked a woman he had impregnated, who later hung herself), he became a Revolutionary martyr when he was killed in 1905 in a skirmish with a monarchist, who hit him on the head with part of a steel pipe. The station is in Art Deco style with atmospherically dim lighting, and a series of bronze sculptures of soldiers and homefront heroes during the War. At one end, there is a large mosaic portrait of Lenin.

Stay on that train direction one more east to:

6. Elektrozavodskaya. As you may have guessed from the name, this station is the Metro’s tribute to all thing electrical, built in 1944 and named after a nearby lightbulb factory. It has marble bas-relief sculptures of important figures in electrical engineering, and others illustrating the Soviet Union’s war-time struggles at home. The ceiling’s recurring rows of circular lamps give the station’s main tunnel a comforting glow, and a pleasing visual effect.

Double back two stops to Kurskaya station , and change back to the 1/Circle line. Sit tight for six stations to:

7. Kiyevskaya. This was the last station on the Circle line to be built, in 1954, completed under Nikita Khrushchev’ s guidance, as a tribute to his homeland, Ukraine. Its three large station halls feature images celebrating Ukraine’s contributions to the Soviet Union and Russo-Ukrainian unity, depicting musicians, textile-working, soldiers, farmers. (One hall has frescoes, one mosaics, and the third murals.) Shortly after it was completed, Khrushchev condemned the architectural excesses and unnecessary luxury of the Stalin era, which ushered in an epoch of more austere Metro stations. According to the legend at least, he timed the policy in part to ensure no Metro station built after could outshine Kiyevskaya.

Change to the 3/Blue line and go one stop west.

8. Park Pobedy. This is the deepest station on the Metro, with one of the world’s longest escalators, at 413 feet. If you stand still, the escalator ride to the surface takes about three minutes .) Opened in 2003 at Victory Park, the station celebrates two of Russia’s great military victories. Each end has a mural by Georgian artist Zurab Tsereteli, who also designed the “ Good Defeats Evil ” statue at the UN headquarters in New York. One mural depicts the Russian generals’ victory over the French in 1812 and the other, the German surrender of 1945. The latter is particularly striking; equal parts dramatic, triumphant, and gruesome. To the side, Red Army soldiers trample Nazi flags, and if you look closely there’s some blood spatter among the detail. Still, the biggest impressions here are the marble shine of the chessboard floor pattern and the pleasingly geometric effect if you view from one end to the other.

Keep going one more stop west to:

9. Slavyansky Bulvar.  One of the Metro’s youngest stations, it opened in 2008. With far higher ceilings than many other stations—which tend to have covered central tunnels on the platforms—it has an “open-air” feel (or as close to it as you can get, one hundred feet under). It’s an homage to French architect Hector Guimard, he of the Art Nouveau entrances for the Paris M é tro, and that’s precisely what this looks like: A Moscow homage to the Paris M é tro, with an additional forest theme. A Cyrillic twist on Guimard’s Metro-style lettering over the benches, furnished with t rees and branch motifs, including creeping vines as towering lamp-posts.

Stay on the 3/Blue line and double back four stations to:

10. Arbatskaya. Its first iteration, Arbatskaya-Smolenskaya station, was damaged by German bombs in 1941. It was rebuilt in 1953, and designed to double as a bomb shelter in the event of nuclear war, although unusually for stations built in the post-war phase, this one doesn’t have a war theme. It may also be one of the system’s most elegant: Baroque, but toned down a little, with red marble floors and white ceilings with gilded bronze c handeliers.

Jump back on the 3/Blue line  in the same direction and take it one more stop:

11. Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Revolution Square). Opened in 1938, and serving Red Square and the Kremlin . Its renowned central hall has marble columns flanked by 76 bronze statues of Soviet heroes: soldiers, students, farmers, athletes, writers, parents. Some of these statues’ appendages have a yellow sheen from decades of Moscow’s commuters rubbing them for good luck. Among the most popular for a superstitious walk-by rub: the snout of a frontier guard’s dog, a soldier’s gun (where the touch of millions of human hands have tapered the gun barrel into a fine, pointy blade), a baby’s foot, and a woman’s knee. (A brass rooster also sports the telltale gold sheen, though I am told that rubbing the rooster is thought to bring bad luck. )

Now take the escalator up, and get some fresh air.

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