Humanity, as long as it can remember, is waging a fierce struggle with the sea element, reclaiming land from the sea centimeter by centimeter. Once mined land was converted into agricultural land, now it serves as thriving tourist resorts. The most striking historical example of such a struggle was the draining of the shores of Holland, about the grandeur of which the proverb says: "God created the sea, and the Dutch created the coast." The example of Holland in our time was followed by another "sea power", the United Arab Emirates, which offered an alternative to drainage - bulk islands, carried out in the framework of the sensational project The World. This fashionable trend has also reached Russia - for the Sochi Olympics, Eric Van Egeraat, by the way, a Dutch architect, proposed to build a bulk island (more precisely, an archipelago) "Federation", repeating the shape of our country. Rumor has it that it will never be built, since the developers did not take into account one important feature of the Black Sea water area - its depth - and overcoming this obstacle will probably "eat up" the entire budget of the sensational project.
Drainage and alluvial islands are the main methods of reclaiming territory from the sea today. There is one more, worthy of becoming the third in this row - houses on pile structures. It cannot be called an innovation in any way: in such houses, for example, lived the ancient tribes of our middle zone, those who got the swampy lands. In addition, houses on stilts are the only way to live on the ocean coast without fear of tides and storms.
We have already talked about one of these "houses on stilts" before - this is the "Airhotel" project by A. Asadov's workshop, a station for itinerant airship hotels. The main idea of this project - the arrangement of buildings above the water on stilts, became the starting point for new works by architects, projects with a more definite goal - to become a competitor to the already hardly realized Federation Island.
A. Asadov's workshop developed four projects for Sochi with different architectural solutions, but with a common concept. So, in each of them the buildings (apartments, hotels, hanging gardens, marinas for yachts on the lower level) are located above the sea, raised on stilts and connected to the shore through a pier. The pile structures, according to one of the authors of the project, Andrey Asadov, are calculated and reliable.
The first project is a thin semicircular pier with butterfly houses "strung" on its axis. They consist of two slightly curved, wing-like hulls that cascade towards the sea. The wing buildings are connected by large glazed atriums with hanging gardens inside and out. The bright green rough texture of the buildings and the park laid out between them create the impression of an oasis in the sea desert and at the same time enter into dialogue with the lush mountains of the coast. It turns out a kind of green anti-island - firstly, the island is supposed to grow out of the water, and this one hangs over the sea. Secondly, the island usually has a mountain in the center, and this one has a hole in the center, but rises towards the outer perimeter. An easy, even "flying" solution defiantly contradicts the sea element.
Another form of embodiment of the idea of a “house on the water” was five round “islands” with towers in the center - when viewed from above (from an airplane), they form the emblem of the Olympics. The circles represent the five continental rings, each with its own color. The blue ring - Europe - blows with the cold of the Scandinavian winter, and the tower in the center resembles ice sculptures. Associations with sculpture, only already African, are caused by the tower of the black ring, symbolizing Africa. From the forms of the red tower that unites South and North America, it breathes with Brazilian carnivals, and the sacrifices of the Aztecs, and the conquest of the Indians. The tower of the yellow ring - the symbol of the Asian continent - resembles Chinese pagodas, and its speckled pattern already refers to the contemporary art of this region. The last green continent in the emblem is Australia. Australia's cultural history is less significant. But the nature of this continent, of course, leaves a vivid impression. Probably, this is what the architects operated when designing the tower of the green ring - the solution of its facade is similar to the relief of the Australian Alps, where rare bunches of greenery break through the rocky soil at an altitude of 2000 meters.
All the multi-colored plate rings of the five continents have the same structure. Raised above the water on piles, a round base forms an atrium with public space, hotel buildings extend from it in different directions, and the whole structure is crowned by a tower - a symbol of the continent. Tellingly, the symbolism refers us to the Olympics as a whole, which is more logical in meaning than the loyal "Federation".
Such an architectural complex could become not only a decoration and a "feature" of the Sochi Olympics, but also one of the symbols of the city later, reminding its guests that an event of global importance was held here.
Another project in this series is a long low-rise building, rapidly leaving the coast into the open sea. It no longer looks like an island on stilts, but a real pier, only very large and complex. Its solid volume, when viewed in detail, turns out to be multi-part and layered, and the curvature at the end and massive marinas for yachts form an artificial bay, an isolated area with a large beach that could spatially mark private property.
The fourth project is centrally symmetrical. Its working title is "Star". The complex consists of a base in the form of a five-pointed star and 5 buildings embedded between its rays. The buildings perform hotel functions and have green facades, which makes them look more like a water lily than a star; or even with your favorite southern passion flower. And the long stem pier linking the complex to the shore further enhances this similarity.
Another option for a coastal building on stilts is the Southern Outpost project. The wide pier in it adapts to a large park that could continue the tradition of the Sochi Arboretum and cover the public gallery and parking lots. At the far end of the pier park rises a glass mesh skyscraper with partially green facades and two helipads at the top. Like other projects of houses in the sea, the skyscraper should serve as a hotel. And given its unprecedented height, it would certainly be possible to arrange observation platforms at different levels with magnificent views of the city. The skyscraper is symbolic: from the land side its facade is covered with living greenery, from the sea side - cold glass ripples. What is intended to mean the combination of two elements, land and sea. In addition, the tower, which is very tall by the standards of Sochi, rises into the sea like a lighthouse, and again it could become a symbol of the city.
All these conceptual projects, as conceived by their authors, could become a comprehensive solution for the preparation of Sochi for the 2014 Olympics. The construction site here is the sea, not the expensive land on the coast. They include many hotels and apartments, endowed with at least two positive qualities: beautiful views from the rooms to the sea and the city, as well as the clear sea, since the complexes are located far from the coast. There is another important plus - the innovation of these projects. If they were implemented, perhaps, Sochi, like Dubai, would be legendary as a city where fantastic projects of the future are being implemented.
