Kempa is a completely unique place for Vinnitsa. Known since the middle of the 16th century, this island is considered the cradle of the entire city - it was here that the first stone fortress was built, from which modern Vinnitsa went. True, for a long time there is no fortress, no Lithuanian castles, no buildings of any kind - the island today is, rather, a protected natural area, preserved intact due to the lack of ties with the "mainland". In Soviet times, it was called Festivalny, by the way, and the Vinnytsia residents themselves call Kempa "the island of love" - this is a favorite vacation spot for young people who need nothing to wave across the Southern Bug River in a boat or even a homemade raft. In 2010, the city authorities decided to "legalize" this territory, turning Kempa into a city-wide space. An open architectural competition was held in Vinnitsa for “the best concept for the development of the island and the embankments of the Southern Bug River with the formation of pedestrian links between the left bank and the historical center of the city”, in which the A. Asadov Architectural Workshop won with a project called “City Code” …
The competition task initially contained a certain contradiction: on the one hand, the participants had to provide for the creation of recreational and entertainment facilities on Kempa Island, on the other hand, to preserve its historical value. The fact is that not so long ago archaeologists proved for sure that once there was a fortress on the island, and although this territory does not officially have a protected status, the authorities prudently prohibited capital construction. Architects Alexander and Andrey Asadov took this into account in their project, finding a successful compromise between preserving the island in its original form and tactfully introducing a "weekend infrastructure" into its fabric.
The architects enveloped the entire central part of Kempa with a network of winding pedestrian and bicycle paths, at the southern end of the island the beach was improved, and all new objects were either decided as temporary pavilions made of light structures, or placed … on the water. The island is supposed to be connected with the right and left banks of the Southern Bug by means of two bridges, each of which is two arcs curved in different directions and intersecting above the water. On land, the bridges are connected by a promenade, so that visually they are perceived as a single structure - a wriggling wooden strip, neatly pinned to the ground by a support - so that they don't fly away.
However, the Asadovs did not stop there either: the second was passed through this complex bridge - in a spectacular arc it goes around the northern end of Kempa and connects it with the lighthouse, which is supposed to be located on a small separate artificial island. At the same time, this second bridge allows fixing several pontoons - a floating pier is assembled from them, the upper part of which turns into an amphitheater. Thus, the architects did not forget the Soviet name Kempa in their project - they propose to place a summer stage in the ring of two bridges and use the island for holding festivals and open-air concerts. The architects propose to place the stationary leisure and entertainment center, as well as the children's creativity center and the winter garden on the left bank of the Southern Bug, not far from the bridge leading from Kempa.
In the immediate vicinity of the island, it is planned to create a 4-star hotel, in which the Asadovs also took part in the competition. The new hotel is supposed to be built in the so-called "triangle" between the embankment of the Yuzhny Bug river, Kievskaya and Sobornaya streets, and it will face exactly Kemp and the central ensembles of the city,and this is precisely what determines its architectural solution.
In particular, the architects oriented all the rooms to the island, while only the floor galleries are facing the main entrance from Kievskaya Street. And although in the plan the building has the shape of a triangle, in fact, only two of its sides are built up - the rest of the space is occupied by an atrium with a translucent roof of a complex broken shape, falling to the ground. The above-mentioned galleries enter this multi-colored space, it also illuminates the entrance lobby, the reception area and the main public areas of the complex (restaurants, fitness center, conference hall). Another restaurant is located above the residential floors - in order to make it as panoramic as possible, the architects place it in a completely transparent volume that overhangs the city center with a giant console. It will be possible to climb here directly from the central lobby - the glass parallelepiped seems to grow out of the broken crystal of the atrium, giving the whole building an emphasized futurism. And as if to counterbalance this "high-tech" nature, the second residential wing was decided in a fundamentally different way: its lateral façade is a system of greened terraces descending to the fully greened roof of the underground parking lot.
And if Kempa is a green oasis, which needs to be “connected” to the main arteries of the city, then the hotel, which looks most like a transatlantic liner, the architects, on the contrary, tried to tie it to the water. The hotel building is connected with the embankment of the Southern Bug by a walking area, which develops on both sides of the bridge and is complemented by the lower embankment, made in light wooden structures on metal piles.
