Tverskaya street, view from Triumfalnaya towards Belorusskaya, Yandex panorama
Today KB Strelka announced the start of an open international competition for the concept of landscaping Tverskaya Street from Triumfalnaya to Belorussky Railway Station. Applications are accepted until June 28 2016, Russian and foreign landscape designers and architects are invited to participate. The winner is scheduled to be announced on July 7, he will receive an award of 826,000 rubles, the owners of the second and third places will receive 354,000 rubles each. The competition is part of the My Street program, within the framework of which Strelka KB has developed standards for the improvement of Moscow streets, some of which have been implemented, and some are planned to be implemented this summer.
Competition website where you can register for participation.
We talked with Grigory Revzin, partner of KB Strelka and one of the organizers of the competition, who today announced its start together in Giovanna Karnevali, the head of the competition department of KB Strelka.
Archi.ru:
Tell us, what kind of competition is KB Strelka arranging for the improvement of Tverskaya Street?
Grigory Revzin:
- We, KB Strelka, want to do contests all the time. This is not to say that this desire always arouses sympathy on the part of the customer. From the very beginning we offered to hold a competition for the main streets: Novy Arbat and Tverskaya. But the experience of holding architectural competitions in Moscow shows that they require quite a lot of time, at least 6 months from the start of work on the brief to the result. Landscaping is done much faster, they do not like to pull. Here the project must be issued in two, maximum three months.
The competition for Tverskaya was an important position for us. The first half of Tverskaya, from Triumfalnaya to Mokhovaya, is made by Adrian Göse - an excellent architect, we are proud of our cooperation with him, but the principle is important here. And with the second half - since the competition for Triumfalnaya Square has already taken place - we managed to find support from the customer. We have reserved a fairly large amount under our contract. The winner receives an award, and in addition, for further work: on the working documentation together with our architects, and for the author's supervision, he will receive another $ 50,000 - a fairly decent amount.
Tverskaya street, view from Belorusskaya towards the center. Panorama Yandex
I cannot say that in this part of Tverskaya there is much that can be done: on the section from Pushkinskaya to Belorussky railway station, the rows do not change, and the width of the rows there is already minimal; however, there are adjacent streets in both directions, where you can try to solve the parking problem, which is very relevant for the Tverskaya district. On Tverskaya itself it is necessary to change the image of the street. The new image should express the idea of friendly-urbanism: the streets are comfortable to spend time on. It is necessary to plant trees, make MAFs, benches, light - there is a known range of solutions - they must be applied to the main street. Now it turns out that many other streets in the center of Moscow have already gone through this transformation, while the main street of the city has not.
Do you plan to change the transport scheme, or does this not apply to the management of KB Strelka?
- We cannot change transport schemes, we can only offer something. Now our main proposal concerns ground pedestrian crossings: we are planning them on this section. Which is normal, since the average speed here is relatively low, around 40 km / h.
Are there any plans for Novy Arbat?
- Yes, we'll start now on Novy Arbat.
With a competition?
- We didn't manage to hold a competition for New Arbat. There was an urgent need for a project. That we will hold a competition for Tverskaya Street, we finally agreed with the customers in January, and we are announcing the competition only now. It is clear that Novy Arbat could not have started at such a pace this year.
Landscaping contests have their own specifics: they are, of course, high-profile, but there is relatively little real work for participants there. And since we decided to make the competition open and international, we needed something that would interest the participants. The main street of Moscow - Tverskaya - seemed like the best option.
Tverskaya Street, near Chayanov Street, in the middle of the section under consideration. Panorama Yandex
What is the structure of the Tverskaya competition and what are the limitations?
- One-stage open tender. It is not difficult, there are small requirements for filing. There are no restrictions.
Should we expect any other competitions within the framework of this program?
– Not this year. We need to see how successfully it will be possible to make Tverskaya, there is a certain risk on our part. It seems to the customer that it is difficult and incomprehensible, and the experience - I would not say that in the end it is positive: we held the competition for the Zaryadye park three years ago, at the NCCA - four … In addition, the cost of the competition is twice more expensive than if we did it without a competition. This is our money, we pay it out of the general contract. Could save money.
Therefore, it's good if everything goes well, but first of all, let's see how many people will respond. The competitions for metro stations were excellent, although it would seem that there was also a little work for the participants, the structure of the stations was set by Mosinzhstroy. But good projects took part in these competitions. We had one first, then put it on the stream … And with the streets this is the first experience, let's see how it goes. If it is good, we will continue to do it.
What are the guarantees for the winner that he will implement the project?
- From our side there are full guarantees. In this case, Strelka itself guarantees it within the framework of our common contract. However, the task in the competition corresponds to the concept design stage - a sketch, so the project must inevitably be clarified later. I think that change b about We won't have anything more than what happened with the BuroMoscow project on Triumfalnaya. Of course, the project will be clarified, but exactly as part of the concept design refinement.
*** Competition jury:
Adrian Gueuze, architect, co-founder of the West 8 architectural bureau;
Tatiana Guk, Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Architecture and Urban Planning of Moscow;
Varvara Melnikova, General Director of the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, partner of KB Strelka, General Director of Afisha;
Alexey Novikov, professor, dean of the Graduate School of Urbanism. A. A. Vysokovsky National Research University Higher School of Economics;
Grigory Revzin, architectural critic, partner of KB Strelka;
Philip Wren, Architect, Retail Specialist, Managing Director at Wren Architecture;
Sergey Choban, architect, managing partner of the SPEECH architectural bureau;
Martha Schwartz, architect, head of the architectural bureau Martha Schwartz Partners;
Nikolay Shumakov, President of the Union of Moscow Architects.
Jury chairman Pyotr Biryukov, Deputy Mayor of Moscow in the Moscow Government for housing and communal services and improvement.
