In June this year, the St. Petersburg Committee for Urban Planning and Architecture and the Minsk Committee for Construction held a closed competition. The architects were tasked with developing a concept for the development of new residential areas, “creating a high quality social housing environment”, as well as thinking about a “design code” and ecology. The competition is "symmetrical": St. Petersburg architects worked with a site in Minsk, and Minsk architects - in St. Petersburg.
The jury selected five architectural workshops from each city, the results can be evaluated at the exhibition, which runs until December 19 in the Manezh.
It should be noted that the competition sites are quite different. In St. Petersburg, it is necessary to place more housing on a smaller territory, but the maximum permitted height here is 75 meters, and in Minsk - 50. Also, on the St. Petersburg site, the land-surveying project has already been approved.
All architects took care of closed courtyards, non-residential premises on the ground floors and landscaping. But the impression was that the St. Petersburg architects felt more confident and liberated - the quarters turned out to be really "Petersburg" and at least interesting.
Petersburg in Minsk
The site in Minsk is bordered by Semashko Street, the continuation of Golubeva Street, several parks with ponds that make up the Loshitsa water system, the Minsk-Brest railway and one of the main thoroughfares of the city - Dzerzhinsky Avenue. The nearest metro station is "Petrovshchina", the airport is ten minutes away. For St. Petersburg architects, the pronounced relief is unusual here: the drop goes a few meters to Semashko Street. The site is surrounded by massifs of modern buildings. Height is limited to thirty meters, for dominants - up to fifty.
Architectural workshop of Stolyarchuk A. A
“St. Petersburg Quarter” is interpreted in this project almost literally - closed “wells” with a system of courtyards, walkways, facades reminiscent of continuous historical buildings. The authors propose to finish the facades with mineral plaster of different colors. The picturesquely protruding orange cubes are decorative elements made of concrete or aluminum panels. Dancing windows. The height of the buildings increases from Semashko Street from five to nine floors. The highest are twelve-story T-shaped sections opposite the main entrance. The blocks are divided by a pedestrian boulevard.
Architectural and design workshop Ukhov V. O
This concept is inspired by St. Petersburg firewalls, as well as the urban planning system of Vasilievsky Island, "where the geometric length of the lines is" tamed "by the curvilinear borders of the Bolshaya and Malaya Neva embankments."
One-section buildings with a common roof are erected along Semashko Street. Its authors plan to plant greenery and use it as a playground for sports and recreation. Perpendicular to this line of the "embankment", at a slightly higher elevation, 8-11-storey stepped buildings begin, followed by fourteen-storey buildings. Thus, a network of internal “regular” streets is formed between the “disconnected firewalls”. A detached "wedge" is a shopping complex where residents of the "upper" buildings can get across the bridge.
Architectural workshop "Vitruvius and Sons"
Three buildings in the form of horseshoes, all of different lengths and storeys, are united by a long pedestrian gallery along Semashko Street. The ends are decorated with porticoes. The most interesting thing in this concept, perhaps, is the courtyards. They are raised from the street by six meters and retain a stepped relief. The formed semicircular "squares" with amphitheaters open up to the Loshitsa ecosystem. They resemble small stadiums, the stands of which are houses themselves, and at the same time evoke associations with the ceremonial, palace St. Petersburg.
Studio-17
The authors named the concept "Petrovskie Verfi" and developed the St. Petersburg theme from the perspective of a seaport. The red-brown hulls along Semashko Street symbolize ships. White hulls should resemble "sails sharply directed to the wind." The dominant feature is a one-section "lighthouse house". All together are united by the "granite embankment" with ladders and ramps, in which parking lots, shops and cafes are located. The architects propose to make a chain of decorative pools along the embankment, put models of ships in park areas, make fences in the form of anchor chains, and link the names of new streets with the history of the fleet. By the way, it is in this project that there are penthouses and eight duplex apartments with terraces.
Studio-AMM
Here the buildings are grouped not into quarters, but rather according to the principle of diverging concentric circles. At the same time, they form a picturesque silhouette due to different heights and pitched roofs. The height of the buildings, on the contrary, decreases from Semashko Street: the dominant features are two buildings in the center of the composition, also highlighted in terracotta color. The theme of firewalls is played up again: the "gaps" between the buildings are highlighted in color, they contain stairs and elevators. Some of the upper floors are occupied by two-level workshops for artists and architects. The two-storey garages are decorated with metal sheets with drawings of the flora and fauna of Belarus.
Minsk in St. Petersburg
The triangular-shaped plot is located in the historical district "Polyustrovo", not far from the Lesnaya metro station. It is bounded by Marshal Blucher Avenue, an extension of the Kushelevskaya road, Polyustrovsky Avenue and the projected street. Residential areas "Utrennyaya Zvezda", "Kalina Park", "City of Masters", "Kantemirovsky" have been built and continue to be built nearby. There is also a large shopping center Europolis in the immediate vicinity. There is also a large park of the Forestry Academy not too far away, but it may be soon
will be closed to visitors. The permitted building height is 40 meters, but dominants can reach 75 meters. In the future, the Arsenalnaya metro station is to appear next to the site.
UE "Minskproekt"
The concept responds to the industrial past of the area: red ceramic bricks and panels with the texture of metallic graphite are reminiscent of old factories along the Bolshaya Nevka. Five buildings "embrace" the site, opening up into a green courtyard free of cars and a pedestrian boulevard, which is quite contrasting with respect to the noisy highways outside. Each building has low-rise sections that go into the formed quarter. Architects overcome the monotony of residential areas due to different heights, colors and combinations of panoramic and narrow windows. There are green terraces on the roofs. This project provides apartments for disabled people.
JSC "Institute" Minskgrazhdanproekt"
The land-surveying scheme reminded the authors of the concept “a wedge of birds soaring over the Belarusian Polesie”. The buildings are divided into two levels: low-rise buildings (“in the image of Belarusian forests, fields and lakes”) form the courtyard space, and high-rise dominants (birds) accentuate the highways and create a silhouette. The height of buildings varies from 6 to 25 floors. Bedrooms and children's rooms are located in a quiet area, and the buildings are oriented in such a way that only an evacuation smoke-free staircase goes to the north. The roof of the lower tier is exploited and green, but the authors also offer a less expensive option - with a metal coating.
ALC "Iron"
The explanatory note says that "the buildings fit harmoniously into the surrounding buildings", and it is difficult to argue here. All nine buildings (from 11 to 18 floors) are decorated in the same way: rounded corners and horizontal stripes. The result is reminiscent of the modernized 600 series of "house-ships". The buildings are "collected" by a pedestrian boulevard with green islands, there are areas for separate waste collection. More than half of all apartments in this complex are one-room apartments.
RUE "Institute" Voenproekt"
In this concept, the authors move away from the idea of a pedestrian boulevard as the main axis and make a three-part composition: a wedge-shaped building at the intersection of two avenues and two closed quarters with buildings of different heights. All three "blocks" are separated from each other by wide boulevards, but they are united by a single style design of the facades: colored fragments "embedded" into a wide glass "screen". The apartment design is also unusual in this project: the buildings are filled mainly with studios and "treshkas".
Creative workshop-7
The architects called the design code of the building the classic motifs of architecture: arched windows, cornices, porticoes, as well as a combination of different textures and materials. The authors, most likely, were inspired by the Petersburg architectural monuments: on the tablet, a new residential complex floats on an ice floe in front of the Peter and Paul Fortress. But the result turned out to be overly eclectic, not evoking associations with either Minsk or St. Petersburg.
The results of the competition will be announced on December 19, 2017. The prize fund from St. Petersburg is 6.5 million rubles, the remuneration is distributed in equal parts between all participants. The winners will be eligible to participate in the development of the project at further design stages.
