Belgorod City Centre Design Contest, Urban Block Building Russia, Architecture

Belgorod Competition

Architectural Competition in Russia design by de Architekten Cie.

27 Aug 2013

Belgorod City Centre Competition

Entry to Open international competition for the design of an urban block in the centre of the city of Belgorod, Russia

Design: de Architekten Cie.

image from architects

URBAN MANSIONS OF BELGOROD

Project Architect: Pero Puljiz

Team: Jan Willem Baijense, Pinar Balat, Christina Chen, Pedro Piernas, Hesh Fekry

image from architects

The urban plan for the “Quiet Downtown” Belgorod, which is composed of ten new compact blocks, defining a series of green alleyways and organized around a central urban garden, created an urban oasis so close but also so far from the bustling center of the city.

The ground floors of the new apartment buildings are occupied with small-scale retail and office functions into which the entrance lobbies are embedded. On their first floors the buildings house a semi-private covered plaza accompanied with leisure functions for the inhabitants and their guests, while this floor is also where the circulation cores leading to the apartments are accessed. The blocks are characterized by high level of security and services; they are equipped with sports facilities, guest rooms, cleaning facilities, baby-sitting services, private storages, keycard control system and videophones.

The central urban garden is planted with different flowers and special trees, and it incorporates the existing religious and archeological complex into its longitudinal axis, emphasizing the visual and physical co-existence of the old and the new. The urban space including the archeological garden and the church is better defined and harmoniously anchored into the new city fabric, by the organization of four new housing blocks and several pavilions along Sveto-Troitsky Boulevard.

The two new buildings located along Prospekt Slavy enclose the existing housing blocks creating courtyards equipped with sports facilities and playgrounds, while these two buildings also transform the area around the existing restaurant into a new urban park. The facades of each new building are treated with a different tone of brick color, window rhythm and balcony style in order to emphasize their individuality in the urban configuration, while also creating a visual harmony among the blocks and in this newly designed area.

image from architects

The proposal accurately responds to the historical and contemporary conditions of the area; carefully includes the existing landmarks of the plot into the new design; and successfully creates an urban block, which is located in the center of the city but which suggests a good balance between public and private spaces, active and quiet atmospheres.

Belgorod City Centre Architecture Competition images / information from de Architekten Cie.

Belgorod City Centre Design Competition

Open international competition for the design of an urban block in the centre of the city of Belgorod, Russia

image from organisers

Belgorod Architecture Competition

The competition site is quite a large urban block (around 300 x 200 m), located in the very heart of the city. The task is to replace the low rise buildings that now occupy the site with a more dense development. Though the construction of high towers is very popular in Russia with developers, the city would like to limit the maximum building height limited to 15-20 meters.

At the same time it is obvious that a certain density is required to make the project viable. The task of the competitors is to find the optimum between density and quality and offer the city a recipe for redeveloping the city center as a whole, making it at an attractive place to live and work.

de Architekten Cie.

Location: Belgorod, Russia

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