The organisers of the Tuchkov Buyan Park International Design Competition have announced that the Studio 44 (Russia, Saint Petersburg) in consortium with WEST 8 (The Netherlands, Rotterdam) as the winner by the jury. JV Vogt (Switzerland, Zurich) in consortium with Herzog & de Meuron (Switzerland, Basel) and Khvoya (Russia, Saint Petersburg) were nominated as finalists from the eight shortlisted entrants
“We have been interested in the development of the territory for a long time. City planning has always been discussed regarding the regular planning and consistency principles. The city master plan which was proposed by Nikolay Baranov included the idea of central city park design along Malaya Neva river from Peter and Paul Fortress to the Gulf of Finland coastline. Today we discuss the significance of the landscape and its integration into a holistic system in an urban environment. The new era has begun, and if we should have contended with the territory development in the context of building, now we have available open areas. I would like to point out the high quality of the projects presented and give my gratitude to all the participants,” — said Vladimir Grigoryev, the Chairman of Urban Planning and Architecture Committee, the Chief Architect of Saint Petersburg.
There were 229 teams from 50 countries who applied for participation in the competition. Eight participants who were chosen to develop the concepts for Tuchkov Buyan Park included:
- Studio 44 (Russia, Saint Petersburg) and West 8 (The Netherlands, Rotterdam);
- Agence Ter (France) и Philippe Rahm architectes (Switzerland) in collaboration with Carlo Ratti Associati, Setec, Avesta and Aetc. Russian consultants: Kirill Mordukhaev, engineer, Tatiana Kokhanova, a specialist in sustainable development, and Irina Borzykh, dendrology specialist;
- Bjarke Ingels Group (USA) и BuroHappold NYC (USA);
- JV Vogt (Switzerland) and Pulitzer prize-winning bureau Herzog & de Meuron (Switzerland) in collaboration with ARUP;
- Kengo Kuma and Associates (France) и Vladimir Djurovic Landscape Architecture (Lebanon) in collaboration BuroHappold Central Europe;
- Michel Desvigne Paysagiste (France) and Meganom (Russia, Moscow) in collaboration with Unidraft, HPBS, MIC, Orchestra design and Ernst&Young.
According to the competition regulations, two of eight participants were represented by teams of the industry beginners:
- Khvoya (Russia, Saint Petersburg) and KARAVAN landskapsarkitekter (Sweden) in collaboration with Alexander Devyatkin, transport planning specialist, EDGE AB and John Loof Green, a botanist;
- Praxys paysage & territoire (France) и KATARSIS Architects (Russia, Saint Petersburg) in collaboration with Chrisan Horn, AREP, HyperCube, ASTAL, BIOTOPE and CYCLOPONICS.
“This competition is very important to us. During the last 2 days, we were conducting the meeting of the international jury which were represented by the experts from Russia, Italy, France, Germany, USA, Switzerland and Great Britain. The organisation of the final jury’s meeting was unprecedentedly complex — it was held in online and offline format at the same time. Nevertheless, all jury members had equal access to competition’s materials. According to the requirements of the International Union of Architects (UIA) special attention was focused on the confidentiality of competitors’ works. None of the experts and jury members didn’t have information about names of the bureaus while the meeting, they evaluated all the concepts under numbers,”— said Denis Leontev, CEO of Strelka KB.
The Tuchkov Buyan Park Competition jury was represented by 14 international experts in the fields of architecture, landscape design and urban planning. Among them were:
- Francesco Bandarin, an Italian architect and city planner, a UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Culture
- Patrick Blanc, a French botanist and inventor of modern vertical gardens
- Ken Smith, a city planner and landscape architect
- Lawrence Barth, Professor of Urbanism at the Graduate School of the Architecture Association
- Stefan Rotzler, a landscape architect and International Union of Architects representative
- Vladimir Grigoriev, the chief architect of Saint Petersburg
- Sergey Choban, a member of German and Russian Union of Architects and other specialists.
The complete list of jury participants is available on the competition website: https://park-spb.ru/eng
