ST. PETERSBURG’S PULKOVO AIRPORT BY GRIMSHAW ARCHITECTS

Four architectural bureaus took part in the competition, project of the British company Grimshaw & Partners Ltd. was chosen as a winner. Grimshaw have been chosen to design the new 450 million euro Pulkovo Airport.

Сarrying capacity of the airport will be essentially increased, it will help to increase passenger traffic, to open new domestic and international flights, to extend flow of transfer passengers, to realize the newest airport technologies and will help large interchange node – hub.

Re-construction project includes the use of high international standards of safety and technical equipment of the airport, modern check-in procedures, customs legalization and passport control. With introduction of the new terminal in 2013 Pulkovo airport will become one of the leading modern air transport nodes in Northern Europe.

“The city’s heritage and its future have come together in the design of the new terminal project and Grimshaw’s uniquely designed roof is inspired by St Petersburg’s historical architecture. We believe that Grimshaw’s terminal building will not only become a new St Petersburg landmark, but also a comfortable and functional facility,” said Konyashchenkov, Pulkovo’s deputy director.

The Grimshaw architects was able to capture and portray the spirit of the city within the designs. Mark Middleton is a partner at Grimshaw Architects and has headed the Pulkovo Airport project. As Middleton explained, the new roof and envelope has been designed with sustainability in mind, to provide the greatest protection from extreme snowfall in winter and to make the best use of low natural light. “We studied the city of St Petersburg very carefully and tried to respond to the local climate as much as possible. We designed a flat roof, with thin roof lights and reflectors to guild the light,” he said.

The internal layout of the new terminal consists of well-defined zones, connected by individual walkways that resemble the city’s layout of islands and bridges. The cultural influence is strengthened by a sculpture-lined boulevard, which forms the airport gateway and is reminiscent of St Petersburg’s Grand Avenue..

The masterplan represents and responds to the climate and heritage of St Petersburg. The striking new terminal roof and envelope are designed to accommodate the extremes of climate experienced by the city. The most prominent of these are the heavy snowfalls experienced in winter. The roof is created from a series of 18m bays, which effectively act as large hoppers, shallow enough not to encourage gathering snow, but deep enough to provide effective drainage.

The drains are located directly above the roof's supportive columns to ensure that the greatest snow load is concentrated on the area of maximum structural support. The roof lights are positioned above the datum line to give them the greatest protection from blanketing snow and to enable them to make optimal use of the low angle natural light.

Pulkovo Airport should act as a gateway to both St. Petersburg and Russia, while reflecting the city it serves. Therefore, the internal layout of the new terminal consists of well-defined and separate zones connected by individual walkways to echo the external layout of islands and bridges which make up the city. These grand, open rooms are analogous with the many civic spaces found in St Petersburg, emphasising the airport's role as the first and last great public space of the city.

This emphasis is carried through into the Airport City masterplan. This focuses on the sculpture lined boulevard which forms the Airport Gateway. It is reminiscent of St. Petersburg's Grand Avenue, and terminates in a large square which will represent the past, present and future of St Petersburg through a series of pavilions.

 

Location: St. Petersburg, Russia 
Architect: GrimshawArchitects 
Size: 52,000 sq m 
Completion Date: 2015 
Award: 1 Prize Competition Pulkovo Airport St. Petersburg, Russia

WORLD CUP STADIUM BY POPULOUS

Populous, architects of the London 2012 Olympic stadium, Sochi 2014 Olympic stadium and Soccer City 2010 World Cup stadium, have been selected as designers of the new Rostov Stadium.

This will be the fourth stadium that Populous has designed in Russia to be used for the 2018 World Cup, together with Kazan, Saransk, Sochi. Part of an overall landscape, this urban design is planned for the whole region.

It is inspired by the ancient earthworks along the banks of the river, the Kurgans. These archaeological mounds of earth were used for burial pagan rituals, creating major forms in the landscape.

The stadium will have a capacity of 45,000 seats for the World Cup and will be scaled down to 25,000 seats in legacy. The concept had embraced sustainable credentials, as it will be the core of a green city project, which protects the wetlands to the south of the river.

Damon Lavelle, Principal at Populous, commented “It’s been a pleasure to work with Intex, the city and the governor of Rostov-on-Don to promote the project. After our experience on the World Cup in 2010 and London 2012, we are certain that the stadium will be a great catalyst for the city and this part of the river.“

Location: Rostov, Russia
Architect: Populous

YANDEX OFFICE II BY ZA BOR ARCHITECTS

“It is indicative that this office is to some extent a return to the roots of cooperation of za bor architects and the largest Russian IT-corporation Yandex*.

The first office developed for Yandex by za bor architects is in the same building of the Benois business center in Saint Petersburg, but on a lower floor. In 2008 it was a brilliant premiere published by almost all the leading architecture and design media in Russia. The project has picked up many awards.

Four years later za bor architects and Yandex had decided to repeat the success on a larger scale – Yandex Saint-Petersburg office II is almost twice as large as the previous one – it houses the entire fourth floor of the building and has a corridor about 200 meters long (total floor area 3310 sqm), but size doesn’t matter, clients wanted an «extraordinary office like no other».

So the architects had at least two challenges – first to organize a very complex space outstretched along a central corridor axis. The second challenge was to make the office a showy and impressive.

After a long thought  Peter Zaytsev, and Arseniy Borisenko, the project architects, decided to use the double loaded zoning, with meeting «cells», work areas, and unusual objects located along the corridor.

The unusual objects being provided with a particular function. As a result of this concept implementation, guests find themselves «inside» the Yandex  search service: at the reception they are met by a well-known «Search» button and a yellow arrow (an unofficial Yandex logo and a significant part of the web-site).

While passing the corridors they see the familiar user name and email password input boxes, and at each step they meet symbols and icons of Yandex services, although they are not always easy to recognize as tiny pixel icons, had turned into 3D objects.

The office guests receive a unique transcendental background, the one of which Aldous Huxley hadn’t even dreamed of. Visitors find themselves both in an amazing space which architects had transformed from linear into 3D, observing the pixel objects which grew to gigantic proportions.

Thus, according to the architects conception, guests and employees of the office are involved into Yandex net services, to which they are accustomed to work with exclusively in 2D screen.

That is why in some places miniature «icons», which grew to giant size are breaking to large volume «pixels» sprouting from the walls. Bright colors, spots scattered here and there, guide visitors through the office and cheering up the office staff.

Speaking of function, many of the major elements seem to be decorative only at first glance. The spiral elements for example are separating the informal communication zone from the corridor. The casted polymer «jellyfish» clocks contain network printers station, etc.

The project has turned out rather complex, the first thing because no one did such things before, not only in Saint Petersburg but even in Russia. Therefore, many solutions are made on the spot during on-site designer supervision.

The difficulties were not caused by 3D objects – they are made according to advertising designs technologies (their cages are filled with polystyrene foam, meeting all standards of fire and environmental safety). On the other hand – the ceiling, build up of original «blades» was extremely difficult to install.” Description of architects.

Yandex* is a Russian Internet company which operates the largest search engine in Russia with about 60% market share in that country. Yandex ranked as the 5th largest search engine worldwide with more than 150 million searches per day as of April 2012 and more than 25.5 millions of visitors (all company's services) daily as of May 2012. The company's mission is to provide answers on any questions users may have (explicit or implicit).