An environmental park in a new residential area and a development model for a whole city

An environmental park in a new residential area and a development model for a whole city

Thirty seven Master’s degree students are graduating this year from the Department of Architectural Environment Design of the SPbGASU Faculty of Architecture. Many of the graduates proposed their own topics for the final qualifying works.

A discussion of a diploma work: standing is the SPbGASU Chief Architect Svetlana Bochkareva, whom we asked to share the details of the GQWs of Master’s degree graduates of 2019

Master’s degree student Ekaterina Kurgeyeva decided to write her GQW on the park areas in Barnaul, the city where she studied before.

“The topic, firstly, is well known to the graduate, and secondly, it is relevant for this locality: the parks there were created back in the Soviet era and are now in disrepair.”

Essentially, this work rose awareness about the Emerald Park, which Ekaterina focused on

“She studied the situation, formulated proposals and raised the issue of integrating recreational approaches into residential areas bordering the park. It’s quite an interesting topic,” said Svetlana Bochkareva, SPbGASU Chief Architect and Associate Professor of the Architectural Environment Design Department, Ekaterina Kurgeeva’s diploma supervisor.

“Olga Romanova also chose her own topic, namely, ‘Recreational zones in new builds.’ Specifically, she wrote about the ‘Northern Valley’ where practically no parks or local recreational zones are available nowadays. The Master’s degree student studied the location and came up with a design of an attractive ecological park, quite offbeat by its functional saturation.”

The territory comprises peat lands and water reservoirs – far from the customary paths, meadows, and groves

“In her work, Olga proposed to restore and use the existing ecosystem with the least harm caused by human activities. That’s why she minimizes the number of tracks with hard surfaces; in some places she raises them onto special bridges and makes ponds with swamp vegetation. This is such a piece of nature which is nice to scrutinize. These days, by the way, the wildflowers became particularly fashionable: they are unpretentious and enduring, with an atypical aroma, creating a unique and rather contrasting combination with the surrounding urban environment.”

No less interesting are the works of those who took the topics proposed by the university. Master’s degree student Olga Astratova in her GQW came up with proposals for the improvement of the university campus in Krasnoye Selo, which belongs to SPbGASU.

I would like to note that such a site is a great blessing for the university located in the center of the city, in tight borders, where it is quite problematic to expand our area; the only way is the intensification of the present space. And Krasnoye Selo is a non-central city district where nowadays you can get to pretty easily

“Olga identified the needs and composed a technical design specification based on them. Interest in this area will increase. It is quite likely that with the help of the project studio we will join the process later on.”

Graduate student Anna Belyaeva in her final qualifying work “Integrated development of the architectural environment of small cities of the Leningrad region on the example of Sovetsky settlement” (supervisor Svetlana Danilova, Associate Professor of the SPbGASU Architectural Environment Design Department)

“The topic of the future of small cities is especially relevant: the territory has a great tourist and environmental potential. I found it interesting to explore. The essence of my work was to create a specific algorithm of actions, following which a competent development of the urban environment and improvement of the quality of life within a small city as a whole could be achieved. First, I studied the existing situation, international and domestic experience, the state of functional zoning and identified the problems. At the second stage, I studied the factors influencing the development of the public space and its structure. Then I proposed several development options and composed a scenario and a functional program for each of those.”

The outcome of the project proposal is a plan for new functional zoning for the territory of the settlement and a complex of architectural and design solutions

“Competent development of the urban environment means that a person feels comfortable to live and relax there, that it is convenient there to move around and come as a tourist. The infrastructure, pedestrian communications between the points of attraction are not well developed: only isolated points of access to the coastline of the Gulf of Finland exist; potentially attractive territories are not used, and there are no conditions for business development, education and entrepreneurship. I tried to come up with a realistic development model.

According to it, a well-thought-out unified system of continuous pedestrian and bicycle paths connecting all points of attraction will appear in the settlement, both new and existing. A comfortable pedestrian space will be formed in the central part of the settlement.

Functional zones inside the settlement will be developed the year round; improvement of the Gulf of Finland embankment is also planned. A series of public spaces will be formed, i.e., a complex with cafes and restaurants; an area for social events; quiet recreation areas and playgrounds; pedestrian promenades with landscaping and lighting; a summer movie theater, museum, an ice rink, etc.”

By the way, Anna Belyaeva’s work was highly appreciated by representatives of the administration of Sovetsky Settlement and recommended for implementation.

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Text: Angella Semicheva

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