The winners of “Transforming the Grey Belt” Competition have been determined

On September 30th the Chief Architect of Moscow, Sergey Kuznetsov, announced three winners of the international competition for the reconstruction of St. Petersburg pilot areas — “Grey belt”.

The jury chose Francuzskiy Kovsh Project by Evgeny Gerasimov and Sergey Tchoban, Volkovskaya Project by MLA+ and Ekateringof by Narine Tiutcheva (Architectural Bureau “Rozhdestvenka”). The winners were awarded honorary diplomas.

Explaining the final decision, Sergey Kuznetsov, said that MLA+ Architectural Bureau offered the most interesting plan for the development of Volkovskaya area, which takes into account the current situation. “What I liked in Ekateringof Project is that the historical park was proposed to be made as an architecture growth point that will attract local residents and tourists, which will bring about the development of the adjacent area. Reconstruction of Francuzskiy Kovsh by Evgeny Gerasimov and Sergey Tchoban, in its turn, was performed at the level of European cities. Contestants carefully studied these areas and gave their suggestions to find balance between the functional zones: 40% — housing, 30% — workplaces and 30% — public spaces,” said Kuznetsov.

AB “Rozhdestvenka” got the highest number of points, having surpassed two other teams from Moscow — TPO “Reserve” and “Yauza project”, in the rating vote related to Ekateringof zone. Dutch team surpassed “Helin & Co”, Finland and “Studio-44”, St. Petersburg in Volkovskaya Project. Evgeny Gerasimov and Sergey Tchoban with their ideas for the reconstruction of Francuzskiy Kovsh beat Architectural bureau “Zemtsov, Kondiayn and Partners” and “Transborder Studio”, Norway.

According to the Vice Governor, Igor Albin, all the nine teams that took part in the competition made interesting proposals; and the city will certainly use their ideas. It is only necessary to come up with ways to get the owners and residents of these areas interested in the implementation of the conceptual ideas. The Chief Architect of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Grigoriev, noted that it was difficult to determine the winners as the jury members often differed in their opinions.

The competition was launched in May this year. Nine teams worked on the projects; the areas of industrial zones of St. Petersburg were divided between the participants. The total area is about one hundred hectares; each team received 500,000 rubles. The competition concepts are planned to be used, in particular, while developing a new General Plan of St. Petersburg, which is due to start in 2018.