Zaha Hadid Architects to design nine-building masterplan along Russia's Black Sea

Zaha Hadid Architects announced that they had won the Admiral Serebryakov Embankment masterplan competition for the coastal city of Novorossiysk, which is home to Russia's largest shipping port and connects the country to the Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and Suez Canal. 

ZHA, who teamed up with Russian practice Pride TPO, was selected out of 40 teams from 13 countries. Miralles Tagliabue (Spain) with Progress (Russia) won second place, while third place went to Rudy Riccotti (France) with ProjectService (Russia) and JNC (Belgium).

Read on for more about the proposal.

Work and play are combined in the 13.9-hectare phased masterplan, whose nine buildings will be “nine iterations of a single form, evolving in a gradient across the project site. The configuration of each building is established according its unique function, conditions, and requirements,” ZHA describes.

The masterplan will feature new public spaces and facilities that can accommodate global and academic conferences, trade fairs, and outdoor recreational and athletic spaces that locals and visitors alike can enjoy. The first phase of the masterplan will focus on civic, cultural, and corporate event facilities, and a hotel.

According to ZHA, the approximately 300,000 square-meter development “simultaneously considers multiple iterations including program, orientation, environment, height and volume. This parametric model enables designers and stakeholders to accommodate the functional, economic and other time-related fluctuations that influence each new phase of development while also maintaining the overriding architectural vision.” 

The masterplan was designed with a porous configuration that reconnects Novorossiysk with its coast, inviting people to traverse the site through public plazas, gardens, and parks. Reflecting on the city's maritime heritage, the proposal includes a new fishing port, marina and piers.

And with restricted vehicular access, the masterplan allows room for various outdoor leisure, sports, and recreational activities, suitable for the city's coastal subtropical climate.

Construction of the masterplan's first phase is currently scheduled to begin in late 2019.

Project credits

Masterplanning and Architectural Design Team

Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA)
ZHA Design Director: Christos Passas
ZHA Project Architect: Eider Fernandez Eibar
ZHA Team Leaders: Ben Kikkawa, Alicia Hidalgo Lopez, Melhem Sfeir, Kwanphil Cho, Leonid Krykhtin
ZHA Design Team: Aleksandar Bursac, Maria Touloupou, Ekaterina Smirnova, Maria-Eleni Bali, Anna Uborevich-Borovskaya, Nessma Al Ghoussein, Christina Polyviou, Afsoon Es-haghi, Zsuzsana Barát, Paul Tunnicliffe (Analyst), Vera Kichanova (Researcher) Hussam Chakouf, Nastasija Hahonina and Liudmila Harisson-Jones (Administrative support)

Consultants

Local Architect: Pride TPO, Moscow (Nikolay Gordushin, Lena Myzhnokova)
Landscape Consultant: Arteza, Moscow (Irina Chebanenko)
Urban Planning Consultant: Prof. Lawrence Barth - Architectural Association School of Architecture, London
Creative Programming Consultant: Another Architect, Berlin (Daniel Dendra)
Environmental Design Consultant: Buro Happold, London
Financial Modeling Consultant: Price Waterhouse Cooper, Moscow (Anton Panarin)
Cost Management and quantity surveying: Rider Levett Bucknall

All images courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects.