Following an architectural competition, Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has been given the nod to head a 13.9 hectare (34 acre) development of Russia's largest shipping port, Novorossiysk. The project is due to begin construction in the second half of 2019.
ZHA has previously worked on a high-profile port project with its Port House in Antwerp. However, the Admiral Serebryakov Embankment project is on a far bigger scale.
Located on the Black Sea coast, the port city of Novorossiysk connects Russia with the Mediterranean, Atlantic Ocean and Suez Canal, and is both Russia's largest port and the third-busiest port in Europe by turnover, according to ZHA. The firm's design calls for a new fishing port, marina, hotel and piers, as well as public plazas, gardens and parks. Vehicle access will be restricted and outdoor leisure encouraged.
The project will also include nine buildings, all angled so as to mitigate disruption of existing sea views in the city, and all iterations of the same basic design.
"Applying the concept of 'instancing' in which nine iterations of a single form evolve in a gradient across the site, the configuration of each building is established according its unique function, conditions and requirements," says the firm. "As with time-lapse photography capturing nine instances of its subject over a period of time, this evolution sequence becomes the masterplan itself. The digital computational model developed for this masterplan in Novorossiysk performs as an urban planning tool analyzing many different programmatic, environmental and socio-economic conditions to define the new buildings within the masterplan."
The project also involves Russian firm Pride TPO.
Source: ZHA