ART City Community Center and Landscape Park | Blank Architects

Blank Architects has created a concept and a draft design of a shopping center with a landscape park as part of the ART City residential complex in Kazan. The new project will appear on the site of the former artillery barracks: the historical architecture of the early XX century formed the context of the project. The customer - UD-group. The total area of the object - more than 50 thousand sq. m.

Ground area: 3.16 ha

Total area: 51,709 sq. m

Parking: 927 places

Architecture with history

A new modern, convenient and technologically advanced multifunctional shopping complex will appear on a plot of 3.1 hectares. The task for the architects was to rethink the concept of art in the ART City project and also to fit the new complex into the historical environment of the established area with authentic architecture and infrastructure. Barracks built at the beginning of the XX century – it’s a valuable city-forming object, so when developing the architecture, it was necessary to take into account the style of the environment.

The functionality of the shopping center includes the department store, supermarket, cafes and restaurants, a shopping gallery with an area of more than 10,000 sq.m, as well as ground and underground parking.

New Art

Cubism

Pixels

For the project we have moved away from the classic "militaristic" perception of the territory and rethought the concept of an art. The architecture was inspired by the Pointillist and Cubist styles: the pixel or "square" was taken as the main architectural forms, which were manifested in the design of the building and the landscape. The existing building of the barracks, at the same time, are combined with the new building, which in turn serves as the background of the historical development. The facades of the shopping center from the residential area perform the function of an architectural dominant.

Park: purple flower garden

Landscaping area: 0.47 ha

Percentage of landscaping: 15%

Purple flower garden

Geranium

Iris

Sage

We proposed the concept of a purple flower garden due to the choice of flowering plants for the landscape. Also an interesting technique with parametric paving was used. The ornament passes through the entire shopping center and again goes out to the street, uniting the entire projected territory. The paving pattern is supported by parametric monochrome flower beds of unpretentious perennials that change their color scheme from scarlet to purple. The color palette was based on a pixelated painting by the famous Tatar artist Baki Urmanche.