A professional athletes training camp in Krasnoyarsk is waiting for investors, contractors, and the day its construction will start. Currently, the project is in the process of obtaining necessary permits, approvals, and registration of land plots. All planning and design documents needed for the project start-up stage have been submitted to the authorities. Anton Shatalov, Chief Architect of the project, told SF about its initial concept and subsequent changes in design
What was the general project conceptoriginally?
– The Academy of Winter Sports is located on Nikolayevskaya Sopka on a territory of a sports-training camp that was built for the USSR Winter Games of 1982. It consists of 5 ski jumps (K18, 32, 56, 90, 120) and 3 ski slopes that range in height from 100 m to 150 m. The uniqueness of the territory is in its location. On the one hand, it is within the city, on the other – it is a green area surrounded by the forest. Some old-days sports schools are still operational there. However, the project idea belongs to the athletes. The Academy is a good example how average people’s initiatives can reach top-level executives. Our design team started developing the project concept in late 2009 free of charge, as Mr. Klimenkov, President of the Regional Ski Jumping Federation, wanted us to help him. Initially, we planned to restore the existing sports facilities, to build a hotel, a small sports center, and three new tracks for slalom and freestyle. We intended to build up the area of a nearby Sopka, the Vetluzhanka ski stadium, and the Biathlon Academy with its ski tracks. Then the whole process started. In March 2010, the Krasnoyarsk Ministry of Sports contracted us to develop a concept of Nikolayevskaya Sopka. Later on, in June, we started developing its design, which we fully completed in December 2010.
– Is the current project different form the original plan?
– The Academy is an all-season training camp for professional athletes as well as for mass sports and high school students. Initially, the customer worked jointly with our team to design a project covering 35,000 sqm where we planned to reconstruct ski jumps, mountain-ski and freestyle tracks, as well as to build new elevators, and install snowmaking equipment. We intended to build a summer freestyle track, a ski stadium, climbing walls, a skate park, and a bobsleigh center. In other words, we were targeting infrastructure needed to develop more than 10 winter sports for professional sportsmen and amateurs, including students and townspeople.
– What changes did you make and why?
– After analyzing the territory, we concluded that the Sopka would not be enough to build all that. More over, its relief was not suitable for a number of facilities. As the customer wanted us to preserve the natural landscape and its greenery, it was decided to expand the territory of the future Academy. We have chosen an almost ruined children’s sports camp called Raduga (Rainbow), just a kilometer away to the Northwest. The idea was fully supported by the local authorities, so we moved he ski stadium with tracks and climbing walls to Raduga. Since we wanted to build a “bipolar” academy, we needed to duplicate some of its facilities, namely a sports center, a hotel, a customer service, and an indoor parking. When we studied the territory in detail, we developed a special design plan to facilitate training and competition processes. We decided to share some of the facilities with our neighbors - the Siberian Federal University. As a result, the total project area increased by more than two times to 237.9 ha.
– How did you manage to preserve the unique landscape when planning the project?
– The project site is located in Western Krasnoyarsk, in environmentally friendly areas away from industrial zones. In order to minimize human influence on the natural landscape, we refocused our project on reduced construction areas, a better use of the local relief and a better integration of facilities into the landscape. The so-called vertical urbanism. We have also designed a multi-level underground parking in order not to cut down the forest. Instead, we decided to rebuild previously urbanized areas and to design new transport, walking, and ski routes to replace the existing ones. We plan to locate the service centers above the multi-level car parking. The roofs will be built with special terraces and stands that give a nice view of the sports facilities. We also need to design a stadium to substitute for former administrative and technical buildings. We plan to build coach and locker rooms close to transit sidewalks and the stands. We use the natural relief to build exits of different levels to each of the coach and locker rooms and a bobsleigh track. Flat roofs of other multipurpose sports facilities are used as outdoor athletic fields during the summer. For instance, there will be a skate park on the roof of Complex 1B. The hotel car parking and the Sopka sports core will be integrated into the landscape to isolate the transport from public areas.
– Did you use someone else’s expertise in you project?
– We have been constantly studying and analyzing both Russian and International expertise when doing our project. We spent a week on the construction site of Tchaikovsky, Perm region, which somehow resembles the project we do. We also visited a bobsleigh track in Paramonovo. We have been to Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well. We worked hand in hand with athletes, who helped us a lot. Many experts from all over Russia were coming to Krasnoyarsk to help us design our facilities. Leonid Ipatov and Alexei Yanvarev consulted us on ski slopes, ski lifts, and snowmaking systems. Professors Oleg Orlov, Alexander Shakhnazarov, and Alexander Ostroumov as the authors of Paramonovo bobsleigh tracks helped us a lot with our bobsleigh track. Prior to designing the sports facilities and service centers, we organized an international workshop, including three young French architects and three Dutch architects. Then, our team rethought the concept, but their ideas definitely influenced the architecture of our facilities. All our design solutions meet the existing requirements of local sports federations, as well as Russia’s federations located in Moscow. We did take into account their comments and ideas. Finally, we presented our project to Prime Minister Putin, Sports Minister Mutko, and other Russian sports officials. On March 1, 2011, the project received the final approval of the Krasnoyarsk Master Planning Council. The officials gave us the project assessment and recommended us to keep the project developing. Currently, we are negotiating with prospective contractors to develop the bobsleigh track.
Interviewed by Svetlana Arkhipova