Casus Novae

A master plan was developed for a large residential area with a name of “DNS City”, but now that its implementation began, the plan has been arbitrarily reformatted and replaced with something that, while similar on the surface, is actually quite different. This is not the first time such a thing happens, but it’s always frustrating. With permission from the author, we are sharing Maria Elkina’s post.

Written by:

Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

28 October 2024

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DNS City is planned on a 125-hectare site located 40 km north of Vladivostok, in the settlement of Novoe. Currently, there is no development on this land, but the plan envisions housing for 25,000 residents.

zooming — DNS City. Location plan (simplified)

Copyright: © Open Urban

Everything seemed fine until the master plan, developed by the firm Open Urban, began to be transformed arbitrarily once implementation started. Maria Elkina reported this on her Telegram channel and other social media platforms.

She was further supported by Elena Gonzalez, who had worked on the Open Urban master plan:

“I rarely write about my work because if I do, I have to write a lot in detail, and I just cannot afford the luxury of time. But this is one of those cases where it’s not about time but about the project. I won’t say that the original project was perfect (or even close to it), but it was by all means well thought out. The Spanish team worked seriously on it, and later, many things were carefully refined and adapted to the existing terrain. And then, suddenly, right out of the blue, we see a new master plan. For the record, I’m the last person in the world to be suspected of disliking micro-districts as such, but that’s not the issue here. It reminds me of a Soviet joke where a foreigner spends ages explaining to a waiter exactly how he wants his steak – medium-rare, but closer to medium, with pepper but no salt, and so on. The waiter patiently listens, nods, then heads to the kitchen and yells to the chef, ‘One cutlet, coming right up!’ That’s exactly how this feels”.

It must be said that this artfully describes a very familiar situation, one that repeats over and over again. So many projects have been lost this way – where the final product vaguely resembles the original vision, but only very distantly.

We also asked the head of the design team behind the master plan for a comment.

The primary goal of the Master Plan is to establish a foundational guideline, a standard that ensures high quality of life and target performance indicators for the project. These guidelines cover not only zoning and building types but also requirements for architectural parameters and landscaping. Since the project will take a long time to implement, we understood the importance of setting regulations for street network designers, architects, and landscape developers. A departure from this systematic approach carries serious risks for the project’s successful realization.

It’s crucial to focus on the implementation of the block structure (defining the boundaries between private and public spaces), the creation of vibrant city streets with active commercial frontages, and working with the terrain to form true city streets with direct access to the ground floor. Preserving the ‘green fingers’ with access to educational facilities without crossing traffic lanes, providing alternative pedestrian routes, and addressing parking solutions early in the project’s execution are all essential elements.

As things stand now, it seems that the aspects mentioned in the second part of the comment are no longer on the client’s agenda for implementation.

Below, we present two sheets from the album illustrating the key landscaping decisions. The main idea was to only fill in part of the ravines, while the rest would serve as the foundation for park spaces. The terrain was preserved in the master plan, and pedestrian bridges were supposed to span the ravines. In the latest version, the lines of the ravines remained, but the bridges simply disappeared.

Next up, we publish Maria Elkina’s Telegram post in full:

“Another disappointment, this time in Primorye, and in a situation where nothing seemed to foreshadow trouble. For some reason, the DNS company replaced a rather successful master plan for their ‘city of the future’ with a blatantly unsuccessful one, almost like a generic ‘Kudrovo’.

Several years ago, they had the idea to build a city approximately 40 kilometers away from Vladivostok in a “territory of advanced development”. A private client, whose primary business isn’t in constructing affordable housing, was already enough of a promising sign. Another good indicator was the very competent planner. Initially, it was the Russian branch of the Spanish urban planning firm Citythinking, and by 2022, it had become the independent team that named itself “Open Urban” (so we seemed to have overcome that hurdle as well).

In general, both Citythinking and later Open Urban specialize in parametric urban design. Based on the configuration of the road network, the mix of functions in the buildings, the density of development, and other important factors, they can predict with reasonable accuracy how vibrant the environment will be and how it will operate. In other words, they don’t claim to create a masterpiece, but they can guarantee that their project, developed in this way, will be 100% fail-safe – people will live in it and walk around it, commercial spaces will be filled, children will play in playgrounds, lovebirds will hug in the park… you get the picture.

And they did find a solid solution for DNS city as well. They created a fairly dense environment, elegantly preserved the natural landscape so that it became an integral part of the area, and smartly located public spaces, having calculated the convenience of human and traffic flows in advance. I’ve seen how this works in the Moscow region – it works quite effectively.

In Primorye, the core structural element of the solution was the creation of a block grid, which primarily ensured the convenience and liveliness of the streets. To describe it very roughly, the city’s layout followed a similar principle to that of old St. Petersburg, Vienna, or Paris, adjusted for the landscape and incorporating larger, more modern public buildings.

The project got all the mandatory approvals, which seemed like the third and final lucky prerequisite needed.

Then, something went wrong – and it’s important to understand why – and DNS decided to radically redo the project in their own rather crude way. The placement of public buildings was changed, and the architectural quality, based on the published renderings, noticeably declined. The most significant alteration was that the block system was disrupted, turning the design into something reminiscent of Soviet-era neighborhoods from the 1970s.

I don’t necessarily believe, as many do, that Soviet neighborhoods (or “micro-districts” as they were called back then) are inherently bad and that modern blocks are always better. In fact, I tend to think that designing a good micro-district is much harder than designing a successful block. Blocks are a universal solution that almost always works. The real issue with DNS City is that the structure of the development was only partially and sporadically altered, resulting in a hybrid where there are neither proper city streets nor well-designed pedestrian spaces.

I sincerely hope that this situation sparks a full-fledged professional discussion. I believe it’s not about pressuring the client but about convincing them and other stakeholders of the importance of executing the project the way it was originally conceived – not for the architects’ sake, but for themselves and the people who will live there, and the people of Primorye Region in general. To start, it’s probably necessary to simply raise public awareness.

Then, DNS City presents yet another important reason to discuss the fact that, currently, there is no legal framework in place to ensure the quality of implemented projects in our country, although there is a strong need for one. It seems that no one, except architects and urban planners themselves, will push us closer to this bright future.

In essence, I see this as an opportunity for public discussion – it certainly won't harm anyone and is highly likely to be beneficial.

You can view the second-to-last version of DNS City here, and here is what it has become”.

28 October 2024

Written by:

Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

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