Ecopolis Now: Building Kazan’s new green district

Located on the left bank of the River Volga, within the Republic of Tatarstan, Kazan is often referred to as Russia’s third capital city – after Moscow and St Petersburg, respectively. A key industrial hub during Soviet rule – its numerous factories produced tanks and planes during the Second World War – the city today is home to several industries, including mechanical engineering, petrochemicals and IT.

Early last year, Rustam Minnikhanov, Tatarstan’s president, issued an open invitation to international architects to create a new eco-district in Kirovsky, a low-density residential area that can be reached from the city centre in 20 minutes by car. The plan, according to Minnikhanov, was for the “establishment of a non-urban lifestyle in the urban environment”.

Several competition rounds later, in November London-based practice JTP announced its bid to create a 760-hectare new eco-city district had been selected by a jury consisting of Minnikhanov, as well as Kazan’s Mayor Ilsur Metshin and an assortment of local architects.

Invited to enter the competition by Knight Frank Russia, JTP did so as part of a consortium, whose partners include: XTU Architects (France); Arkhitekturny Desant (Russia, Republic of Tatarstan); TERRA SCAPE (Belgium); and OXO Architects (France).

With prior experience of working in Russia, alongside the mix of international presence afforded by other members of the consortium, JTP had the right set of the credentials to take the project on from the outset, insists Ivana Stanisic, an associate and senior architect with the practice.

“We’ve done quite a lot of strategic projects in Russia – particularly around Moscow – over the last 15 years, so have quite a lot of experience of working in the country,” she explains.

“So, our strategy for the competition was to take the lessons and knowledge learned from those projects and apply it to Kazan. We also looked to apply our knowledge from wider European master planning projects, too.

“Together with our French and Belgian colleagues, we had the relevant experience for the job, but Arkhitekturny Desant also played a really important role thanks to their local knowledge. It was a case of making the most of international and local experience found across the consortium.”

Much of the project’s design is centred around Kirovsky's surrounding woodland. JTP plans to use “green fingers” of forest to create clusters of lower-density homes, as well as higher density villages around the main routes to the site, on which once was dotted a number of munitions factories.

“The forest itself is already broken up by the site’s former use, which was for warehouses storing ammunition,” says Stanisic. “Due to certain past requirements, these warehouses had to be a certain distance from each other, meaning there are already scattered clearings in the forest.

“So, the strategy was always to preserve as much of the forest as we could, and use existing clearings and the historic roads that connect them.”

The project is informed by a concept known as “ecopolis”, as laid out by the competition’s organisers, who, according to Stanisic, “wanted to set a precedent in Russia for a town to be built on eco-principles”.

“Some of those were about preserving the forest as much as we can, but also creating a sustainable community, aware of where they live and how they live, and embed this strategy into everyday life,” she says.

With its proposed walking and cycling routes, which will connect each and every neighbourhood in the district, ecopolis is as much about community as it is environmentally-led. This is perhaps the most salient point: that urban sustainability has the power to create better health and wellbeing within neighbourhoods.

“In addition to having a sustainable strategy – in terms of infrastructure, sustainable transport links – it is about having both soft and hard principles and embedding them into people’s lives,” explains Stanisic.

“Another one of the key principles is that everyone should live close to this open green space, which should penetrate every part of the development and enable people to lead healthier lives, whether it be by growing vegetables, being in nature or walking.”

Stanisic is tight-lipped on the project’s latest status and scheduled completion date.

“We don’t know the date for completion at the moment,” she says. “We had a meeting at the beginning of this year with the competition organisers, who are now looking to progress the project further.

“They are also choosing a local architect to develop the details, and we have been in correspondence with them over us overseeing the future phases of the detailed development of the vision.”

If and when Kazan’s eco-district sees light of day, it should serve as an antithesis to the Russian stereotype of smoke-stacked vistas and proclivity for the black stuff – and, instead, one of a modern city with a modern outlook on its environmental obligations.