A student and graduates of SPbGASU were among the authors of the winning project of the 10th RBC Architectural and Urban Planning Foresight.

The team included the captain Anastasia Dyadurina (SPbGASU); SPbGASU bachelor's degree graduates Elena Vorobyova (ITMO University), Ivan Zabavin (ITMO University), Veronika Petrenko (I.E. Repin St Petersburg Academy of Arts); as well as Ekaterina Zorina (Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU)), Daniil Koskov (European University at St Petersburg), Lyudmila Morshchakova (SPbPU), Gleb Rosin (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration), curators Yana Golubeva (MLA+ architectural bureau) and Egor Starshov (Graduate School of Management of St Petersburg State University).

Architectural and urban planning foresight is a research and media project of RBC Petersburg. It is aimed at finding optimal ways to develop urban areas; organizing competent discussions of urban planning issues among leading architects, developers, economists, representatives of the city's authorities and public organizations; promoting progressive solutions using modern visualization tools.

The topic of the tenth foresight was "The Petersburg project. A city of the new era with a Petersburg identity." Six teams participated. Their curators were leading architects and urbanists of Saint Petersburg. The jury also included representatives of universities and development companies. The partners were the RBI Group, Formula City, PSK Group, Bau City Development and L.Buro studio.

Anastasia Dyadurina is a second-year master's student at the Faculty of Architecture. She took part in the RBC 2023–24 foresight on the topic of "Residential agglomeration of the future". She led the team that won with the project "Neurogarden. Where nature creates the future". The RBC 2024–25 foresight really interested the student in its topic. "I love St Petersburg with all my heart, and the opportunity to talk about its identity, present and future, inspired me," said Anastasia.

The winning project was called "Capillar City". It is an ambitious idea to save the Northern capital from the threat of flooding in the context of global warming. The authors suggested looking at the city as a living organism, where each channel and river becomes part of a single life support system; imagine a city where a new network of artificial channels works like a circulatory system, evenly distributing and utilizing excess water.

The network of artificial canals created will connect historical reservoirs, turning them into transport arteries. Year-round water trams will run along these “capillaries” – real “blood corpuscles” that ensure uninterrupted movement along three rings: the Small Water Ring around the historical center, the Middle Ring through residential areas, and the Highway Ring around the Ring Road.

Every corner of the city – from the historical center to new buildings – will receive its share of water and greenery. These canals will give St Petersburg a new identity, combining history and future into a single harmonious organism.

The authors are sure that the capillary city is not just an engineering solution. It is a chance to give Petersburg a new impulse to life, protect its unique architecture and ensure a future for generations.

"I regularly participate in architectural competitions, but the format of foresight is unique: participants are given maximum freedom within the designated topic. Foresight lasts for six months, teams of students and young specialists from various fields are recruited, from architecture and urban planning to sociology and economics. Each team is assigned a curator, most often a famous architect. In addition, lectures and discussions are held during the competition, including with the participation of top officials of development companies. The competition is aimed at creating a multidisciplinary professional community, where different specialists can look into the future together.

This year the topic was especially free, there was not even a designated area for design. Our team went through a change of curator, and in the end we managed to collaborate with the founder of the MLA+ bureau, Yana Golubeva. The team, which initially consisted of 20 people, was reduced to eight by the final. As the captain, I had the task of defining the general vector of the project, developing a concept together with the guys, breaking it down into tasks, distributing them among the participants and preserving the integrity of the project from the idea to the implementation. I am especially glad that I managed to organize the work so that each of the team members revealed their best sides.

The team and I understood that taking on the task of digging 205 kilometers of canals in St Petersburg to save it from flooding and to define a new identity for the city was a very ambitious task. We took all the risks and were able to successfully create a project that was highly assessed by the competition jury and the public," said Anastasia Dyadurina. We congratulate the team on their victory and wish them further professional success!

Project slides