The winners of the Third All-Russian competition of student works in the field of universal design and engineering of a barrier-free urban environment for people with limited mobility have been announced. The final competitions and award ceremony took place on 15–17 May at the Moscow Architectural Institute. Among the awarded were three SPbGASU teams.

The competition participants prepared architectural and urban planning concepts for the development of the city of Azov, Rostov region, with an emphasis on creating a barrier-free environment. 72 works from 42 universities were submitted. Ten projects reached the finals.

Team “City Faces”: Alisa Mikhailova, Sofia Nikolaeva, Oleg Fedorov (team leader) and Vladislava Savelyeva

The winner of the competition, as well as the winner of the award for the best performance, was the SPbGASU team “City Faces”. The team consisted of three fourth-year bachelor's students of the Faculty of Architecture: Alisa Mikhailova (captain), Sofia Nikolaeva and Vladislava Savelyeva. Their work was supervised by the leading specialist of the Project Architectural Student Center, Associate Professor at the Department of Architectural Design Oleg Fedorov, Professor at the Department of Urban Planning Andrey Vaytens and Associate Professor at the Department of Urban Planning Pavel Skryabin.

According to Alisa Mikhailova, the main idea of ​​the project was the formation of public spaces in the city: “Gateway to the City”, “Shores” and “Exit to the Sea”. It is proposed to connect them with a network of pedestrian highways accessible to people with limited mobility, as well as bicycle paths and electric bus routes. It is planned to create an excursion route with audio guides near the ramparts. The implementation of the project will enhance tourism in the city, which will attract funds to solve urban problems.

“The competition was the largest work we have ever done. We felt how important it is to assemble a team in which each member has his own strengths, complementing each other. In addition, when participating in a competition, it is very important to consult with teachers and senior comrades, collect information from different sources, and most importantly - to smoothly move towards the result,” said Alisa.

According to the captain, the in-person defense of the project at the Moscow Architectural Institute played a key role in the victory: the students paid great attention to preparing the speech and presentation. Presenting your work in front of professionals and leading experts in the field of universal design and accessible environment is a big responsibility, but the team was up to the task. The student also noted how warmly they were greeted at MArchI. The competition was a real adventure for the team.

Team "Delta": Alina Lagkueva, Mikhail Rakhimov, Varvara Dericheva and Angelina Savitskaya

The SPbGASU team "Delta" won in two categories: "Best tablet for architectural solutions" and "Best concept of color design and navigation for open public spaces." The team included fourth-year bachelor's students of the Faculty of Architecture Varvara Dericheva (captain), Alina Lagkueva, Angelina Savitskaya and Mikhail Rakhimov. Their work was supervised by Oleg Fedorov and Associate Professor at the Department of Architectural Design Olga Kokorina.

As Alina said, the concept of the Delta team included three main parts. The first of them was taking into account the location of the city in the Don delta, which is divided here into several branches, and the associated natural features. The second component was the delta as a symbol of the city: the town arms of Azov depicts a sturgeon with a characteristic skin pattern in the form of triangles, and the Greek letter delta also has a triangular shape. The third component was delta as a mathematical designation of the final difference when changing any parameter, in this case reflecting what the city was and what it became as a result of the declared transformations with the creation of a publicly accessible environment. “In our work, we always take into account the needs of people with limited mobility, and now we have the opportunity to make this aspect a core one,” Alina emphasized.

Captain Varvara Dericheva agrees: “The competition on organizing a barrier-free environment in Azov helped us study the topic of inclusive design in more detail and served us as a good experience in terms of defending projects, becoming a kind of rehearsal before defending our diplomas. We were glad to represent our university at the All-Russian competition, despite the great responsibility.”

Angelina Savitskaya noted that the competition helped their team members improve their teamwork skills. “As architects, it is very important for us to be able to interact with people of other views and professions. We met guys from other teams, representatives of related industries. It's a very rewarding experience."

Mikhail Rakhimov expressed gratitude to the jury members who patiently and carefully listened to each presentation: “They gave valuable advice on the project, which we will definitely listen to.”

Another finalist was a team of SPbGASU second-year master's students of the Faculty of Architecture, called “Sensory Park”. It included Regina Shuler (captain), Maria Kolobova, Irina Vanyan, Yulia Kim and Anastasia Mishalueva. The team leader was Oleg Fedorov. The work of this team was awarded a diploma for comprehensive landscaping with the formation of a barrier-free environment for a selected segment of public space and was noted as the best project that takes into account the regulatory framework for an accessible urban environment.

According to Anastasia Mishalueva, the competition was a real test of endurance, which the students successfully passed: despite the difficulties and workload of their final year, they were able to independently develop a project of a high degree of detail.

“We were pleased to plunge into urban planning analysis, introducing several atypical techniques into our work: dividing the city territory into levels of accessibility, applying the “Power of Ten” concept (it is based on the idea that public space should have at least ten reasons for its existence) . This approach allowed us to formulate a strong proposal for urban transformation. At the level of the selected fragment, the Victory Park, we applied a concept based on the seven principles of universal design: equality, flexibility, simplicity, accessibility, tolerance, comfort, proportionality. As part of our proposal, an exhibition pavilion has been developed that complements the park, merging with the landscape. Its concept includes the main criteria for assessing the accessibility of objects: taking into account physical accessibility, safety, information content and comfort of the object,” said Anastasia.

“The idea of a barrier-free environment and universal design has been integrated into architectural tasks for many years as a specialized area and has become an integral part of architecture. Probably the only thing that complicates this process is the interdisciplinarity of this topic and tasks, which are not limited to space-planning solutions and architectural engineering. When solving them, it is necessary to take into account and use the possibilities of digitalization, sound and graphic support,” Oleg Fedorov stated.

The teacher emphasized the educational mission of the organizers, who did a great job in terms of methodological support, attracting industry experts, and conducting additional lectures. In his opinion, the integrated approach speaks volumes about the level and status of this all-Russian competition. And it is even more honorable that the works of our students received high marks and were recognized as the best in several nominations at once, winning in the main one.

“Each project presented has its own unique concept, which includes not only attention to solutions for people with limited mobility, but also a general vision of the urban development of Azov, proposals for new architectural objects and their improvement,” added Oleg Fedorov.

The Third All-Russian competition of student works in the field of universal design and engineering of a barrier-free urban environment for people with limited mobility was held with the support of the federal educational and methodological association “Architecture” of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and the Presidential Grants Fund. The prize fund of the competition is 1.5 million rubles.

Project slides from "City Faces" team