An Odessa university student, author of the project of improvement of the former industrial zone in the French town of Saint-Denis, is going to Paris for the final of the international competition "Designing a Multi-Comfort Home 2020", organised by the company Saint Gobain.

The project of Anastasia Zalevskaya, student of the Odessa State Academy of Civil Engineering and Architecture (OSACA), took the second place at the national stage, which took place in early October in Kyiv. Now, the future architect will present her vision on the area's renovation to the French jury.

Initially, the final of the 16^th international competition was supposed to take place this summer, but the epidemic obliged to make changes, and it was postponed to June 2021.

According to the terms of the competition, it was necessary to develop a project for the improvement of the territory of the former concrete factory Coignet Enterprise in the municipality of Saint-Denis. On 2024, the nearby Stade de France will become one of the main arenas for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The strategy of the municipality is to create a point of attraction for the surrounding area in the problematic section between the river and the railway. The contenders had to design a park, a residential building for 250-300 apartments and an elementary school for 18 classes on a 6-hectare site.

In addition, it was necessary to come up with a way to preserve and renovate historic sites, like the first reinforced concrete building in Paris built in 1853, known as the Maison Coignet, and the warehouses of 1864.

The Odessa student offered several interesting solutions at once, which the jury members liked at the national selection and now will be evaluated by the final jury in Paris.

The main planning solution is a pedestrian promenade that crosses the entire microdistrict, passes through the park and goes to an old building on the river embankment. We designed the residential complex from three buildings with an increase in the number of storeys from three to seven floors closer to the railway tracks. Closed yard. Inside there are playgrounds and greenery, on the building itself there is a green exploited roof, solar panels are installed in parts.

Anastasia Zalevskaya

According to the rules of the competition, the designed housing must meet the rules of a comfortable environment and take into account all modern energy-saving and heat-efficient technologies.

Another feature of ours is warehouses. I propose to partially locate a kindergarten and an elementary school in them. To this end, we will add a modern extension to the warehouses, the warehouses will have gyms, a library, and computer classes.

Anastasia Zalevskaya

It is interesting that the urban planning concept formed the basis of Anastasia's master's thesis project, with the difference that the student, under the guidance of Associate Professor Olga Savitskaya, studied the territory of almost the entire Saint-Denis district, which is five times bigger than the competition site.

According to the Head of the competition work Tatiana Rumilets, senior lecturer of the Department of Urban Planning of the Architectural and Art Institute of OSACA, the concept of Odessa courtyards formed the basis of the residential complex, and the whole concept could be easily implemented in Odessa.

We designed it as for ourselves, Paris is very similar to Odessa. Our city was built by the French, so our project is partly inspired by Odessa courtyards: large galleries, courtyard space, and the culture of neighbourly communication. We have similar weather conditions, and the site in Saint-Denis resembles our industrial area. This project, with minor modifications, can be safely implemented in Odessa, on Peresyp or in Luzanovka in the area of ​​the railway line.

Tatiana Rumilets, Department of Urban Planning, Architectural and Art Institute of OSACA