Tomsk Rowing Canal · Concept study
A place by
the water
A canal in the centre of Tomsk, with room around it for people to spend time by the river.
It started with a possibility
A client came to us with the idea of making a canal in central Tomsk, where there was a square beside the river. He wanted to see whether a place for sport could also bring people together, and our first job was to work out what that proposal might involve.
We spoke with consultants about how the canal would work and developed three sizes, from a relatively small training canal to a much larger course with the ambition of hosting international competitions. Each version changed how much of the square the project occupied and how the public spaces and supporting buildings could fit around it.
The space beside the canal
The canal had a fairly specific job to do, and we spent a lot of time on the diagrams that made it work. Around it, there was an opportunity to make a place where you could sit, watch what was happening on the water or meet someone without taking part in the sport yourself.
We worked on those edges together with the course, drawing seating and routes through the square so that the canal could become part of its everyday life. The perspectives helped us look at the proposal from the ground, with people moving between the existing buildings and the river.
Finding a place
for the pavilion
We also needed a pavilion for the boats and the spaces that supported the canal. I looked at the buildings around the square, including a small nineteenth-century brick building and a much larger Soviet-era neighbour, and began sketching something that could sit comfortably among them.
I wanted it to feel contemporary, with details that had some connection to the older architecture. I tried different roof shapes and facade rhythms, looking for a building that would add another layer to the place without taking over the view.
Down into
the riverbank
The ground gave us a way to make the pavilion more substantial than it appeared from the square. We let it descend towards the river, placing part of the building within the embankment so that only a modest volume stood above it.
From the water, the building had a longer face along the bank, while from the square it remained a small neighbour to the existing buildings. I liked how that change in level gave us space for the new use while keeping the upper part of the pavilion fairly quiet.
A quick project with a lot to test
This was a quick concept project, and we produced a lot of drawings while working out what the initial idea could become. The different canal arrangements and the pavilion sketches were ways of testing the proposal, with quite a few possible directions still visible in the work.
What interested me was how a piece of sports infrastructure could give the square another use, and how a small building could help it belong there. The images and drawings below show the alternatives as well as the proposal we developed in the visualizations.
All images and drawings 27 images
