At the competition ‘21st Century University: Architecture and Town-Planning’ held by the Architectural and Building Business Incubator of TGASU in collaboration with the Tomsk City Administration there were 23 entries, most of which were from students of Faculty of Architecture at TGASU. First place was awarded jointly to two teams.

The winning teams told us about their project ideas. Team members of the first winning project, students of TGASU Anton Batura, Angelina Gelmes, Antonina Afanaskina and Ekaterina Korobochkina (academic supervisor is S. Y. Hudyakov, chairman of the board of directors, Union of Russian Architects Ltd.) said that their project was an autonomous city, including both university and residential areas. An important element of their project was the river dividing Tomsk into two parts. One of them hosts all the key buildings, residential area is located on the other side. The team tried to preserve water and green spaces to the maximum extent, as Tomsk does not have enough green areas. Another problem in Tomsk is the absence of a well planned transportation network with no traffic jams and congestion. It was the next issue that the students also addressed in their project. An interesting solution to this problem became a monorail going across the entire city.

The team pointed out that an innovative city should naturally have the newest, most advanced innovations — those that simplify life and make it more comfortable. But at the same time we need to avoid excessive use of unusual forms and solutions. «Architecture should not affect people negatively. It should make them feel comfortable. Innovations in architecture must be used very carefully.»

Team members of the second winning project, TGASU students Ulyana Zholobovaya and Tatiana Fokina (academic supervisors are E. I. Kardash and E. M. Smagina, both TGASU lecturers and members of the Union of Russian Designers) looked at solutions to the problem of keeping young professionals in Tomsk. The conception of the project previews that university graduates do not leave the city. A special designed environment has to allow go together not a university campus only but also a residential zone, in order to build a business, house, family and career.

The conception is called a ‘Living Cube’. We can see the Living Cube at the project’s stand: from a main body (a university in cubic form) smaller cubes ‘spin off’. They are laboratories and business incubators. Even smaller cubes in turn ‘spin off’ from here. And they are now in fact residential area. When we look from the other direction we see how larger cubes grow from small residential cubes up to the top — the university, the focus of life and activity. The form of a cube was chosen because the team members wanted to give birth to a project easy to realize and they decided to start with simple forms, the simplest of which is the square or the cube.