On 22 March, a team of young architects, designers, builders, and urban planners led by Aleksandra Polyanskaya, a graduate of the Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (SPbGASU), won the Grand Prix for their project "Lighthouses of the Water Area" in the final of the eleventh architectural and urban planning foresight of RBC Petersburg.
In 2025, over 100 senior students participated in the project. They worked in interdisciplinary teams, led by experienced curators, developing innovative projects on the theme "Saint Petersburg in the 2030s: creating a project for the future. Trends, challenges, and opportunities in Saint Petersburg architecture and urbanism."
The winning team presented their project, "Lighthouses of the Water Area," proposing building of a system of "lighthouses"—water-based functional centers for St Petersburg that would unite transportation, public spaces, and architectural landmarks. The project proposes transforming water into the main connecting point between the city's districts. It centers on seven key points along the Neva Bay, connected by year-round express routes. The transportation model is adapted to the reality of St Petersburg: high-speed boats and water buses in the summer, and hovercraft in the winter.
The project's authors have chosen the industrial zone of the Krasnoselsky District near the Baltiets Yacht Club as a pilot site. Instead of demolishing the old workshops, they propose renovating them. "The outdated industrial buildings will receive modern 'water' facades, inspired by waves and cliffs, and will become part of the new urban environment. A new-style water terminal will be built here, with amphitheaters overlooking the water, recreation areas and cafes, a technology park, a sports and business center with a sailing school that will be a logical extension of the existing yacht club, a public embankment with beaches and pools with purified water, as well as a hotel and a park with interactive water areas," the project description states.
According to the authors, the project proposes viewing the water area not as a boundary between districts, but as the main thoroughfare of the future, capable of relieving traffic congestion and creating new points of attraction in the city.
The winning team consists of:
- captain – Aleksandra Polyanskaya, SPbGASU graduate (design of architectural environment);
- Danil Bychkov, Saint Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation, student;
- Polina Sutyrina, SPbGASU, student (design of architectural environment);
- Ekaterina Gordeychik, Baikal State University, student;
- Dmitry Shipitsyn, Higher School of Economics, student;
- Daria Vasina, SPbGASU, student (civil engineering);
- Veronika Korzh, St Petersburg State Stieglitz Academy of Art and Industry, student;
- Emilia Gubarevich, St Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design, student.
The team's curator was Vladimir Linov, Honored Architect of Russia and graduate of the Leningrad Civil Engineering Institute (now SPbGASU).
We congratulate the winners and are proud of our students and graduates!
