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Architects: AER
- Area: 14500 m²
- Year: 2019
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Photographs:Ivan Avdeenko
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Lead Architects: Artem Dodonov, Anastasiia Stryzhevska, Oleksandra Urtiukova
Text description provided by the architects. The new landscape connects the Church of the Savior on Berestove (XII c.) with adjacent bastion of the Pechersk fortress (XVIII c.). The vicinity of two monuments was controversial. Rainwater from the rampant flooded the church. The archaeological research of the church dug a part of the rampart. The conflict had to be settled through landscape design.
The project consists of the stone-clad urban square surrounding the church and a small park atop of the bastion. The square around the church had no visitors except a few pilgrims. Bastion, on the other hand, was a quite popular sightseeing viewpoint visited mostly by car. Being completely unsuitable for vehicle traffic, the rampart suffered very much from cars. The new design denies access to the bastion by car. To facilitate the access for pedestrians three new stairs are constructed.
Much space around the church is liberated from the sporadic greenery. The anthropogenic appearance of the rampant is restored by sharpening the edges of the hills. A bigger square is cut out of the bastion finally fixing the storm-water flows and granting the church the air it deserves.
The bastion itself is a giant earth sculpture. This design highlights the man-made form of the rampant by covering in alloy steel the parapet placed along the border of the former fortification. Position and height of the parapet mimics the previously existing bulwark - a wall on which the cannonry used to be placed. To this metal backbone, three new stairs are attached. Stairs are carved into the slope in order not to spoil the continuity of the green slope on the outer surface of the bastion. What interrupts the continuity of the earth rampant is the new church square.
The materials used are all of the neutral colors with the exception of alloy steel used to sign the cuts made in the body of the bastion. At night the main source of light in the square is the church itself. All the lighting is directed at it. And from its walls, it is reflected on the square. There are decorative lights built-in the grey granite pavement. The cross-shaped lights are an homage to the long-forgotten function of the site around the church - a graveyard.
The parapet line running along the entire bastion is highlighted to emphasize the contour of the rampant in the dark. The interior rusty walls of the stairs are washed with light hidden in the border of the metal panels.
