Renovation of Gagarin city park

Small Russian cities traditionally lack quality public spaces. Known from the mid-1700s old town of Gzhatsk, now Gagarin, is not an exception. The project of park’s renovation is initiated and funded by Austrian company EGGER, which has its plant located nearby and whose employees are mostly local citizens. New park is to become a starting point of positive changes to the city environment, and has to contribute into creating healthier local social climate.

The park had not been maintained for the last 20 years and eventually came into decay. The project reshapes chaotic and excessive net of pedestrian pathways, structures territory’s scenography and zoning. A system of a core and several minor public places is created, e.g. integrating few ruined structures scattered across the park. Special care and attention is paid to the most valuable landscape feature, the ponds. The strategy of cleaning and preservation of existing vegetation, supported with targeted new planting interventions, aims to enhance the quality and character of existing natural landscape zones.

Funds released by Egger yearly are very limited, so a key point was to find a balance between long-term investments, creating spectacular architecture and providing basic infrastructure of garbage bins and toilets. Another quest was communicating with local people and town’s authorities, in order to reconcile different - sometimes almost opposite - interests of involved parties, which forced us to advance quite carefully. The project creates a strategy and vision for further development of given territory, and we expect it to make a valuable contribution into triggering positive changes in Gagarin’s urban environment, even if not all its ideas are finally implemented.