A Defensive Archipelago 

The “Voronezh Sea” is a case study about the collapse of second natures. We put artificial islands that contain the tools to clean the artificial sea, turning it in the main public space of the city.

Leisure fortresses

Originally, Voronezh was built as a defensive settlement to guard the river. Today, the city needs a defensive system that protects it from its own pollution. We propose to put several islands in the reservoir, with different specific programs but all belonging to a “touristic infrastructure”: each island is related to the part of the city in front of it but also to the whole leisure floating system. You can spend your holidays moving throughout the islands, sleeping on them, bathing, going shopping, training or having fun at the fair, without ever landing.

Phytoremediation plants

Each island grows around a cane field, that is the visible part of a phyto-purification plant. Underwater pipes take the polluted water in the reed field, where water is filtered by draining ground and pollutants are metabolized by plant roots and aerobic microorganisms. Phytoremediation is a low-cost and long term way to fix up a chronic polluted environment, just like the Voronezh Sea.

A growing system

The archipelago can be realized step by step: each island works on its own, and can be reached by line boats or thanks to light bridges connecting it to the coast. Obviously, to fix the Sea pollution it’s necessary to activate more than one island: the step described in these boards considers a network of six islands, docked in proximity to the main inputs of polluted water. But the system can be improved, adding more islands until the Voronezh Sea will become safe and clean. Once it will be happened, the islands will be no longer introverted worlds, but favourite starting points to experience the Sea.

Location: Voronezh, Russia
Year: 2014