WATER LINE

The 1000m-long green boulevard along the primary axis with the 600m-long pedestrian park became a symbolic manifestation of the district name — GREEN LINE.

The project is located in the city of Nur-Sultan near the unique Khan Shatyr object by Norman Foster. Such a location involves the creation of landscape design in tune with the place.. The boulevard line continues the existing central planning axis of the city, which begins at the Akorda building and goes through the Bayterek Monument and several other iconic buildings and monuments for the capital. And the pedestrian park perpendicular to this axis fills the project with the green-space variety that creates a natural landscape.

The primary axis of the district is Green Line Boulevard. It is included in a dense city development and designed in an urban style as six composite parts: the western entrance, the transition part with the Water Line park line, the central square, the active play area, the recreation area, and the eastern entrance.

The secondary axis is the Water Line Nature Park. It is designed inside a premium development and includes water bodies. The main advantages of the location are the accessibility for the largest number of residents, integration into residential areas without isolation from the street-and-road network, and pedestrian links to social facilities. Thus, residents move inside comfortable green corridors most of the time.

Principles of territory formation

1. Creating expressive spaces of the urban environment that correspond to the city’s primary axis.
2. Preservation of existing natural landscapes, their integration into the planning structure, and providing for the continuous green framework.
3. Organization of an open public area that functions for residents and guests.
4. Creating a comfortable urban environment for citizens of all ages.
5. Providing for the all-year round functioning of public spaces: a summer fair with the function of an indoor skating rink, playgrounds with ice slides function in winter, covered pavilions, and WCs.

Resistance to the sun

It is carried out with the help of pergolas that create shade in quiet recreation areas for the elderly, on the playgrounds and on water bodies.

Wind resistance

It is carried out using various methods of wind protection: shrubs, trees, retaining walls, lamellar fences, and linear boulevard deepenings. When designing, we considered the wind directions in Nur-Sultan, swirls between buildings, and dust storms.

Visual concept

The diverse nature of Kazakhstan, its vast steppes, semi-deserts, blue lakes, mountains, and valleys inspired us to create landscape architecture that repeats the natural images and territory’s historical development.
As a result, two axes, different in stylistic solutions, are united by a common meaning and acquire the appearance of an oasis drowning in greenery.

Water bodies became a kind of object for contemplation. We created an environment as close to nature as possible and intrinsically organized all the banks with aquatic grasses, water lilies, and sedges. In descents to the water, we used a boardwalk partially reinforced with gabions. On a very hot day, people can walk down to the water to cool off.

In good weather, everyone can find something to their liking outside: sports, a walk, a picnic with friends, or any other activity.

What remains unchanged is that the work is most productive to organize in the office, where it is easier to concentrate. And only recently, more and more regularly, this function is being implemented in landscaping. If an office worker leaves a comfortable office and sits at an outdoor bar with an outlet, USB, Wi-Fi, and coffee machine — this is an achievement. For this purpose, we designed a street office.

Nearby, an intuitive navigation system is located: columns with graphics that tell in detail what the boulevard is saturated with.

In addition to a wide variety of functionally saturated areas, we paid particular attention to design comfortable WCs that are hidden by the park greenery.

Greenery concept

The greenery style corresponds to the general solutions for the boulevard landscape architecture.

From the eastern entrance, emphasis is placed on combining strict linear forms of trimmed hedges with flower beds of perennials and cereals between them. The direction and principle of diagonal planting coincide with the paving, which enhances the overall impression and sets the entrance zone pageantry.

Royalty ornamental apple trees (Malus ‘Royalty’)) are a bright accent among the oaks, fir-trees, maples, Linden trees, and poplars. In Spring, they blossom luxuriantly with pink flowers and later remain attractive due to the color of the leaves, which changes during the season: from purple or dark purple in early Summer to rich scarlet in Autumn.

The greenery of the recreation area partially repeats the usage of trimmed hedges, shiny cotoneaster (‘Cotoneaster lucidus’), Littleleaf peashrub (Caragana microphylla) and Siberian peashrub (Caragana arborescens), yet, in this part of the boulevard, they are designed not by linear plantings but by blocks of trimmed shrubs that cover large spaces. Arrays of spiky low juneberry (‘Amelanchier spicata’), false spiraea (Sorbaria sorbifolia), and cinnamon rose are highly ornamental during the blossoming period and attract birds with their fruits.

There are spaces for the elderly called Green Living Rooms. They are represented by zones surrounded by walls of green spaces. In the middle, there is a large round table or free-standing table for playing chess and backgammon.

We worked out three levels of plantings: tree plantations, shrubs, and flower beds. Thanks to this solution, we will get a volume and a complete visual impression immediately after the completion of the construction.

We planned to plant a large number of trees to sync the creation of architectural volume and of the visual appeal of the first tier. The primary breeds are warty birch and common pine. The project includes the planting of pedunculate oak, Amur maple (‘Acer ginnala’), ash-leaved maple, small-leaved linden, and balsam poplar. They are resistant to urban conditions and have a high decorative function.

The spruce and numerous shrubs create a second tier between the trees. Linear plantings of shiny cotoneaster (‘Cotoneaster lucidus’), Littleleaf peashrub (Caragana microphylla) and Siberian peashrub (Caragana arborescens) correspond to the formal style of the boulevard, combine well with free group plantings, visually separate the pedestrian zone from the roadway, and block noise from the street.

The lower tier of perennial herbaceous plants and cereals is selected considering the complicated climatic and urban data. The plants are decorative, and they are combined in different seasons. Linear flower beds are represented by woodland sage (‘Salvia nemorosa’), noble yarrow (‘Achillea nobilis’), Siberian iris (‘Iris sibirica’), yellow daylily (‘Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus’), and ox-eye daisy (‘Leucanthemum vulgare’).