You have exclusive opportunity to see eight visions about the future of Kliversala – small land plot opposite Old Riga – after some 10 years. Mass media in Latvia will show this only few days later.
Investor – Italian „Pro Kapital”. Investment – at least 180 mio EUR but most likely considerably more.
Architects are from Latvia, Estonia and Italy. Individual authors are not shown thus far, although I think – I recognise the style of two Latvian architect companies here. It seems, each project has got it’s nickname but I did not write them down. Thus I will give my nicknames.

In haste I have taken inequal No. of pictures for each project – but may be this unconsiously represents my interest in each of them. I hope that authors will not mind... And hope that you will be able to evaluate the designs anyway.

1. „Dense, round, high”
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/4991/1kl318dy.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/2451/1kl10jd.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/9807/1kl3218lm.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/8311/1kl3222zq.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/6703/1kl3239qk.jpg

2. „the Wall”
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/7504/2kl23ie.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/7676/2kl57uu.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/3583/2kl292rw.jpg

3. „Dense, square, high”
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/4853/3kl89kx.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/5861/3kl107jr.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/7814/3kl113fy.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/4982/3kl125ie.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/3835/3kl131zm.jpg

4. „Fake Amsterdam”
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/9826/4kl262sy.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/6288/4kl275cb.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/7710/4kl2818sr.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/8197/4kl2826df.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/6888/4kl2833kb.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/6798/4kl2847ka.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/6892/4kl2852ls.jpg
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/6100/nezkl46ls.jpg

5. „Matchsticks”
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/4802/5kl194et.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/8/5kl200lx.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/1701/5kl212rm.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/1214/5kl224xm.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/9958/5kl2310va.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/917/5kl2324bn.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/1508/5kl251fr.jpg

6. „Beehive cells”
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/4631/6kl166rg.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/511/6kl148ip.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/9974/6kl151qx.jpg
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/5377/6kl173uu.jpg

7. „Rare teeth”
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/3980/7kl71zu.jpg
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/5128/7kl90al.jpg

8. „sorry, just one” – it seems this project deserved some more pics.
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/3288/8kl301sl.jpg

Which one would you take?

I like highrises, but somehow in these projects I am not so sure anymore whether we really need to build there somethign that hight....

"Fake Amsterdam" or "Matchsticks".
Dont` really know now, although the 8 looks interesting as well.

"Fake Amsterdam" for me - the most humane IMHO. It is somehow "populistic" but is it bad?
Btw. Kliversala was the first, most ancient place in the left side of Daugava, which got street network and city-style structure. Unfortunately this was burned down, destroyed etc. "Fake Amsterdam" might be a tribute to this, although they change street pattern etc. totally.
Hope that I will not influence the opinion too much - as a maker of the thread.

Sorry but it looks like a bunch of ugly works. For such big project which will change the face of Riga more and better architects should have been invited.

/\ i have to agree.. the quality is low!
I am DISSAPPOINTED!

BUt matchsticks is aesthetically the most pleasing, with a second prize to Amsterdam... the others are post awful and commilicious!

btw i think that THE WALL is from estonian AB KOSMOS


Pro kapital ay? many of Preatonis projects have been under scruitany here, he wasnt clean... but i like him :)

Also... 180 mio euro doesnt seem like alot of money for so many highrises... !

I picked the first but I might have changed my mind as the 6th project „Beehive cells” also looks somewhat futuristic. I know nothing about Riga or the neighborhood so I haven't chosen based on that. There's no project that really stands out as being unique and the fake amsterdam is quite fake indeed...

oh wow,this is really interesting!

my opinions:

1. „Dense, round, high” - i quite like it. although the boxy buildings are a bit weird. but i like their creepy little feet :D i'm actually not sure if mixing round and boxy buildings in such a small area is a good idea....

2. „the Wall” - it's a really interesting project, but hope this one will never be built. it doesn't fit in. it'd ruin the whole appearance of this area.

3. „Dense, square, high” - boooooooooring! this must be made by some estonian bureau =) buildings remind me too much of commieblocks. a bad project, bad!

4. „Fake Amsterdam” - this is the most interesting! a really great one! it may seem a bit weird... but actually it's just cool :D i really like it, especially the round tower in the middle of those amsterdam-buildings. this project seems to have succeeded in putting the seashore into use. i picture this project in real life - it'd be a landmark known everywhere in the world (:

5. „Matchsticks” - booring AND ugly! really, a bad idea - to build many highrises all looking the same. awful! and boring. but i already said that...

6. „Beehive cells” - that'd be my no.2. but those long worms make it a bit too dense. if they'd make them a bit smaller then i'd like it even more. but the project is quite ok!

7. „Rare teeth” - ugh!

8. „sorry, just one” - from this picture it looks really cool. maybe even better than beehive. good diversity of different buildings. i like it.




hopefully kliversala will get the best solution!

and thanks, gatis, for this exclusive opportunity!!! :D

Well, I don't like Matchsticks at all! They might be tall but that's about it. I prefer dense round high (first one) or fake amsterdam.

Wow, I don't know. I'm not too happy with either one of them. I'll have to think about what to vote. Maybe "fake Amsterdam", "populist" does not always mean bad. "Good because architects says so" is often alot worse.

I like Beehive the most
I wouldn't like to see other projects growing up in Riga:)
and Beehive would affect your skyline alot!:runaway:

also the last one looks good:)

Who the hell proposed that "The Wall" design?, that is the craziest design I've seen, AND so colourful...yak...Anyway the Beehive Cells look more promising to me and so as Fake Amsterdam, these 2 should go head to head...other designz are WHACK!!!...Really, they couldn't come up with any better looking ones, although it's not for me to decide what get's built...NOW, are these proposals considered to be built or not???

NOW, are these proposals considered to be built or not???
Yes, exactly. There is money, there is wish, there is preliminary permit. Although there are permitted 24 floors now... some proposals have 30 floors here.
Of course, those are draft designs, later all will be turned and twisted. But the main principle should remain.
* * *
I agree with many of you. At the first moment, when you enter a room stacked with those designs, you just say - "WOW!" But later - looking at bare pictures... this thing turned out to be more boring as it seemed at first. Anyway - almost all of them are way better than this design from last year:
http://img140.exs.cx/img140/2826/kliversala0lv.jpg

Hmm, I agree that they could have come up with better designs. Atm only "sorry, only one" is somewhat better looking :ohno:

I like fake Amsterdam (looks funky :) )

Dense Square looooooooks AMAZING!!! Just imagine that huge thing among other future proposals... :D

I prefer the first proposal, it seems to fit in with Saules Akmens. The last one seems pretty interesting as well, but without some more renders I do not dare to vote for it. :)

Hard to choose between proposals 3 and 4..

"Fake Amsterdam" (http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/9826/4kl262sy.jpg) or "Beehive cells" (http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/9974/6kl151qx.jpg), hard to make a choise between these two proposals. "Beehive cells" would have the best effect to skyline, but "Fake Amsterdam" is after all the best in my opinion - perfect combination of traditional and modern architecture. :)

And the vinner is:...

"Klīversala - more of Riga" - or - as Gatis justly called it - "Fake Amsterdam"
by "Venta Didrihsona arhitekturas studija"

Wow, I guessed correctly that this is "Venta Didrihsona studija"
Artis - was "Behhive cells" by "Sarma & Norde"?

Artis - was "Behhive cells" by "Sarma & Norde"?

No, S&N wasn't participated. Those Cells was by Arhitektonika.
Sorry, no that much time for closer information. I'm going to prepare material about competition for A4D. Hope you can read it if not this afternoon than tomorrow morning.

"Arhitektonika"? They are very good architects as well (I consider that S&N is among the best in Latvia together with SZK and Arhis)

so fake amsterdam will be built?!?! :eek:

Seems so. Let's see what investor would say on this.

fake amsterdam is overall nice, but MAN those tops of the skyscrapers are just HIDIOUS

In My mind the best are:

first place 5. „Matchsticks”
second place 1. „Dense, round, high”

4. „Fake Amsterdam” is really good project BUT I REALLY wanna see highrises there .... „Fake Amsterdam” we can move in another place!

edited:

FAKE AMSTERDAM???? :shocked: ............ oh ...

that'd be SO cool! i'd move to riga just to see those buildings every day :D

this "more of riga" will look absolutely fantastic when built! i love that it includes so MANY smaller buildings. it means more possibilities for variations. damn, i love this project!

imagine this in real life! and some of those buildings are ~10 storeys high! impressive sight!
http://img462.imageshack.us/img462/7710/4kl2818sr.jpg

/\ it really is spectacular.

but you won't be able to see these buildings in full height from Vecriga (Old Riga) side, i saw the render in today's newspaper Biznes&Baltija, they plan not to cut the trees, that currently grow on the banks of river there, so, at least first 2 or 3 floors of those buildings will be hidden.. as i understood, that tall 24-floor building will be 4star SPA hotel, the other highrises are meant to become 11-18-floor office buildings.. the rest of them - residential buildings.. I think the most impressive sight will be looking from Preses Nams side

press saying the cost of it all is just about 180 mio Euro (kinda little IMO)
still good.... quite alot of Estonian investment (and Italian ;)) in Riga ! Merko, Pro kapital Etc etc! :D

BTW Tallink confirmed today that they have established a daughter-company in Riga, which means that now it's 100% sure that they will be serving Riga-Stockholm line.

today Diena wrothe that the project of the architecture office of Vents Didrihsons won. Which project is it?

Fake amsterdam?

Yes. ;)

First I would choose Fake Amsterdam. After this Dense, round, high and Matchsticks.

I don´t like the other projects.

But Fake Amsterdam is really awesome, they should built it!

they plan not to cut the trees, that currently grow on the banks of river

That in and of itself is a wonderful development. :happy:

And I'm glad "Fake Amsterdam" won the competition--it's a real charmer! :banana:


@vanniken: it's great to have another forumer from Riga here. Welcome! :wave: :cheers:

Some more information:

- the "Fake Amsterdam" project got full approval from commission. That means - nobody ranked any other project higher. There was no second place due to substantially difference in quality of other projects and the winner. Third place share "Arhitektonika" (Beehive cells) and Italian Tiziano Lugli studio (??? may be dense round high?). Special prize goes to Estonian "Kosmos" (Wall) - because the work is very interesting although absolutely not suitable for Kliversala.
- "Pro Kapital" representative: "The results exceeds our expectations. Riga is city of arts and such project might develop the city further";
- Riga City representative - "We are glad that investor agreed with decision of jury. He has agreed to more complex project."
- Ventis Didrihsons - "Idea is emotional, you can't tell it in words, it comes like music"
- The largest highrise - hotel - stands in water. Latvian legislation does not allow habitable buildings in water (to avoid some morons building their villas in lakes or Daugava). This should be changed somehow - but city hopes that highrise will maintain the effect of lighthouse.
- Investor reaffirms that there would be invested at least 180 mio EUR. Could be considerably more.

Future activities:
- over the next two weeks there would be elaborated and agreed time schedule for activities and cooperation with Riga City;
- there is proposal waiting for approval - about demolition of existing buildings and preparation of construction site. This can be approved in some weeks time as well;
- detailed planning of area to be elaborated and approved as soon as possible;
- architect immediately gets agreement for detailed design and starts works as soon as possible.

Exact time schedule to be announced after some weeks.

Wow, isn't it going a little too fast?? I was already used to the turtle-speed of works around Kipsala....

This is just awesome! :eek:

And imho "The Wall" shouldn't be built anywhere, at least not with this design. It's just too long, too massive. :down:

bah i absouletly knew the Wall was from Kosmos, a great architecture bureau by all means, just the wall was utterly bad! I dont know what were they thinking!

I think that they (Kosmos) just played fools - proposed something extraordinary what would rise interest but without much practical background. May be they thought that their project would stick out - just like conceptcars in exhibitions - unusable but crazy ideas which attract attention to their makers.
But Riga accepts crazy ideas sometimes, if they are usable.

/\ 90% of their works is extraordinary, this was just downright stupid iMO.
But it seems doing it again on such a scale worked, they did get mentioned ;)

Whose Homepage, thanks! :) It is a very nice place to be, speaking frankly, the first forum i'm interested in actively reading and making small contributions (i.e., a couple of sentences of my humble opinions ;)

the most funniest thing i discovered some days ago is that here in LV building companies usually provide only 2 years of warranty period for highrise constructions :D (in most cases; well, our consumer rights protection law requires this as minimum) .. this was brought up to public attention after some piece of glass (or a window??) fell down from Hansabank building..

I'm glad to hear you enjoy yourself here at S&B, vanniken. :) Perhaps you realize that you are privileged to be in very choice company here ;) and also really lucky to live in Riga. I met Maris and Gatis there last summer and also got to see some of the countryside. :cool:

The deal about the 2-year warranty on buildings seems a tad short indeed. That's OK for clothes and kitchen utensils :D but not even long enough for furniture, but for buildings? Definitely insufficient.

Sorry to hear that that piece of glass fell out of Saules Akmens, and I hope it was an isolated incident. We can't have shoddy workmanship in that jewel of a highrise building! :(

Nobody understood why that piece fell. When Saules akmens was built, they said that elephant might try to run through glass - and he will not succeed. When that glass crushed, producer said that may be a bird did it... just added that this is unlikely.

At beginning there was noticed small fracture in glass - but after some hours it crushed itself and fell down. Not pleasant.

An elephant vs. a bird ... doesn't quite make sense.

I sincerely hope this was a freak accident that won't repeat itself. :angel1:

hehe i was also 100% certain that the wall was by estonians :D

@Jarmo - no need to put down Estonians :) You are ranked very high among Latvians. S**t happens with anyone.

have to agree with Gatis here.. the percentage of people who can call themselves estoniaphiles here in LV is pretty high ;) in general, there is an assumption, that nearly everything in EE is better than LV

->WH, I noticed the reputation of Gatis' work here at S&B and I do not feel like able to provide any competition to his talent, maybe just some bits of additional info sometimes here and there; though it's nice to know that You and most of the people here have nice thoughts about Riga.. and I must admit that there are zillions of things here that deserve to be loved :)

have to agree with Gatis here.. the percentage of people who can call themselves estoniaphiles here in LV is pretty high ;) in general, there is an assumption, that nearly everything in EE is better than LV



really? this is quite surprising... =)

really? this is quite surprising... =)

it is surprising!

Yes, in general people in Latvia really do assume that people in Estonia live better.

ch1le, jarmo.. considering the fact, that for most people in LV the main experience in EE is visiting Tallinn (thru Parnu) and Otepää (during winter months), there is no surprise, actually.. these places are considerably well developed and leave the impression that EE is rather wealthy country (in this context - better than LV).. rarely an average LV citizen tries to understand, that these are resort (tourist attraction) places, so everything should be on highest level there, 'cause these are country representation places.. but you know, this is good old logic - foreign places usually seem to be better than local ones, at least due to their uniqueness for visitors.. however, there ARE a lot of things in EE that are better developed than here in LV, for inst., economy in general and data (all kinds of) transmission infrastructure.. but this is topic for endless discussions, so I will try to avoid further conversation on this matter ;)

or open separate thread for it ;)
Visit to north-east Estonia or walk around Paldiski might change opinion about Estonia to worse... although those are not Estonians who create this landscape.

true, vanniken. to me as well - latvia seems much cooler and better, thanks to riga and latvian people. not that i don't like tallinn or estonians. exactly like you said about the good old logic (:

vanniken - nice to have another fine latvian member in the forum! =)

this has become quite ot. hmm...

some amsterdam pics:

:D

http://www.netsplit.com/events/2002/amsterdam/amsterdam-013.jpg

http://www.netsplit.com/events/2002/amsterdam/amsterdam-007.jpg

http://www.friendlyplanet.com/images/amsterdam-aerial-big.jpg

http://davem.ncsa.uiuc.edu/pictures/netherlands_2000/amsterdam-house_boat.jpg

http://www.lingeman.com/gallery/albums/Amsterdam/116_1635_IMG.jpg









riga - paris of the north. and soon: paris AND amsterdam of the north (:

->WH, I noticed the reputation of Gatis' work here at S&B and I do not feel like able to provide any competition to his talent, maybe just some bits of additional info sometimes here and there; though it's nice to know that You and most of the people here have nice thoughts about Riga.. and I must admit that there are zillions of things here that deserve to be loved :)

Indeed, that's so true! :) And it's also true that we are lucky to have the (practically) omniscient kind, wise and wonderful Gatis here. :okay:


Well, I think that, now that the design competition is closed and our preferred design was chosen :banana: we do have an opporttunity to continue talking in this thread about this and that, as we may feel. For instance about the issues vanniken raised: the difference of data transmission facilities among the various countries, how people might get an undeservedly good impression of a country by visiting a showplace or two ...

But I do think it's time to close the poll.

about project made by KOSMOS.

I think they made most clear and most conceptual work for this competition. That wall, to my mind, was made with such easiness and irony which is charachteristic to contemporary dutch architecture. To make more square meters in the best place - those are usually hidden aims of investors and those brave estonian guys fulfill those dreams.
And they made it with such elegance - so i think the special prise they get was equitable.

For those who reading latvian:
http://www.a4d.lv/notikumi/687/

sorry others - i'm not that good in english and haven't that much time to translate it in english.

also the picture gallery of winning project:
http://www.a4d.lv/notikumi/686/

Good article, @Artis! :) (No time to translate)

Having seen these pictures of Amsterdam [Which are lovely, by the way], I would say that this new project could be more accurately called "Little Bergen" than "Little Amsterdam".

also the picture gallery of winning project:
http://www.a4d.lv/notikumi/686/

Thank you for that site, Artis! :)

Seems to me these architects are good at low to medium height buildings, but their talls lack punch and originality.

it is surprising!

Latvians are famouse as one of the most negatively thinking poeple in Europe. Always when a survey is made about what do you think about this or that Latvians more than anybdy instead of bad usu very bad and instead of average use bad.
And to think that everywhere else everything is better is in Latvian blood.

Tehere is a joke - our neighbours have everything better, just we have better neighbours :)

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/5294/0606kliversalajvklv5ct.jpg
Kliversala (pic taken some five years ago)

Happy are those poeple who managed to get apaprtmentsthere in this area. Ether for certificates or even for money. The price of real estate in this area will rise incredibly in the nearest future...Omas and opas and average citizens lving tehre now can turn into REAL real estate monsters :)

Dense, Round, High! It looks amazing. It's the best. Beehive Cells looks also OK, though a bit unimaginative. Matchsticks - I don't like the unsymmetrical window-design of the houses so much. We have one such highrise in Tallinn - Maakri street and IMHO it would be better with some other design. Fake Amsterdam looks just like it says, fake.