Bureau ASADOV are experienced in airport design: they have built several very famous new terminals, such as Gagarin in Saratov, Bolshoye Savino in Perm or the recently opened Leonov in Kemerovo, and have designed many more, and continue to actively work with the typology. The architects had worked with the Omsk airport before, for another regional government. For the new competition they proposed a different concept. And even two options.
The concept is called “Bridge” – because the airport is a bridge between earth and sky, as well as between different cities.
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
The authors take as their starting point both the international West Siberian Exhibition, which was held in Omsk in 1911, and the Trans-Siberian Railway bridge across the Irtysh, built in 1896, along which visitors to this Siberian EXPO arrived from the European part. Architects compare the location of buildings on the airport territory with pavilions, and the façade lattice with bridge structures.
Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option © AB ASADOV
The similarity with a bridge in the project is emphasized by two supports placed slightly forward under the consoles of the arch of the main facade. They are needed to support the flying corners, but they are also needed figuratively: decorated with green hills, these imposts would indeed resemble supports rooted in the ground, and the entire façade would seem like a fragment “cut out” from a long bridge.
Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option © AB ASADOV
If you look closely at the pavilions of the 1911 exhibition, you can also find lattice structures there, especially in wood. And among modern references, the authors cite canopies over power lines designed by Grigory Guryanov in the Brateevskaya floodplain.
Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option © AB ASADOV
This way we get a wide range of references. But it is important that the ASADOV option is optimally simple in terms of design; the experience of designing airports in different cities comes into play here: this is a large terminal hangar, designed to be scaled by adding wings on the right and left.
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
And the main attention is paid to the shell.
The main façade is glass, but in front of the glass there is a voluminous metal lattice of a brownish tint: Corten immediately comes to mind, and they probably also considered it, but then the word copper flashes in the description – both options would be possible here. And the lattice design, in addition to contextual references, is also motivated by the authors’ ease of maintenance in winter: since all the protrusions are thin, large icicles will not form on them and snow will not accumulate.
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
This creates a rather jewelry-like image: both the glass and the reddish metal shine – in the case of copper this would be especially noticeable, and in the case of corten there would be a textural tension between the shine and the matte reddish surface. But we must admit that the metal lattice with its emphasized outlets is no less reminiscent of a wooden one; plastically it can be compared to modern wooden structures. The memory of Su Fujimoto’s gridiron ring for Osaka does not go away so easily. Moreover, ASADOV managed to work for the EXPO, and also – the arc of the main facade with this project seems to be round in a ring.
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
However, the zigzag of column-trusses supporting the transition to the railway station again brings thoughts back to the Trans-Siberian Bridge. Which, by the way, was preserved, only in 1935 another one was built in parallel next to it, for better trafficability of the highway.
Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option © AB ASADOV
The interior continues the theme of a volumetric lattice, but here the space is delineated into three dimensions by strips of lamps and ceiling structures – where they are open. The color is distinctly copper, and in the main hall the note of “river” flexibility is enhanced by perforated wavy ribbons on the ceiling, above the lamps. The authors offered plants that were not only living and real, but also characteristic of the region.
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
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Airport “Omsk-Fedorovka”. Bridge. Competition project. 1 option
© AB ASADOV
The second option is also a bridge, but not in a steampunk, but in a modern way: a white wing made of triangles above the entrance.
All together, it noticeably resembles the outline of a landed bird, akin to a pterodactyl, with long, sinewy bats and a leather hood fluffed over its head. If the airport needed expansion, the bird would open the “webs” at its shoulders.
