Eric Owen Moss - Republic Square

With this great project Eric Owen Moss participated in architectural contest
of developing the last "untouched" corner of the Republic Suare - the central point of Almaty.

Another competitor is Zaha Hadid (one of my fovourite architects), I was trying to find her proposal, but no luck. I can't wait to see it!

Anyway in occasion of this Almaty Republic Square contest Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles organize exhibition from February 23 till April 22, 2007. So probably we will see very soon Zaha Hadid's project.

There is no information about this contest in local kazakh press which seem rather weird.

The only thing I know that Eric Owen Moss was invited to Almaty last August by TSE construction company to judge the contest for "Dostyk" office complex between LaguardaLow, NBBJ, Aedas and Ravael Vinoly.

Here is full description of Republic Suare project from Eric Owen Moss site:

Located directly adjacent to the former capitol building of The Republic of Kazakhstan, the Republic Square project is the major component of large-scale, city-wide development. The project consists of approximately 126,000 sq. meters of retail, office, hotel, and residential uses. At the ground floor, a new city plaza is created within a 38 meter diameter spiral. This enclosed plaza or “winter garden” connects the former capitol site to the west with large scale retail and housing areas to the east. The spiral is structural and provides the major support system for the building above. As the building meets the spiral structure, the single building mass splits into five as it is inserted between the rings of the spiral. The five areas that are contained within the spiral become suspended public venues for entertainment, gathering, art, or any variety of currently unforeseen urban activities. Courtyards of varying sizes are located between each of these venues to bring natural light through the building and into the spiral plaza below. Each of the four courtyards are located and shaped based on the four seasons of the year.

Almaty. New Year Celebrating

While googling I found a blog of Kirill076 with fantastic pictures of Almaty celebrating new 2007 year. Impressive! Great pictures of great city! Thanx Kirill.

photos (c) Kirill076

Air Astana Boosts International and Domestic Flights From Almaty

photo (c) Roma Iljushenko

According to Interfax.KZ 4th Airbus-320 Air Astana arrived in Almaty airport last week. Company plans to recieve in the fist half of a year another A-320, two A-321 and two long distance Boeing 767 crafts.

Due to these new arrivals Air Astana announced 6 new weekly flights to Astana (two now, other 4 later).
1 weekly flight Almaty - Aktobe more making the service dayly.
3 flights more Almaty - Aktau.
1 flight more Almaty - Uralsk.

Besides of it Air Astana starts its 3rd weekly flight Almaty - London LHT from 25 of January.
2nd Almaty - Seoul ICN flight from the end of February 2007
Almaty - Beiging will became 6 times /week instead of 4 weekly flights now

Mercury Headquarters by AEDAS

Aedas established its new office in Almaty in year 2005. It has already created the classy Radisson SAS Medeu Hotel which will be completed in 2009. Aedas also partesipadet in competion of "Dostyk" office project, but till today we don't know who won it.



Anyway here is a new project of Mercury headquaters, nice piece of contemporary architecure

here is the description of the project:

The principle of the design is to reinforce through imagery the relationship between the building, the occupants and the city in which it is located. In this respect we have taken the identity of Almaty, the town of apples, and generated a design response based on the structure of the apple and the process which is undertaken in revealing the contents.When developing the design of the building the intention was also to conceive a building fabric which somehow blended in with the surrounding environment and further developed the relationship to the concept of apples and the natural cycle of growth. In this context the intention is that the skin of the building reflects the characteristics of the apple itself, in that the fabric is completely made of glass consisting of panels of which some are clear to allow views in and out of the building, while others are opaque with light sensitive film in the glass that will change colour between shades of red and green with the intensity of the sunlight, therefore corresponding in colour to both the changing seasons and the colour of the trees that surround the building.Whilst the organic form of the building is important in reinforcing the relationship of The Mercury Headquarters to the city of Almaty, the name of the company and the nature of the business also suggest an image which contains a certain amount of fluidity and relationship to liquid mechanics.

Site Area: 8718 sqm
Floor Area: 21,144 sqm

RECORD - ALMATY AIRPORT GOT ITS N. 2.000.000 passenger

photo (c) Roma Iljuschenko

According to Almaty Intl. Airport Internet site the year 2006 was very successful.

29 of December it was registered 2.000.000 th passenger! Almaty airport had 23% passengers more then in 2005, its quite a number!

2006 has began with Lithuanian "Aurela" which opened derect weekly flight Vilnius - Almaty.

Afganian "Kam Air" began its weekly service in January between Almaty and Kabul.

In March Georgian National Airlines started its weekly flight Almaty - Tbilisi (2 weekly flights from October)

Lufthansa boosted its its connection with Frankfurt from 5 to 7 a week changing the airplane to Airbus-340.

Almaty - Karaganda domestic dayly flight started in March served by Air Astana

Uzbekistan Airways from 5 times a week made dayly Almaty - Tashkent

From October 2006 Air Astana makes 15 flights a week instead of 11 before to Moscow.

Russian S7 Airlines opened its new rout 3 times a week from Chelyabinsk.

Air Astana from 3 times a week made Almaty - Dubai route dayly.

Air Astana started also Almaty - Bangkok 3 times a week from October.

The year 2007 should be very interesting for Almaty Airport, first of all because in August 2007 the second runway will be completed and the construction of a new international terminal is goining to be started. Besides of it Air Astana announced its 3rd weekly direct flight to London - Heathrow starting January 2007.

There are many real rumors that PIA - Pakistan Intl. Airlines and Austrian Airlines will resume service to Almaty from Karachi and Vienna, suspended due to hard economic situation in Kazakhstan in late '90's.

Air Astana plans to start summer flights between Almaty and neighbouring Kyrgyz resort Cholpon-Ata. Bisedes of it there were strong rumors about opening Almaty - Astana - Milan flight, it didn't happened in 2006, may be this year..?

Hong Kong and Kazakhstan probably will be connected by air this year, the president Nazarbayev signed the papers two weeks ago during his visit to China.

Saudi Arabian Airlines's and Iranian Kish Air are planning to start flights to Kazakhstan also.

The year 2007 I hope will become the year of development for Almaty Iintl. Airport and turning it to some kind of international air hub.. we will see..