Total building area: 127 868,4 m² 

Site area: 4,3828 hectares 

Location: Baku, Azerbaijan 

Status: concept 

Team: Ihor Osadchuk, Pavlo Hladkevych, Tetiana Tsvirko, Victoria Chuchupalova, Nataliia Prystenska, Kate Misech

The residential complex is located on the picturesque shore of the Caspian Sea, in the resort village of Sea Breeze Resort, which was developed in accordance with the “city within a city” concept with its own infrastructure. 

The project is distinguished by a height of buildings that is atypical for the seacoast (the tallest tower is 33 floors). Thus, our team was faced with the most important task - to implement, first, earthquake-resistant construction, capable of ensuring the integrity of the building during an earthquake of magnitude 9. The seismic resistance of the AQUA residential complex is ensured using materials of the appropriate specification in construction, as well as fundamental solutions that increase the resistance of the entire building. 

The AQUA project was created in a bionics-inspired manner, allowing items to seamlessly integrate into their surroundings. Bionic architecture replicates the beautiful lines that surround us in the biosphere, allowing each project to be evaluated independently based on the terrain and surrounding objects. Bio-tech buildings are very distinctive and deserve notice.  

The key idea of zoning is the placement of compact residential parts of houses on rather long stylobate parts, which perform commercial and office functions, and also form a semi-closed courtyard, leaving narrow passages and driveways. 

This configuration avoided the typical scheme of long perimeter structures, which, along with radial compact forms oriented north in narrow areas, allows the apartments with spacious terraces to get a lot of light. 

In addition, thanks to the reduction in the number of floors towards the sea, it was possible to obtain many apartments with views, despite the high building density. 

The visual image of Aqua highlights its functions, and given the location, class of the project and the height of the buildings, the complex turns into a dominant feature among other projects and forms a point of attraction. 

That is why Aqua architecture is unique: it is distinguished by a strong dynamic of shapes and colors, created primarily by the displacement of openings in the perimeter terraces on each floor, as well as hinged sun-shading structures on the southern facades made of colored and white dichrome decorative glass, which can change color depending on the point of view. In fact, these two elements create the illusion of forms moving (flowing) continuously. 

The stylobate components are composed of 3D panels and a continuous curtain glass facade, emphasizing their commercial purpose. Each stylobate roof and a portion of the roofs of residential buildings are in use, and they incorporate recreation areas with swimming pools and landscaping, open bars, and sports fields, which helped to create enough recreational areas despite the design site's intense development.  

The complex's multi-storey surface and subterranean parking lots provide an adequate amount of parking spots. 

The landscaping and improvement on the complex's grounds properly reflect the project's main idea and are dotted with several artificial reservoirs such as springs, fountains, and pools. Curvilinear planting zones with artificial hills and main pedestrian corridors produce a complex environment, which is frequently lacking in the flat coastal zone. The landscaping zones additionally split the site into several semi-closed functional zones, isolating them not only from the flow of city streets but also from pedestrian flows within the project site.