Naberezhnye Chelny is an industrial mono city not far from Kazan, Russia. Much of the city was constructed to serve one of the world’s largest vehicle factories. Filling the void between Old Town and New Town, Naberezhnye Chelny’s New Centre for Living is designed to be an integral part of the city, providing 16 000 residents with an unprecedented quality of life. The main challenge was to marry the ambition to achieve a European feel with the unique local context and the specificity of local regulations. An innovative block size, hybrid building typologies and asymmetric street profiles create a human-scale, yet context-sensitive development.

The plan features close to 500 000 square metres residential NFA as well as a campus, kindergardens, a central public plaza, retail facilities and work places, a public park along the Chelny creek as well as public transportation links. Housing is organised in clusters of two to three blocks, each benefitting from their own semi-public courtyards while sharing social infrastructures as well as recreational and commercial facilities.

Construction is scheduled to begin in 2016.