Moscow’s Zaryadye Park wins top architecture prize with ‘wild urbanist’ vision

The team behind Moscow’s Zaryadye Park has won a top architecture prize with their vision of “wild urbanism” in the heart of the Russian capital.

The park was named as ArchDaily’s Building of the Year in the Public Architecture category.

Zaryadye beat the Seoullo Skygarden in South Korea, the Pedra da Ra lookout point in Spain and a Danish multi-storey car park with a playground on the roof in order to snatch the top spot in a public vote, which saw with almost 100,000 people taking part.

The park was designed by New York-based consortium Diller Scofidio + Renfro, whose previous projects include High Line Park in New York City, the renovation of the prestigious Juilliard Arts School and Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art.

Once a lively river port, Zaryadye was home to the largest hotel in Europe — the Rossiya Hotel — before it was demolished in 2007.

The new space is Moscow’s first new public park in more than half a century, with designers creating four seperate zones — steppe, forest, wetland and tundra — around a theme of “wild urbanism”.