projects

Ekaterinburg-EXPO Congress Center

Building area: 41,600 sq. m
Floors: 4 floors
Capacity: up to 5,000 spectators
Customer: "Sinara-Development”
Status: Construction finished in 2019

In 2011, the first phase of the Ekaterinburg-Expo exhibition center was put into operation in Yekaterinburg.
Since then, four pavilions have been built on its territory, the complex has hosted many exhibitions and events at the city, on both Russian and international levels.
In 2019, the fifth building of the complex, the Congress Hall, was put into operation.
At the moment, this is the largest public building in Yekaterinburg, it is equipped with the latest technology and can be transformed for a large variety of events.
The draft design of the Congress Hall was created by the design company R1.
They determined the main volume-spatial solution and facades.
The project was agreed with the customer, but the customer wished to revise the layout and functional filling of the Congress Hall, the technology of the main hall and conference rooms.
In August 2017, PLAN B was invited to act as the general designer of this building, bring the project to the working stage and carry out construction management.
In order to optimize technologies and engineering systems, taking into account all the new wishes of the customer, we had to completely redraw all planning decisions, and therefore all interiors.
We tried to follow the general facade idea of R1 design bureau.
Our task was not to change the spatial composition, but we needed to link it with the new technical task from the customer.
Therefore, we also redesigned the technological solution of the facade.
Thus, we participated in all stages of the design and construction of this building: from making changes to the sketch, through passing the state examination to creating working documentation for construction and architectural supervision.
Working with subcontractors The situation was complicated by the fact that the project was being implemented in a very short time, moreover, due to the changing economic situation, the customer was forced to change the terms of reference twice.
We have been working on this project for two years, during which time we have issued 143 sections of working documentation.
Of course, we would not have been able to do this without two dozen of sub-design organizations that had been involved as subcontractors in the project under our leadership.The Congress Hall project contained a huge number of technological and engineering systems, each of them was designed by professionals in their field. For example, engineering systems and stage equipment were designed by theater and stage equipment engineers.
Different specialists designed different multimedia equipment for all congress halls.
The interior of the atrium, the main lobby is really worth mentioning. This interior was designed by our friends and partners, the Kvadrat bureau. We only managed to assemble as complex a space as this atrium foyer because of close cooperation and constant interaction between architects and designers.
Coordinating many subcontractors located in different cities and different time zones was a new valuable experience that we received on this project. Our responsibility was to coordinate their work and interaction between them, and we succeeded.
The biggest stage in the city The Congress Hall was supposed to be a unique building in terms of use of metal structures, so unique contractors were involved in the creation of the project. For the design of structures, we invited the "Proektstalkonstruktsiya" Institute and for the implementation - a specialized enterprise "Kurganstalmost". "Proektstalkonstruktsiya" Institute had previously designed several large-span structures for our city, for example, the Palace of team sports. Kurganstalmost is usually engaged in construction of bridges and large-span
structures in various cities of our country and abroad. In Yekaterinburg, the organization has already took part in the construction of
one landmark object - the Central Stadium.
The largest span of floors in the Congress Hall is 45 meters. To create it, giant metal beams with 2 meters of the section height in the form of an I-beam were used. Thus, in this project we were able to gain experience with unique metal structures.
Transformable space The most important task for us was to create the most mobile, transformable space. And this is not only the possibility of changing the space itself, but also the engineering systems in it. Conference halls of the Congress Hall have mobile partitions and can be combined with each other, but also their multimedia systems (sound, light) can work together or separately.
The central atrium can function as an exhibition or buffet space. For this purpose, hidden sockets are provided in the columns, allowing you to place and connect exhibition equipment.
The central hall with a stage is designed to seat 4,000 people. Another use case is when the porter seats are removed and a fan zone is organized in their place. Thus, there are 3,000 seats and 2,000 standing places in the hall. In addition, the stage itself can be completely removed, and form a single space platform on one level together with the porter. This area can be used, for example, for organizing sports events. The stage pockets have mobile outlets for sinks and additional plumbing fixtures. Thus, all spaces of the Congress Hall have a very high degree of mobility and can be adapted to a variety of needs, for a variety of uses.
The building was designed taking the requirements necessary for the reception of the first person into account. For buildings the president can visit, there are certain requirements from the security service. The building of the Congress Hall fully corresponds to them. Events with the participation of top officials have already taken place in the Congress Hall. In the course of working on this project, we gained experience not only in coordinating different subcontractors, but also in working with different customers. The presidential protocol service, for example.