The site of the complex is located on one of the city’s main thoroughfares linking Astana Airport with the city’s business centre, within a rapidly developing district that is currently being actively built up. The description “rapidly developing” applies equally to the city as a whole: since becoming the capital in 1998, Astana’s population has grown almost fivefold, while its area has expanded by 500 sq km. Having acquired the status of a “city of the world”, Kazakhstan’s new million-plus capital has become a centre of convergence for different peoples, cultures and styles. Yet the strength of global metropolises today lies in the formation of their own identity, and alongside districts inspired by English or Dutch urban models, the city also needs a residential architecture of its own character.

ATRIUM proposed its own vision: the prototype for the project’s principal architectural idea was the cross-section of a decorative stone — Kazakhstan is rich in gemstones. The pattern of this complex structure, taken as a graphic basis, resolved the project’s main architectural and artistic tasks in a single gesture. First, it generated the non-linear form of the quarter, in which the outlines of the buildings seem to follow the lines of a pattern as if created by nature itself. To some extent, this is indeed the case: the positioning and form of the buildings are determined by the wind rose, orientation to the cardinal points and solar exposure. The main direction of the pedestrian street forms the urban framework of the proposed development. As a result, a multi-layered hierarchy of public and private spaces is established.