Zaha Hadid Architects has been selected to masterplan a 13.9-hectare area of Novorossiysk, Russia’s largest shipping port and the third busiest in Europe by turnover. Located on the black sea coast, connecting Russia with the Mediterranean, atlantic ocean, and Suez Canal, the industrial city offers direct links to rail and highway networks.

Our video shows the conceptual idea of ‘instancing’ in which nine iterations of a single form evolve in a gradient across the site. The diagrams capture like in time-lapse photography nine instances of its subject over a period of time, this evolution sequence becomes the masterplan itself. The digital computational model performs as an urban planning tool analyzing many different programmatic, environmental and socio-economic conditions to define the new buildings within the masterplan.