Architectural Company WORKac has won a world-wide competition to revamp St. Petersburg’s eighteenth century architectural monument the New Holland Island. The New York-based designers created a plan to make a public park, where the topography will outline an outside amphitheater and performance space, and changes to old buildings will make them available for a variety of cultural uses. Firms from around the globe had been invited to the competition. A total of eight companies submitted their applications.

The 19.8-acre island, which Peter the Great developed as the country’s first military port in 1721, will be opened to the public for the first time in its history. WORKac beat out David Chipperfield from London, MVRDV from Rotterdam, and Studio 44 from St. Petersburg in the final round of the competition.

WORKac partners Amale Andraos and Dan Wood hope to turn the island into a “cultural city within a city,” tapping into St. Petersburg’s deep cultural resources. “Our project maximizes the potential of the amazing historic structures on the island,” stated Mr. Andraos and Mr. Wood.

“By concentrating on subtraction, rather than the addition of new architectural elements, we were able to carve new spaces in the existing warehouses, linked by a public promenade.”

The architects plan to build a landscaped “wedge” with a park on top and infrastructure (such as parking and a cogeneration power facility) tucked below. They also propose a large tent that can be erected for temporary exhibitions and disassembled later.

Construction is expected to begin by the winter of 2012 and take seven years, said Mr. Andraos. “In the meantime, the client hopes to seed the project with temporary uses to bring the public to the site,” Mr. Andraos added.

The ambitious project is being built by New Holland Development and the Iris Foundation, a nonprofit contemporary art organization in Russia founded in 2008 by Dasha Zhukova.