We live in the post-industrial age, however, about a quarter of the territory of Moscow, a third of the area of St. Petersburg (similar to the ratio in Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg …) is occupied by the territories of factories and plants of various specializations and construction times. Most of these territories are no longer needed by industries, many of which have sunk into oblivion along with the USSR. Conversion, redevelopment of industrial buildings and territories is one of the most important areas for the development of urban planning, architecture and the modern Russian real estate market. The round table was dedicated to him: “To live, work and rest at the factory. Conversion of industrial buildings in the conditions of Russian reality”, which took place on May 31 as part of the PromoProm program organized by the Freedom of Access project with the support of Exopark. Exhibition Projects”at the first Moscow international festival“Arch Moscow”.
The roundtable participants had the opportunity to talk about specific examples of conversion, discuss the prospects for this area, and outline the problems facing designers and investors. Architects from the bureau Rozhdestvenka, Atrium, the bureau of Alexei Vorontsov and MNIIP Mosproekt-4 came here, who managed to encounter industrial buildings in their work. It was about different objects, although there were more projects related to the territories of pre-revolutionary factories and plants. It is here that, in addition to the standard problems of redevelopment of any industrial zone, the problems of rehabilitation and the inclusion of a site in the fabric of the city, there is also a desire to preserve ancient architecture.
Projects were presented for the Krasnaya Roza silk-weaving factory, for the Danilovskaya manufactory, for the Shcherbakovskaya embankment, the Aremkuz plant, the Bakhmetyevsky garage, the Arma, Geliymash, ZHBI No. 5 factories, two interiors of the Yandex company, which occupied the whole building of the former wool-weaving factory of Filippov and part of one of the buildings of the Elektroprovod plant. Acquaintance with these projects became an important component of the round table, since there is almost no information on this topic. Even the head of the department of industrial architecture at the Moscow Architectural Institute, Oskar Mamleev, said that he did not know about all the works mentioned, although the institute is monitoring the process and there are even interesting developments carried out by teachers together with graduate students. Anna Arushanyan, Deputy General Director for Development of the Property Complex, Director of the Development Department of Krasnaya Roza 1875 CJSC, raised the issues of environmental friendliness of the former industrial buildings, telling about the fumes in the dye shops converted into offices and how they fought the fungus that struck brick the walls of the former factory.
Most architects said that there is rarely a customer who is ready to preserve old buildings without special instructions from the heritage protection authorities. Everyone strives for the greatest output of space, despite the successful examples of conversion in world practice and the attempts of architects to come up with interesting design solutions that combine old buildings and new buildings. Those of the owners who do this also sometimes act strangely with the saved objects, for example, they plaster the brick inside to such an extent that it is no longer possible to open it to the delight of users.
Elena Gonzalez, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Project Russia magazine, touched upon the social aspect of the topic. Namely, even with the transformation of preserved buildings into office centers, and there are most of such examples at the moment, or in expensive housing, the territory, in fact, remains closed to citizens, although formally it is included in the transport structure of the city. Only one, the rarest version of the conversion, and most often temporary, in her opinion, is of interest to the city - the so-called "pads" - cultural and leisure centers created in the converted territories in the interval between the acquisition of the object and the final approval of the alteration project.
Unfortunately, 2 hours were not enough both for familiarization and for a full-fledged discussion. However, the organizers are confident that this is only the beginning of the "long journey", the "Promoprom" program will continue its work - those who come to the next meeting will already be better acquainted with the situation and will be able to pay more attention to its discussion.
