The international competition was held in two stages: first, the jury studied the portfolios of 14 well-known design bureaus from Germany, France, Holland, Spain, Great Britain and Russia, and then 3 teams from them were invited to develop the campus project. Ostozhenka JSB and ACXT bureau from Spain became Mecanoo's rivals. On April 28, in the auditorium of the Academic Council of the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys (MISiS), the heads of these three architectural companies held public presentations of their competitive projects.
Recall that the campus of the National Research Technological University (NUST MISIS) should be built about 10 km from Moscow. It is planned that it will become one of the largest innovation centers in the nearest Moscow region and the city-forming structure of Project 101, within the framework of which 13 thousand hectares between the Kaluzhskoye highway and the metropolitan area of Yuzhnoye Butovo are built up with housing and commercial real estate. For the implementation of the campus project, the project developer - the company "Masshtab" - donated a plot of 100 hectares to the university. It was this territory that became the subject of the competitive design: the participants of the competition had to think over in detail the layout of the future campus, finding a place in it for research laboratories, and for comfortable educational buildings, and for student dormitories and sports complexes.
The highest number of points (76) was scored by the project of the architectural bureau Mecanoo, which proposed a spectacular appearance and at the same time the most flexible structure of a campus filled with greenery. JSB "Ostozhenka", which proposed the concept of a complex of student dormitories "on their feet", visually reminiscent of the main building of MISiS on Leninsky Prospekt, was not far behind: 61 points (the jury considered the project very well-developed, but too traditional). The Spanish bureau ACXT, based on the layout of the campus with hexagonal modules of various configurations, received 43 points from the experts.
In awarding the victory to Mecanoo, the jury chaired by ECA Edinburgh Professor Emeritus Brian Edwards also commended the new campus's well-thought-out connections to the residential and business districts that will be built around it. The architects under the leadership of Francine Huben managed to organically "solder" the campus into the urban planning concept of the A101 Project. However, this is not surprising, since Mecanoo's portfolio includes more than a dozen urban planning projects, including those related to university architecture: the library of the Technical University in Delft, the Sports College in Utrecht, the Mathematical and Science Park in Amsterdam and others.
The final draft of the general development plan with an area of 400 thousand square meters. m. should be ready by the end of 2011, and the entire university campus, designed for 10 thousand students, is planned to be built in 7-10 years.
