Let us remind you that the project of the Skolkovo innovation center, which was launched in 2010, has gone through several important stages: an urban planning concept has been developed (a project by the French bureau AREP Ville); the territory is divided into districts, for each of which architects-curators have been selected, preparing a detailed planning project; identified and localized objects that play the role of architectural and urban planning dominants; the first open competition for projects of residential quarters in the Technopark area was held; Approval of town planning documentation is nearing completion (general designer - SPEECH Choban & Kuznetsov). The appearance of the future city is taking on more and more concrete outlines, and today the attention of experts who are members of the Skolkovo City Planning Council is focused on environmental parameters that determine the perception of the city from the point of view of its inhabitant or guest. What should be the environment? How explicit should the features be in it that correspond to the innovative orientation of the city, or should comfort and traditional methods of design of residential and public spaces be put at the forefront? The two-day work of the City Council was devoted to the discussion of these very issues.
The first to present the results of his research was Matthis van Dijk, Professor of the Department of Applied Design, Delft University of Technology (Netherlands). On the initiative of Oleg Alekseev, vice-president of the Skolkovo Foundation, a group of scientists led by a Dutch specialist analyzed the master plan of the innovation city from the point of view of the influence of architecture on innovation culture. The most criticized was the Central District Z-1, which, in the opinion of Professor Van Dyck, should more actively promote communications between the two main objects of the innovation city - the University (district D-3) and Technopark (district D-2).
Another recommendation was the proposal to create a special institute whose functions would include working out a strategy for the development of an innovative culture based on economic and social research, as well as interaction between all parties involved in the activity of the innovation city.
Van Dyck's announcement was followed by a presentation of the Z-1 area itself. This central zone of the innovation city, interpreted as the main entrance for guests and the focus of social life, has the most important urban planning significance. It is no coincidence that the curators of this zone were the SANAA bureau, headed by the Pritzker Prize winner Kazuya Sejima, and the Rem Koolhas bureau OMA. A year ago, the Japanese proposed to build a huge (almost 300 meters in diameter) dome at the entrance, and the Dutch - to install a little further, in the center of the public space, a multifunctional building, similar to a giant cube placed on one of the corners. The composition of two such contrasting objects, amazing in boldness and innovation, made a great impression on the management of the Foundation, and since then work has been going on on their functional content and constructive solution. And if with the second part everything is more or less clear: at the Suzdal City Council, the representative of OMA, Rainier de Graaf, presented two options for ensuring the structural stability of the "Rock", then with the first there are still many problems. In particular, the "Dome", according to the authors' plan, can be built up only in its lowest part, so that practically the entire volume will remain empty, which makes its construction exclusively subsidized. In addition, as the plans for the rest of the districts were developed, each of which provided for the creation of its own public centers, it became obvious that the innovation city simply did not need such a number of public spaces and facilities. And even the prospect of holding the G-8 summit in 2014, which is planned to be located on the territory of Z-1, does not solve the problem of their surplus. In general, the layout of the Central Zone is quite far from the level of specificity that other areas of the future innovation city can already boast of.
A rather lively discussion was caused by the presentation of the complex of buildings of the University (area D-3). Herzog & de Meuron architects have created an interesting system of 3 superimposed structures: staggered rectangular blocks of laboratories; circular buildings of different diameters, which house offices, research centers and classrooms; as well as arcs and circles located inside circles, serving as a kind of communication corridors between different parts of the complex.
Such a structure will make it possible, according to the authors' plan, to make most of the complex accessible to everyone, but this idea has raised more questions than enthusiasm for a number of experts. In particular, the president of the RAASN and the former rector of the Moscow Architectural Institute, Alexander Kudryavtsev, expressed the opinion that safety requirements would inevitably lead to the closure of most of the passages and thus effectively cancel out the proposed concept. The only way out is to analyze security issues and the main traffic flows, clearly defining the trajectory of passage through the University.
Aaron Betsky, Director of the Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (USA), made an interesting presentation. The Skolkovo Foundation invited him to develop a concept for creating a complex at the intersection of architecture and contemporary digital art. According to Betsky, the creation of such a Digital Art Museum will not only attract a large number of visitors to Skolkovo, but will also help to qualitatively improve the environment of the innovation city and create a creative atmosphere.
Aaron Betsky's perspective illustrates one of two actively discussed strategies for creating an innovative environment at the City Council. It is characterized by a provocative and deliberately futuristic approach to the formation of buildings, which will stimulate people to constantly move forward in an attempt to overtake the present and achieve more and more revolutionary results. A different understanding of the environment that is most conducive to research activities was suggested by the curators of the D-1 district - Sergey Tchoban (SPEECH Tchoban & Kuznetsov) and Alexander Schwartz (David Chipperfield architects). In their opinion, the aggressive-futuristic style has no perspective - it is good as a one-time and narrowly localized action, and not as a method of forming residential or public buildings. Any person engaged in intellectual and research work needs, first of all, comfort and stability. It was from these positions that the characteristic quarterly development of the “Yuzhny” district, reminiscent of the center of St. Petersburg, was designed. And Suzdal, with its pacifying atmosphere, has become the best confirmation of the correctness of this point of view.
In general, it should be noted that the ancient city made a great impression on all the participants of the City Council. Its scale and number of inhabitants are quite close to the parameters of Skolkovo, and at first glance, a paradoxical comparison of an old town full of architectural monuments and a future innovation city, which is still being projected, helped the City Council participants to realize the variety of methods of creating a comfortable environment.
Following the meeting, the City Council decided to create a special commission on the urban environment under the leadership of Aaron Betsky and Grigory Revzin,which will coordinate the activities of designers and seek the most harmonious combination of public and private spaces, buildings and parks, transport infrastructure, etc. Another important decision made at this meeting of the City Planning Council was the approval of the concept of an exposition dedicated to the Skolkovo innovation center project in the Russian pavilion at the XIII International Architecture Biennale in Venice.
Since the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation categorically prohibits the publication of any images of the future exposition, the pavilion commissioner Grigory Revzin and Sergei Tchoban (co-curators: Sergei Kuznetsov and Valery Kashirin), chosen as the curator of the exposition for the second time in a row, had to verbally convey to the audience the advantages of their concept. The desire to present at the most authoritative architectural exhibition a project of an innovation city, which has no analogues in world practice and brought together leading designers, prompted the curators to search for the most effective and innovative solution. The Skolkovo "Embassy" will be decorated with architectural and urban planning projects and presentations of technical innovations developed for the city. A separate section of the exposition will be devoted to a kind of analogs of Skolkovo - Soviet science cities, which are interesting urban planning and architectural experiments that very few people could get acquainted with until now. At the same time, the curators promise that high-tech technologies will allow to get away from stereotypical methods of displaying design and text materials and create a special information-rich and artistically shaped environment inside the pavilion.
