The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA, Rotterdam, Netherlands) consistently develops the concept of polycentric agglomeration, arguing that in Greater Moscow there should be not one center, or even two, but five. The project team proposes to openly admit that the city has long passed its administrative boundaries, and the current expansion of Moscow is only a formal fixation of what has actually already happened. From the team's point of view, the annexed southwest lands are an area of active housing construction and chaotic urbanization, the density of which increases as we move from the center to the periphery. According to OMA, it is important to reverse this trend and achieve a comfortable housing density in the annexed territory.
The architects proposed abandoning large-scale master planning and opted for a "series of interventions" in the satellite cities around Moscow. The team developed a strategy for the economic activation of the Moscow metropolitan area, in which airports should play a key role as points of attraction for labor activity. Thanks to this, a polycentric structure of employment will be formed, and smart transport planning and mixed use of territories will reduce the time and distance of daily travel. So, in Kommunarka, the theme of preserving the historical heritage will be the leitmotif: here, according to OMA, the Ministry of Culture and related departments can be located, a transport cluster will develop in Ostafyevo, a "clean" high-tech atom in Troitsk, and tourism in Aprelevka. An economic development center will be created in Bolshoy Domodedovo, and, accordingly, it will be convenient for the Ministry of Trade, and next to the Chkalovsky airport - for the customs service. A special economic zone will be formed in Zelenograd, contributing to the development of the IT cluster, education and science. The Ministry of Finance will move to Rublevka and begin to develop the country's financial center around itself. And in Solntsevo, where there is a lot of vacant land, a partial restoration of the green belt - the fiefdom of nature management and environmental protection agencies - will be carried out. Presenting the concept to the experts, the architects emphasized that the specific intervention program is very flexible and can change depending on the context and objectives.
As for the transfer of the federal government center to the annexed territories, here the OMA team remained true to its critical position in relation to the image of the Russian government. The architects are very unsympathetic that now the center of Moscow is only formally considered open to the public, while in practice the federal authorities occupy the most attractive real estate objects, making them inaccessible to ordinary citizens. According to OMA, the transfer of these structures can become a powerful tool for the development of the periphery, if it is implemented not as a megaproject, but again as a series of well-planned interventions, evenly distributed over the developing areas of the agglomeration. In addition, OMA experts drew attention to the fact that in addition to ministries, the executive branch has many federal services and departments with a large number of employees. In fact, these are back offices that ensure the day-to-day functioning of the authorities, and there is no reason to retain their place in the city center: on the contrary, interconnected ministries, departments and services need to be transferred together, as a single complex, ensuring good transport links between new centers and historical and with each other.
Unlike their Dutch colleagues, TsNIIP Urban Development (Moscow) sees Greater Moscow as a global and creative city. The strategy of TsNIIPgrad is aimed at improving the image of the Russian capital as a megalopolis of world importance, improving the quality of its living environment and investment attractiveness. According to the experts of the institute, today the capital suffers from an overabundance of transport, logistics and industrial infrastructure in industrial zones, most of which are used for other purposes, while vast green areas - the city's visiting card - are poorly accessible to people today, despite the fact that in Moscow has an average of 27 square meters per person. m. green spaces (in London, for comparison, only 9, in New York - 11). In general, according to the architects, the main problem of Moscow is that it is a city of extremely sharp contrasts: now you find yourself in a high-density city, now in a deep forest - that is why TsNIIPgrad calls for the development of the capital as a single space for life. And the easiest way to do this is through thoughtful growth, carried out in several stages. Firstly, it is the decentralization and relocation of part of business, logistics, industry and federal authorities to the southwestern territories, secondly, the new use of vacated spaces in the center, and, finally, the restoration of the green belt around the city and the development of public spaces. As the representatives of the team emphasize, the implementation of this ambitious plan requires, first of all, a thorough analysis of the relationship between the center and the periphery, and then a set of practical measures. Among the latter, there is a more thoughtful connection between the center and the periphery, the connection of Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports by high-speed off-street transport and the active use of territories along these traffic flows, as well as an increase in the growth of multifunctional satellite cities and the creation of sub-centers within the Moscow Ring Road, which will become anchors for the development of peripheral territories within the old city boundaries. Immediately beyond the Moscow Ring Road, it is proposed to create a protective forest belt, behind it a federal center, then a logistics center, and preserve a vast area on the border with the Kaluga Region as a natural reserve for the future growth of the city. It is proposed to extend the Moscow metro lines to Podolsk, Troitsk and Aprelevka and to saturate the annexed territory with transport hubs in order to ensure the maximum possible transport connection with Old Moscow.
Like TsNIIPgrad, the ANTOINE GRUMBACH ET ASSOCIÉS project team (Paris, France) in their speech focused on the paramount importance of transport infrastructure for the sustainable growth of the Moscow metropolitan area. According to French architects, the urban planning policy of the Russian capital should be based on the principle of priority transport development. In other words, not a single square meter of real estate in Moscow should be built without first providing public transport infrastructure. The authors based the general plan of the new territories on a quarter measuring 320 by 200 meters, 50% of green spaces, and two political centers of Greater Moscow - the Kremlin / Zaryadye and Kommunarka - proposed to be connected with a new metro line, which will consist of 12 stations. In addition, as part of the development of a multimodal transport system throughout the territory of Greater Moscow, it is proposed to introduce a single tariff, create transport hubs and intercept parking lots. The GRUMBACH project envisages that a so-called transport corridor will be created in the annexed territory in three stages: first, a metro with a large distance between stations will be laid, then it will be supplemented with bus routes, and when passenger flows become more intense, a high-speed tram with stops across short distances will be added.
In its concept, the GRUMBACH team paid attention not only to Greater Moscow as a whole, but also to the old city center. The architects propose to turn Moscow towards the river and create a unique pedestrian zone along the embankment in the Kremlin area, and move car traffic into an underground tunnel. In addition, GRUMBACH has developed a series of preliminary master plans for areas within the old Moscow, each of which follows the principle of mixed use. For example, in the area of the Kievskaya metro station, it is planned to create an administrative and shopping center, which will also include residential buildings and office buildings.
Architectural and design workshop of A. A. Chernikhova (Moscow) asked the question of the quality of life in Moscow and its image among the largest cities in the world. What needs to be done for Moscow as a metropolis to claim a place in the top ten or at least twenty of the world's cities? Answering this question, Chernikhov's team, first of all, focused on management problems. In particular, the architects consider it necessary to form a single constituent entity of the Russian Federation from Moscow and the Moscow region and create an agency or state corporation for the development of the agglomeration.
According to the architects, Greater Moscow can become a testing ground for the implementation of new social models. Analyzing the demands of various generations for the quality of the environment and the formats of development, the members of the Chernikhov team came to the conclusion that the generation of the 60s most of all values autonomous comfort, the presence of suburban areas in the city and the quality of territories adjacent to water. The so-called generation Y is in need of a dense urban environment filled with various events, a combination of different typologies and architectural styles. Generation Z - people of the near future - will generate a demand for ultra-modern eco-tech and media-rich space, compact housing, micro-offices and various communication tools. In order to meet the needs of all generations coexisting in the city's space, Chernikhov's team suggests starting today work on the creation of fundamentally new typologies of housing that will correspond to the lifestyle of certain groups of consumers - migrants, elderly people, single couples, etc. As for the transfer of federal authorities, Chernikhov's team remains true to itself: as before, it gives priority to the Big City and, in particular, the current territory of the exhibition complex, and the parliamentary center proposes to be located on the territory of the ZIL plant. At the same time, the team also considered it possible to propose its own master plan for the administrative and business cluster in Kommunarka, which could develop as a multifunctional center, even if the federal authorities move to ZIL and to the City.
