STUDIO ASS SECCHI-VIGANO (Milan, Italy) looks at the expansion of Moscow and agglomeration processes through the prism of the Civic Magnificence methodology, which these architects have revealed more and more fully from seminar to seminar. The term itself comes from Italy of the neoclassical period and denotes a stage in the development of society when its semantic values are reflected in spatial structures. Representatives of SECCHI-VIGANO emphasize: you need to have a clear understanding of the goals and objectives of expansion, not only at the city and federal levels, but also at the international level, regionally and even the whole world, so that the project of creating a new urban education for 2.5 million people becomes the center sustainable political, economic and cultural development. Urban splendor is made up of many components. Among them are the inclusion of new territories in the space of a unified Moscow, new forms of spatial relations (for example, voids in the center of public spaces or built-up areas), a flexible planning grid and compactness of the new city, which should preserve continuity with the recognizable landscapes of “old” Moscow, the priority of ecological approach to the organization of space, "mixing" of the metropolis and the coherence of the development of old and new territories.
Representatives of SECCHI-VIGANO, as well as their colleagues from TsNIIPgrad and GRUMBACH bureau, attach paramount importance to solving transport problems. In their opinion, the first step is to get rid of duplication of passenger transport routes where passenger flows are insufficient, introduce new types of comfortable public transport, create places of employment outside the city center and carefully balance the construction of real estate and transport infrastructure. According to Italian architects, at the current stage it is not so important where exactly the federal, financial or innovation center will be located. It is important to formulate the conditions for their construction, such as transport accessibility (for both public and road transport), the presence of recognizable urban objects that will become the hallmark of the annexed territories, a variety of connections with other parts of the city, increasing the availability of green spaces on the outskirts of the city, and their subsequent development according to the selected recreational and ecological programs.
In contrast to the "old" city with its radial-circular structure, the annexed territory stretches linearly along three main highways. It can be used to implement a fundamentally different urban planning approach in the form of a flexible grid of rectangular blocks with a well-developed network of streets and through passages. The new transport grid, thoughtfully connected to the existing transport infrastructure, is an unconventional way for Moscow to develop the transport system, but it is the most flexible solution, and therefore it will work under conditions of high uncertainty.
According to the URBAN DESIGN ASSOCIATES team (Pittsburgh, USA), the development of Moscow is currently characterized by three processes: transport congestion, the flight of the middle class outside the city and the uncontrolled sprawl of the city's territory. The first step, according to the architects, is to take control of these negative trends, which have a very detrimental effect on the quality of life in the city, and develop "positive urbanism" based on thoughtful nature management, ecological protection of territories and legally regulated expansion of the megalopolis into new territories.
The team proposes to use the natural wealth of the annexed territories - rivers, fields and forests to create unique landscape solutions that will make the new city harmoniously fit into the green landscape. For example, to partially water the river valley in Kommunarka, using the already existing network of rivers and lakes, and create a system of water channels that will give the landscape structure and increase the attractiveness of the territory of the future federal center. Considering the proximity of Kommunarka to the largest cemetery in Moscow, the use of landscape design tools will make it a memorial park that will harmoniously fit into the urban environment. On the annexed territory, it is also planned to create a viable cluster of mixed development, consisting of the federal center and authorities, an international financial center and a university cluster, supplemented by a science and technology park, a logistics center, residential areas and recreational natural areas. According to the estimates of the project team, 2.7 million square meters can be created in the new city in the south-west of Moscow. m. area for federal authorities and 2.6 million square meters. m. offices of financial companies.
The structure of the proposed UDA master plan is divided into quarters, with a different recommended density set for each type of quarter - university, financial, government and residential. Like other teams, the UDA design team has repeatedly reiterated that car traffic should be limited, and public transport is the only way to solve the city's transport problem. Therefore, they propose to turn the A101 highway into a multimodal boulevard with separate paths for trams, bicycle and pedestrian paths and 4 lanes for car traffic in each direction, and to start a metro line in a tunnel under the highway. According to UDA experts, the project should be driven by the federal development agency of Greater Moscow, and the financial operator should be the Greater Moscow Development Bank, created at the expense of the federal stabilization fund (60%), government bonds (30%) and the Moscow budget (10%) … Private capital will willingly support large projects if the federal government is interested in them, the architects say.
The architectural bureau "Ostozhenka" in its project proposals proceeded from the fact that the social, transport and many other problems accumulated in monocentric Moscow must be solved at the expense of the annexed territories. However, according to Ostozhenka, in a few decades at the most, we risk getting a megalopolis with a capacity of 25-30 million people, if this extensive form of city development is literally realized. The only way to achieve a more balanced development of the agglomeration in the existing conditions is to consider the annexed sector in the south-west of Moscow only as the first stage in the formation of Greater Moscow, followed by other sectors. In its analysis of the potential of the annexed territories, Ostozhenka also paid great attention to the use of natural resources. According to the design team, in the south-west of Moscow there are large reservoirs of mineral water for medicinal purposes. On their basis, it will be possible to create balneological resorts and spa centers, which, in combination with natural greenery, will make this territory attractive for recreational, medical and tourist purposes.
In the Ostozhenka project, the development of Greater Moscow is carried out in three priority areas: strengthening the agglomeration links between the periphery and the center, including in the southwestern sector, activating the “forgotten” territories of industrial zones and developing the territories adjacent to the river within the old borders of Moscow. Shifting the focus of its project proposal to the “old” Moscow, “Ostozhenka” is not the first time drawing the attention of the authorities, experts and the public to the “forgotten” territories within the Moscow Ring Road and especially around the Third Transport Ring. The project team has compiled a catalog of projects of some priority areas for future development within the old borders of Moscow, including residential areas along the Small Ring of the Moscow Railway, the Dorogomilovsky business district and many areas along the Moskva River. The total potential of the "forgotten territories" is estimated by the team's experts at 210 million square meters. m. of new construction on 210 hectares of land requiring reactivation. The Parliamentary Center "Ostozhenka" proposes to be located on the territory of the former concert hall "Russia", and this place should become a public space, and the parliament building itself will be a vast horizontal structure open to the public. The federal center of executive power will be located along the banks of the river in the Big City area.
The river was initially central to Ostozhenka's approach, and this was particularly evident in the final workshop. The project team proposes to consider the river as the main connecting link for remote areas of the city, develop pedestrian embankments, create comfortable public spaces along rivers and actively develop 2.5 thousand hectares of project sites adjacent to the river. A special place in the project proposal of Ostozhenka is occupied by transport hubs, which are considered by the team as potential points of development contributing to the formation of the polycentric structure of the city.
The development of the territories of the former industrial zones has become a priority for the L'AUC team (Paris, France). Among other priority tasks facing Moscow, French architects consider ensuring ease of movement around the city and placing jobs and housing close to each other, the development of the Russian capital as a "taiga metropolis", i.e. preservation of the unique opportunity to live close to nature, and the creation of a linear city in the annexed southwestern territories. The main thing that, according to the architects, the annexed territories need is ordering and new housing.
“Everything we show is on the border between fantasy and reality. We need flexible projects that can adapt to different growth scenarios,”L'AUC representatives emphasized at the seminar. That is why the French, like their colleagues from the Chernikhov team, propose not a master plan as such, but an integral master planning strategy that will allow creating flexible concepts for the development of specific territories. It is based on five criteria: transport accessibility, the presence of an iconic public space in the center, a variety of typologies of housing, landscape design (river, park, forest) and sustainability (new construction standards, environmental friendliness, energy efficiency). The project team members believe that these criteria can be used as the basis for new urban planning legislation that ensures the balanced development of the agglomeration, the annexed territories and “old” Moscow.
The specific planning decisions of the L'AUC team echo the proposals of many other teams. In particular, French architects propose to activate the post-industrial belt and territories along the small ring of the Moscow railway, and in the annexed territories to create a flexible rectangular grid of neighborhoods and supplement it with a concentric system of parks and boulevards, to connect airports with a high-speed highway, and in the development of public transport to focus on high-speed trams and buses. The team also proposes to strengthen the diversity of functions of urban space and styles of lives of people inhabiting it, which already exists in Greater Moscow. For this, conceptual master plans have been developed for the city office quarter, university science and technology campus, creative cluster on the river, government center, etc.
An interesting feature of the L'AUC concept is the variable scale and great variability of the designed objects. For example, the federal center can be located both in Kommunarka and in Vnukovo or many other territories. The team developed a typology of new urban spaces and provided each with a master plan to give an idea of the possibilities. So, on the map of the possible future of Moscow, an elite residential quarter appeared on the Moskva River near the Kievskaya metro station, a "slow city" - a fashionable office quarter like London's Soho, a suburban multifunctional hub at the intersection of Profsoyuznaya Street and the Moscow Ring Road, a business park in Rasskazovka, a creative cluster on the Moscow river and new neighborhoods with micro-centers and enhanced transport accessibility.
Project proposals of the team of Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill under the general name “iMoscow. Smart Moscow”is a plan for the long-term social and economic transformation of the Russian capital into a“smart metropolis”, coordinated with the strategy of social and economic development of Moscow until 2025.
It is proposed to implement the project in four stages over 30 years. At the first stage (1-3 years), it is necessary to connect the historical center and the Third Transport Ring with a system of high-speed buses, develop unused industrial zones (ZIL, Paveletskaya, Nagatino), increase the area of the road network by laying new connecting capillaries, build a federal center and create an environmental control system ordering the natural complex of Greater Moscow. At the second stage (from the 3rd to the 5th year), the development of the high-speed bus network will continue, industrial zones from Kolomenskoye to Biryulyovo will be mastered, a world financial center and large city parks in the southwestern territories will be built. At the third stage (from the 5th to the 10th year), bus routes will cover the entire city, the industrial zones Dynamo-Fili and Severnoye Ochakovo-Vnukovo will be developed and an innovation cluster will be built in Troitsk. Finally, at the fourth stage (from the 10th to the 30th year), the development of industrial zones in the northeast, from Semenovskaya to the Yuzhny port, will take place, a second innovation cluster and related infrastructure will be built, and a system of “smart »City parks and recreational and tourist zones.
In the second part of the presentation of his project, Ricardo Bofill focused mainly on the substantiation of the detailed master plan for the annexed territories. According to the presented concept, a multifunctional city with two centers will be located here: the administrative and business center in Kommunarka, where the federal authorities will move, and the research and development center in Troitsk, where innovative technologies will be developed. Since the construction of the metro is too expensive for the city, the team proposes to focus on the development of a system of high-speed buses, thanks to which the problem of the shortage of transport in the annexed territory can be solved much faster. A multifunctional city in the annexed territories is a complex of clusters, each of which contains housing, office premises, administrative buildings, sports and recreational facilities, trade and service infrastructure and other functions, mixed in different proportions, depending on the “profile” of the place. It will be a polycentric urban entity with many public spaces, pedestrian permeability, high quality of life and transport accessibility. Ricardo Bofill proposes to make a skyscraper in the style of Stalinist skyscrapers as the architectural dominant of this territory.
PS More details about each of the projects developed within the framework of the competition can be found at the exhibition, which opened on August 27 in Gorky Park. The exhibition will run until September 23, and on October 15, at the Zodchestvo festival, there will be a solemn presentation of diplomas to the winners in three nominations: the best solution for agglomeration, the best concept for the development of Greater Moscow and the best project for the location of the federal center.
