In the studio, under the guidance of Anton Mosin and Ksenia Adzhubey, students worked on the theme "Architecture and Politics". As conceived by the teachers, a change in political regimes always provokes the emergence of new styles and approaches in architecture, and students had to demonstrate this by designing a building or ensemble that reflects the current political situation in the country. A kind of preparation for this work was a thorough analysis of the architecture of previous eras - the students studied the buildings that personify power, located both in Moscow and in other Russian cities. The conclusion reached by the students can be formulated as follows: only buildings of the totalitarian period have developed attributes of power, while the architecture of other eras did not seek to emphasize its "power" too much. On the basis of the revealed signs and elements, a dictionary of the totalitarian architecture of Moscow was compiled. And only then work began on the projects of the buildings themselves, and the students tried to go beyond the rather limited framework of traditional typology and offer the city a wide variety of buildings.
So, for example, with the light hand of MARSH students, a new prison appeared on the map of Lefortovo. It is designed in the form of a tower, which organically fits into the panorama of the area. As conceived by the students, the new high-rise dominant will become a kind of edification for local residents, and the prisoners, walking along the site located on the roof, will be able to observe life in the wild. A clearly visible green lawn separates the penitentiary from the city.
Another project, playing on the isolation of Moscow from the rest of the country, proposes to locate all ministries on the Garden Ring, creating a barrier that will finally separate Russia from its historical and political center.
And the project of a police station with a community center was clearly born under the influence of Georgian "transparent" police stations, but adapted to our political realities. He plays along with the authorities and society, illustrating the principles of democracy and helping to establish effective interaction between citizens and police.
The studio, led by Evgeny Ass, Rubens Cortes and Kirill Ass, worked on the theme of “Value Transformation”, trying to take a fresh look at spaces that had become familiar to the point of imperceptibility and actually merged with the city so much that their problems had already ceased to attract attention. Students had to re-identify the merits of the territories, buried under the flaws and design errors, correct them and breathe new meanings. Three sites were proposed as model sites: the sleeping area of Novo-Peredelkino, historical lanes near the Patriarch's ponds and the area near the Kursk railway station.
For Novo-Peredelkino, students proposed projects that could somehow revive the area and create conditions for communication of its residents. For example, to build pavilions inside the courtyards in which circles for children and adults, baths, even small farms will be located. The main focus here was on the pavilion itself - a beautiful and easily erected facility that can be fully fabricated and built by local industries.
For the Kurskiy railway station square, the main problems remain the large number of homeless people, spontaneous footpaths instead of equipped paths and the station square itself with overwhelmingly high traffic. It is clear that the students of MARSH, due to the very location of the school, this site with its unsettledness turned out to be as close as no other, therefore a lot of effort was invested in projects to reorganize this area. In one of the options, the students proposed to create stationary aid stations for the homeless and the poor, which would not only make their life easier, but also make the station space attractive and comfortable for passengers. Another project envisages the creation of a cultural center of Venedikt Erofeev - a rather extended area, which will become a kind of transition from the station to the Artplay, containing both a bar and a bookstore.
As for the area of Patriarch's Ponds, its main problem, according to the students, turned out to be that no one perceives this place as residential. It is used to take a shortcut, sit with a beer on a bench, and walk to a cafe. This applies to all lanes in the district, which, as a result, are uncomfortable and even dangerous for local residents. For example, at the intersection of Maly Kozikhinsky and Spiridonyevsky lanes there is a long-standing uncomfortable wasteland - one of the projects provides for the construction of a trail of long-demolished houses here, and in one of the projects it is proposed to build a coworking center on this site, which will help to attract representatives of various professions, and already they, in turn, will take part in ennobling this quarter, recreating the lost atmosphere of the legendary Patriarchs.
The studio, headed by Sergei Skuratov and Vladimir Yuzbashev, developed projects on the theme "New cultural space". True, the students had to solve a much more difficult task than simply design buildings with the appropriate function - rather, they had to create an environment in which culture could feel appropriate, be able to develop and attract spectators, participants, and ordinary people. At the same time, both teachers and students proceeded from the fact that culture is more than a general concept, and each chose what is closer to himself. Someone developed the topic of subculture, someone focused on sports and a healthy lifestyle, someone talked about exhibitions and lectures, someone created connections between already existing cultural points of attraction, and someone relied on the relationship between the real and the virtual. spaces. Students in their projects solved such problems as the rehabilitation of the cultural addresses of the past forgotten by the modern metropolis, the creation of new links between the cultural territories of Moscow, the development of new walking routes.
Thus, the project of the cultural center "Platforma" returns to the city map the territory, the existence of which has been practically forgotten. We are talking about the former Trekhgorny brewery on Kievskaya, almost entirely given over to elite development. The corrections of the pedestrian paths proposed by the project and the creation of a new place of attraction here - a cultural center - will again make this space an integral part of the capital's life here.
Another project is aimed at overcoming the disunity of various cultural venues scattered across Moscow. Students suggest connecting together creative clusters, reviving parks, museums and studios with the help of a system of Towers - structures that are both cable car support stations and buildings that themselves will be saturated with various functions that meet the needs of a particular place. Plus, as the authors of the project expect, the cable car will avoid traffic jams and thereby make the centers of culture much more accessible.
The project for Plyushchikha Street assumes very gentle, almost imperceptible changes, which nevertheless will transform this rather faceless place today. The creation of a pedestrian zone where now there are only cars, the narrowing of the roadway and the saturation of public functions on the first floors of buildings will make the street attractive and friendly for the townspeople.
And, finally, another project proposed to close the Boulevard Ring in the Chistye Prudy area and build a new multifunctional volume on a vacant lot at the corner of boulevards and Myasnitskaya Street. Once upon a time, there were shopping arcades on this place, and a church was located nearby: in the 21st century, architects propose to combine trade and culture, thereby returning the functions and meanings traditional for this place.
