In February 2011, the master plan of the Skolkovo innovation city, developed by AREP, was recognized as the best in the competition for the urban planning concept of the first Russian innovation city and was recommended for implementation. Let us remind you that on the section between Minsk and Skolkovskoye highways, in the Setun river valley and in the immediate vicinity of the Moscow Ring Road, French architects proposed to build a city that would implement the idea of Urban villages - an “urban village”. They divided the entire territory of the city of innovations into five specialized zones or "villages" covering the main scientific areas, and saturated the central part with greenery, city-wide and infrastructure facilities. The engineering section was developed by the French company Setec, which has been working in Russia for several years already, for example, it participates in the project for the development of the Krasnodar agglomeration. On the initiative of the latter, in May 2011, Homeland Group was involved in the work on the master plan of the innovation city.
The main task of the Russian designers was to adapt the project to the norms in force in the country. But in the end, the support of the project resulted in direct and active participation in it, up to the detailed study of individual zones, which the Homeland Group carried out in close cooperation with French colleagues.
The first thing that struck Russian architects when they got acquainted with the initial project was the lack of programs for external transport and engineering networks. If inside the Skolkovo borders AREP thought out in detail the road communication between the five "villages", then external relations remained unworked. Automobile communication between Skolkovo and Moscow is carried out mainly with the help of the heavily congested Minsk highway, so the French project was initially aimed at the development of public transport, especially railroad communication. As for the roads and junctions connecting the city with major highways and neighboring settlements, the architects of the Homeland Group had to look for solutions. In particular, having calculated the probable traffic loads, the Russians proposed to create several new strategically important interchanges, including directly linking the innograd with the Kiev highway and neighboring Solntsevo.
As conceived by the French, gasoline transport was not supposed to be used in the innovation city: internal communication was to be carried out by means of compact electric cars, environmentally friendly taxis and bicycles. And it is quite logical that the French provided for rather narrow streets and driveways for such transport. However, this was contrary to Russian fire regulations, according to which the width of the fire passage must be at least six meters. As a result, most of the streets had to be widened, and in some sections, one-way traffic had to be organized. For people arriving in Skolkovo in gasoline-powered cars, the French proposed to build five intercept parking lots located in the area of the main transfer hubs with the main hub at the Trekhgorka platform. A comprehensive analysis carried out by the Homeland Group revealed the need to adjust the location of parking lots, most of them had to be shifted relative to the boundaries of environmental protection zones.
Solutions in the field of external engineering infrastructure also fell entirely on the shoulders of the developers of the Homeland Group. Particular attention in the project was paid to the territories and settlements adjacent to Skolkovo, which in connection with the new large-scale construction should not have been cut off from life. In particular, the architects tried to take into account the interests of numerous summer cottage and cottage settlements located in the vicinity of the future innograd, as well as the large urban-type settlement Novoivanovsky located a little closer to Moscow, and at the same time calculate the negative impact of these residential clusters on the new city, focused on maximum environmental friendliness. Homeland Group specialists carried out a detailed geological survey of the territories and identified sanitary protection zones around existing enterprises, as well as contaminated areas that require careful remediation. The recreation center operating on the Skolkovo site was provided with its own domestic sewerage system and treatment facilities; In accordance with Russian standards, a scheme was developed for the arrangement of treatment facilities, storm drains and water intake wells in the innovation city itself.
The project of a foreign city has certainly become an event for Russian urban planning. The competitions and tenders that followed the competition for the master plan and the general excitement around the ambitious project have led to a special concentration of world-class celebrity architects and engineers. The Homeland Group also contributed to the development of Skolkovo, offering a number of practical solutions that should help the implementation of an interesting and complex idea.
