Recall that the final results of the competition for the architectural and urban planning concept of the MFC have not yet been summed up. On April 8, the jury named three finalists of the competition, and now the customer of the competition, CJSC Rublevo-Arkhangelskoye, will choose the winner, who will be involved in further work on the project. Some of the contenders are the Russian TPO "Reserve" and the Dutch Maxwan, who are not for the first time acting together and for Rublevo-Arkhangelskoye they have proposed almost the most detailed MFC project.
Vladimir Plotkin's team has been working with Maxwan on the third competition project in a row: this cooperation was especially strengthened at Zaryadye Park, so the architects started developing the MFC concept as a well-coordinated team, in which each side knows and understands each other perfectly. Perhaps that is why the authors very quickly decided on the general planning scheme of the future financial center, as well as on the key principles for the development of this project.
In total, seven of these "starting points" were formulated - like the cornerstones of the concept, they provide not only its attractiveness, but also exceptional viability. The first and, perhaps, the main one was the maximum use and development of the excellent initial data of the territory on which it is planned to build the MFC.
The architects themselves call this point “optimization of merits”, explaining that remoteness from the metropolis, dizzying landscapes around the site and a panoramic view of the Moskva River are factors that can (and should) make the MFC the greenest business district and thus completely different to traditional financial centers. The main question, of course, is how to use these advantages: if the entire territory is left at the mercy of bankers, it is unlikely that it will be possible to create a truly viable region (or, in terms of scale, even a city).
That is why the next points were “the optimal balance with the surrounding landscape” and “a variety of lifestyles” or the polyfunctionality of development that is so much in demand today. It is interesting that, unlike many other participants in the competition, the team of TPO "Reserve" and Maxwan refused to uniformly mix functions throughout the territory - instead, the architects create five main development clusters, each of which combines functions in different proportions and due to it acquires its own face in the structure of the projected city. Two more clusters will be located on triangular sites located along the northern border of the site closest to Novorizhskoe highway, but this is a later stage in the development of the project.
The most dense district will be Central, which, in fact, is assigned the role of an international financial center: numerous administrative buildings are interspersed with high-rise buildings, in which offices are complemented by apartments (at the very top) and public functions (at the very bottom). In the plan, the district has the shape of an elongated rectangle, and from the urban planning point of view, the architects play out this configuration as if by notes: the four longitudinal axes of the streets form a grid of blocks with numerous transverse boulevards and driveways - a kind of New York, a clear, purely business rhythm of which is read at first sight …
Nearby, the Parkovy district stretched out, the same rectangular in plan and also lined with squares of quarters, only already inhabited. And if the greenery entered the Central District only by the esplanades of boulevards and small splashes of squares and squares, then here it dominates: a wide park belt encircles the area along the outer perimeter, and a green boulevard adjoins each block. The building density here is also different: 5-storey residential buildings prevail, creating the atmosphere of a small, cozy town.
Another rectangle is no longer oriented perpendicular to the river, but parallel to it: this is the River District, and its quarters are formed mainly by townhouses, marking the transition from an urbanized environment to a more sparse suburban development. This is more than logical, because behind it there are flood meadows, which cannot be built up: the architects place a golf club here, surrounded by intimate private residences, organically built into the landscape. A similar "green island" flanks the financial center on the other hand: the forest prevailing there also does not obey the logic of a strict planning grid, and therefore the architects inscribe separate residential buildings between the trees, giving the general plan of the Lesnoy District a picturesque naturalness.
The principal planning find of TPO Reserve + Maxwan was the decision to create two canals on the territory of the MFC: one of them is taken out of the Zakharkovsky quarry, located in the northwestern part of the territory, the second - from the horseshoe-shaped channel of the Moskva River located to the east. "Blue streets", on the one hand, gives the structure of the city a bright individuality, and on the other hand, it helps to clearly distinguish between the Central, Parkovy and Lesnoy districts, which are so different from each other. The environment is also revived by numerous bridges thrown from one district to another, and the main connecting axis is a wide winding highway - "snake", on which the main public spaces of each of the clusters are strung.
Public spaces are another cornerstone of this project. Instead of creating a large number of specially designated places "for leisure", the architects relied on landscaped streets and squares and their well-thought-out connection with the external environment. Interestingly, in the Central District, with its many high-rise buildings, the "principle of lowering" is used: the high-rise facade of the building recedes from the edge of the street at the level of the 4th or 5th floor, allowing even high-density buildings to preserve the light and human scale of the street. Maximum humanity is also created due to a thoroughly thought out transport issue (another priority).
“The master plan developed by us offers a stable interaction between different modes of transport, - says Vladimir Plotkin. “We have tried to make pedestrian and bicycle traffic a priority here, and developed public transport (metro, buses, river taxis) will reduce the congestion of the city with personal vehicles.” The architects even envisaged how to exclude the possibility of transit passage through the territory of the MFC (located between Rublevka and New Riga, it, in principle, can attract fans to cut the road, especially during congestion hours on the Moscow Ring Road): a well-thought-out hierarchy of streets, regulated intersections and a system toll travel.
Iconic architecture was also an unconditional priority of this project (the MFC is supposed to be built up with friendly, environmentally friendly and open buildings in different directions, many of which are so expressive that they are remembered from the first visualization), but its viability, first of all, is predetermined by the master plan. Each block here is the most flexible block, consisting of three elements: parking (can occupy a spot in whole or in part), "bases" (the first floors of buildings, sometimes combined at this level) and "volumes on top" (can be changed over time or even replaced, leaving the street front unchanged). Equally flexible and at the same time non-trivial is the scheme of layer-by-layer development of regions proposed by the authors. Instead of exploring such a huge territory with traditional queues, Maxwan and "Reserve" proposed to first plant greenery in all five main clusters, and then begin their gradual development - in small steps, but all at once. According to the architects, such a recipe for the development of the territory for a long and unknown future can ensure a gradual and natural growth of the city, and most importantly, guarantee a high quality of the environment from the very beginning.
