The recent history of the Master's program "Design of Urban Ecosystems", as its director Mikhail Klimovsky says, is covered with a "garage" spirit: this startup appeared about a year ago on the basis of the Institute of Technology, Mechanics and Optics (NRU ITMO), among other projects of the local business incubator and rapidly gaining momentum.
*** Principles of learning
The central theme of the first academic year was the study of Kronstadt, which began in the fall. The students, immersed in the project, received the necessary knowledge, and the professionals, the staff of the master's program, realized their research potential. The result of the research is an understanding of the city and proposals for solving a complex of urban problems; it is submitted in a new format for Russia - a visionbook. The publication reveals the potential of the island, searches for points of contact between urban figures with each other (officials and developers, business representatives and citizens).
Students enrolled in the program in 2013-2015 are supervised by urbanists of the international company"
MLA + - Markus Appenzeller and Yana Golubeva. Explaining how mentors work, Yana drew attention to the fact that the main task is not to teach students to design according to a certain template, but rather to teach them to see the complexity of the city and at the same time develop their professional skills in accordance with emerging interests:
“Our goal is not to train a specialist in accordance with a certain standard. We want to educate a person who will take responsibility, become a leader and promote their ideas. At the moment, within the framework of a large study on Kronstadt, each student is developing his own project. That is, within the common ideology that we have been working on since October - first we carried out an analysis, then we developed a strategic vision of the entire island - the students are working on their own projects. They are related to architecture (the question of the refurbishment of buildings is touched upon), with event management, with the study of the identity of the island and its branding. Yes, we have a common direction, but everyone deals with the issue that interests him."
Questions to Kronstadt
And there are really many questions to Kronstadt itself and the organization of his life.
In-depth interviews helped to identify the main problems, among which - mediocre transport accessibility, ineffective management decisions, lack of opportunities for young people; potentials also emerged: it became clear that the main one was tourism. In this regard, the tourist infrastructure has been thoroughly studied, with which it is possible and necessary to work. The possibilities and activity of local exhibition sites were assessed: only two of them host more than 50 events a year.
At the same time, it became clear how residents and visitors perceive Kronstadt from an administrative point of view. The fact that Kronstadt is an administrative district of St. Petersburg turned out to be far from obvious even for the locals. If we talk about the attitudes of the audience with which we will have to work, then from the outside Kronstadt is seen as an “island” in the “sea”, where there are “forts”,”but inside there is still an opinion that it is a“city of military glory”.
The details of the mosaic are gradually coming together into a big picture, suggestions are born on how to work with the territory. For example, five tourist routes have been created - "Science Center", "Defense of the Capital", "Orthodox", "Memory of the Great Patriotic War", "Extreme", they penetrate and revive the entire island. The tourist vector is only one of the chosen ones. The real estate market is analyzed in detail, details are disclosed about the transfer to the city of territories that were previously under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense; scenarios of their development are produced. A program of events has been developed that will increase the cultural and economic significance of the city.
The research results can be found at the presentation on June 11 at the St. Petersburg House of Architects. ***
Implemented plans
The master's program has enlisted the support of not only local and foreign urbanists and developers (Urbanika, Maris Properties, MLA +, etc.), but also the administration of the Kronstadt region. This allows us to hope that the projects will really come true, turning from student to professional.
In fact, the feasibility of projects is extremely important for the founders of the master's program: firstly, it is a good experience, and secondly, it is an excellent motivation. The director of the educational program bets that soon the master's program will become a full-fledged resource for headhunters, who, "placing an order" for specialists, will offer cases related to the development of the territory. In addition to undergraduate graduates who are passionate about urban problems, students of the course will be able to become employees of large consulting companies and research institutes, designers involved in the development of the territory, as well as government officials.
Training is focused on practice and on advanced professional experience, therefore, the composition of the flexible modular system includes courses by well-known Russian and foreign lecturers with experience in interacting with domestic urban planners and Russian building codes. They bring not just stars, but those who can actually be useful; those who are familiar with the conditions of the domestic architectural and construction context. This is why the author's "Comprehensive City Planning" module is read by Peter Lawrence, vice president of ISOCARP (the association that annually hosts the International Congress of Urban and Regional Planners). He sees such a master's degree quite promising:
“I have repeatedly attended the presentations of various Russian educational programs, their main problem, in my opinion, is that, as a rule, it is only about design. And graduates are architects or designers who make their projects for investors. They do their job quite well, but the problem is that in fact they have little understanding of how the transformations they make affect the city as a whole.
Today, before introducing any innovations into the urban environment, one must first understand how they will work, and at the same time assess how the city and the environment can be improved. It seems to me that the course "Design of Urban Ecosystems" is exactly about this. The school can take a good place in the educational market that trains urban planners.” ***
The master's program, which has become a local center for urban studies and actively attracts Russian and foreign specialists, periodically opens its doors to free listeners - the Post City public platform was created specifically for this purpose. Upcoming events are announced in social networks on the program pages (VK, FB).
