From 1 to 10 February 2016, Makhachkala will host an international workshop "Future Education Space". Thirty young architects from around the world will develop several concepts for the Perimeter cultural and educational center in Makhachkala. The customer of the workshop and the project of the Center is the PERI Foundation of Ziyavudin Magomedov, and the organizer is the Center for Architectural Initiatives MARSH Lab. We talked about the benefits of workshops in the context of modern architectural and urbanistic practice and the specifics of the project in Makhachkala with one of his tutors and scientific supervisor, a teacher of the MARSH school, Yaroslav Kovalchuk.
Yaroslav Kovalchuk - architect, urbanist, researcher. Graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute in 1997. Studied at IHS in Rotterdam (Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, course "Inner City Development"). From 2000 to 2008 he worked in the bureau of Alexander Brodsky. In 2008 he founded the Rimsha Architectural Bureau. Since 2011 he has been teaching at the Children's Lecture Center of the Polytechnic Museum. From 2013 to 2015, head of the workshop at the Institute of the General Plan of Moscow. Since 2013 teacher of the module "Problems of Urbanism" of the Architectural School MARCH. Currently Deputy Director of MARSH-Lab.
Archi.ru:
– In recent years, several projects have been launched to create innovative cultural centers in the regions (DNA, Tver, Kaluga, Kazan), but there are no results yet. What is the difference between the Perimeter project?
Yaroslav Kovalchuk:
- In my opinion, the main difference is in the customer.
The PERI Foundation is focused on achieving a specific result. He already has active programs - a business incubator, coworking, educational and other initiatives. They require not just a building, but a new space that will accommodate existing formats of activity and allow the development of new ones, as well as attract talented youth from all over the region. And, in my opinion, this is very correct - first run the programs, get the first results, and then build. We often do the opposite: first they build something, and then they think about what to do there. They built a university on Russky Island, but now they don't know what to fill it with. This will not happen here. A specific site in the center of Makhachkala has been allocated for the project. The TOR lists the activities of the Foundation, but the building program should be quite flexible. Participants will have to figure out how to organize spaces for existing functions - lectures, exhibitions, laboratories, and more. In theory, it would be possible to order the project of the Center to a well-known bureau or hold a competition. We (MARSH Lab) suggested starting with a workshop, and the Foundation's management liked this idea.
Why is the format of the workshop in this case the most effective?
- The main question of this project is: what is modern education, and what kind of space is needed for it? Education is changing very rapidly now. We cannot predict how it will work in ten years. And it's not clear what kind of space we need to create. In such a situation, a workshop is the most appropriate format. I am confident that by bringing together teachers and participants from different countries, we will be able to find the right answer or several answers.
In addition, the workshop is an example of an alternative approach to design, the development of which, in my opinion, is extremely relevant for the Russian architectural community. Since the beginning of the nineties, a strategy has been developed for solving any architectural problem according to the principle “an architect receives an order from a client and, based on his experience and intuition, makes a project, and if the architect is good and experienced, everything will be fine”. Today it can be stated that this principle is working worse and worse, without public discussion it is impossible to create good projects, architecture should become a public process. In a closed format, even high-quality architecture is unable to change the quality of the environment. We can be convinced of this on the example of Moscow. On Ostozhenka, many good architects have built many good buildings, and the result is an area in which there is no life now. Any city consists of many functional and semantic layers or "landscapes" - this is not only buildings, but also the arrangement of spaces between them, and an artificial landscape closely connected with engineering systems, the "metabolism" of the city, and transport, and urban communities. To prevent the project from destroying the environment, it must provide answers for each of these "layers". Architects must learn to work with these "layers", learn to analyze them and find solutions for each of them.
The workshop in Makhachkala will be an example of such an integrated approach to design. Within its framework, solutions will be developed for the landscape and public areas. Separately, it will be necessary to study and understand what kind of space Dagestan youth needs. This is the North Caucasus, there is a very ancient specific culture, so the standard schemes that work in Moscow or Europe cannot be mechanically transferred to Makhachkala.
– What are the specifics of the decisions that are correct for Makhachkala? Will this workshop have an impact on the development of the city?
- This is exactly what we have to find out in the research part of the project. Now I have no ready answers to this question. The very fact that they are going to build an innovative cultural and educational center in Makhachkala makes the situation unique in a sense. For Moscow or other large cities, such a project would be commonplace.
Makhachkala is a young city, a little over one and a half centuries old. And it is growing very quickly. On the one hand, this is good, it means that the city attracts people, it has something to offer them. On the other hand, rapid growth creates many problems: communities do not have time to form, new residents cannot quickly adapt to an urban lifestyle. There is massive construction, often ill-considered and unplanned, which destroys the urban environment and worsens the quality of life. Most cities have gone through this period. In Stockholm or London, during the period of rapid growth, the quality of life also deteriorated sharply. This does not mean that nothing can be done. We need to consistently and methodically work on the development of the city. I hope that our project will show an example - how. Ideally, we will create a building and a small piece of a comfortable urban environment around it. Of course, this will not change Makhachkala as a whole, but we will be able to demonstrate what is worth striving for. Several Dagestani architects are participating in the workshop. I am sure they will learn a lot and will use it in their future work. I hope that the city administration will also learn something new about architecture, see that it is possible to design and build in different ways. Maybe then ideas for other projects will appear. Now it is impossible to predict all the "butterflies" that will fly by.
Do you think it will be necessary to somehow emphasize the local flavor in architecture?
- We must take into account the context, the place itself, the climate, we can enter into a dialogue with the traditions of local architecture, but in no case are we going to imitate it.
– Tell us about the structure of the workshop. How many days will it go? What parts, besides the research one, will it consist of?
- Three days are given for the first research part. Its results will be presented to public hearings, where we will invite experts and a wide audience, present the conclusions of our research, find out the public's opinion and talk about the main directions of design. Then the participants will be divided into seven to eight project groups. They will prepare proposals for five days, and several expert discussions will take place in parallel. And two more days are allotted for the preparation of the presentation and the presentation of the concepts itself, based on the results of which the jury will choose the best offer.
How were the participants selected for the workshop? What criteria were decisive for you and for other experts who participated in the selection?
– We invited students and young architects up to thirty years old. It seems important to me that the youth center will be designed by young architects. For them, this is a chance to build an iconic object, publications in magazines, a career and all that. For the foundation and center "Perimeter" - an opportunity to get a good modern building, new and unexpected.
There was an open acceptance of applications, everyone had to send a CV, a motivation letter and a portfolio. A lot of applications came - about a hundred, from more than twenty countries from all continents, except Australia and Antarctica.
Experts assessed each application using a ten-point system. We did not set strict criteria, since all the experts involved have enough experience to give an overall assessment for each application. The main question was: "can this person do a good project?" Then we calculated the average score and selected the applications with the highest score.
You have already held more than one workshop. From personal experience you know the training system at the Moscow Architectural Institute, Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies, VSHU, now in MARSH. Is there a recipe for bringing up a good architect and urbanist? What do you need for this?
- The recipe is very simple, and it has not changed in the last millennia. At the Platonic Academy and at MIT, it's the same. We need people and we need an environment for communication. If you bring together good teachers and talented, motivated students, give them the opportunity to communicate and decide for themselves how and what to teach and learn, you will have many good graduates. But there is an important nuance: no one really knows how to organize this. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
In education, the main thing is people, without a strong team nothing will work, but people are also the main problem. They immediately begin to quarrel, weave intrigues, pull the blanket. People need to be organized somehow, to create a structure in which competition will work for the final result, people will be motivated and satisfied. There are many ways to do this. All modern business theory is about this, and managing creative teams is one of the most difficult tasks.
The value of workshops, among other things, lies precisely in the fact that during their conduct there is always a living, nourishing environment, and everyone very quickly gains new experience and knowledge. In such an atmosphere, new and unexpected ideas are born that the participants could not generate alone. Last summer we held an international summer school in Lviv. After her, several people came up and said that they had learned more in a week than in a year at the institute.
– What areas of expertise are covered by the comprehensive approach required for successful urban development? What, for example, is in your range of interests as a specialist who promotes it?
– Everything is interesting to me, not only architecture, history and urban planning, but also archeology, the theory of evolution, quantum mechanics, sociology, economics, astrophysics and much more. This often interferes with work. Doesn't let you concentrate. However, all human activity and all science, in one way or another, are associated with the development of cities. Sometimes interesting ideas come from the most unexpected areas of knowledge. String theory does not help much here, of course, but knowledge of history, biology, geography, sociology, economics and some other sciences is absolutely essential when dealing with cities.
– Where is it better for a young architect and urbanist to go after graduation? What are the prospects for working in design institutes and private offices?
– There is a shortage of good specialists in both private and public organizations. But the more significant problem is the lack of a customer. Recent reforms have almost completely destroyed local government. City governments lack authority, budgets and long-term vision. Mayors are now thinking about how to survive, not how to develop cities. The number of orders for architects and planners is decreasing and decreasing. The economic crisis is superimposed on this. The economy as a whole is shrinking, money and orders are less and less.
It turns out a sad picture: there are few specialists, but there is no demand for their services either. Design organizations have to think about survival, not development. And it will only get worse.
On the other hand, a crisis always means new opportunities. Seven million years ago, there was a crisis in Africa too. The climate has changed, rainforests have given way to savannas. Various species of great apes lived in these forests. They had a choice: you can die out, or you can fight for the remaining remnants of forests. Gorillas and chimpanzees were defeated, they still live there. And you could learn to live in the savannah and walk on two legs. I know for sure that now you cannot act in the same way as before. We need to look for new strategies.
