Teamwork on the Vernadsky Prospekt renovation pilot project

Yulia Zubarik, head of the architectural and urban planning bureau MASTER'SPLAN, which took part in the development of the pilot project for the renovation of the Prospekt Vernadskogo district.

International competitions for the best architectural projects are a global trend in urban planning from all over the world. It has also become an established practice that international consortiums and teams of architects, including companies from different countries, take part in them.

The city authorities declared the competition for renovation projects to be international. It is clear why this is the case. Such competitions bring out the strongest architectural ideas. And very often they are the result of joint work of several companies. Perhaps this situation is the best reflection of the well-known saying "one man in the field - not a warrior. The brightest proposals are often the result of creative dialogue. This is exactly how our work on the Vernadskogo Prospekt district renovation project was structured. Our company MASTER'SPLAN and the architectural bureau Ricardo Bofill took part in it.

Our collaboration began a little over a year ago. By order of PSN-Nedvizhimost we have developed a territory planning project for 82 hectares on Ryazansky Prospekt. The project turned out to be successful. It was immediately approved by the customer. I think that already then there was a team style of our work. We were able to hear each other, perceive each other's ideas and plan our work in such a way that each side could show its strong side.

This is not always the case. Very often it is difficult for team members to come to an agreement. Everyone wants to be the leader, everyone wants to be heard, but is not ready to adjust, not ready to hear others. We managed to do this, so the result was quite successful.

In the project on the Vernadsky Prospekt district, we followed the same path. I think that our strength is the plan design, our colleagues work well with three-dimensional architecture, which in international practice is called mussing.

When we gathered all the background information, including the constraints this territory had, we developed all the calculations for technical and economic indicators, we evaluated how many kindergartens, schools etc. are required and how much permeable roads and density of the street and road network should be. We have developed the entire structure of the district; we have prepared everything that is necessary to develop the master plan. And that, in turn, was completed by our Spanish partners. They designed the neighbourhoods, determined the heights of buildings, developed the apartment scheme. The next step in our work was a workshop in Barcelona. It was a very intense period - we checked and double-checked each other, wrote lots of papers, added some interesting details. After that we prepared and printed a booklet which included sections on architecture, economics and technical calculations.

According to the results of public discussions, our project came out on top. I think the reason for that is that it was interesting in appearance and we took into account what the residents themselves wanted to see in it. I mean the almost doubling of the number of schools and pre-school institutions, the specific renovation period - 10 years, and the possibility for the residents to choose the new place of residence. In addition, we proposed a significant increase in green space and the creation of two new plazas. And this is what many Moscow districts lack.