Architecture students will design public spaces in four regions of Russia

Resource: TASS
Architecture students will design public spaces in four regions of Russia

Open City Master Class at Master's Plan© Moskomarhitektura

MOSCOW, August 13. /TASS/. A series of workshops where young architects will offer their variants for reconstruction of the central squares of Feodosia, two small northern towns, Igarka and Kedrovy, and some public spaces of Moscow will be held within the "Open City" conference. Some of these projects may be implemented in the coming years.

This year the "Open City" conference, which is dedicated to the issues of architecture and urban planning education, offered the student architects more than 10 workshop themes, nine of which are devoted to real public spaces located in different cities of the country. The curators of the workshops were SPEECH, the urban planning bureau Master's Plan, the bureau RTDA, the bureau UNK project, and the development companies and architectural bureaus.

Within the boundaries of Moscow, the curators suggested that the students rethink several public spaces at once. In particular, Slava Square, which is part of one of the experimental sites of renovation - Kuzminki. According to Alexei Ilyin, head of SPEECH Studio 1, the square, located between Zhigulevskaya and Zelenodolskaya Streets and the double of Volgogradsky Prospekt, with two exits from the metro station, a green area, a fountain, and borders with the building of the Moscow Governorsky Theater, offers great prospects for spatial, landscape and sociological solutions.

The RTDA Bureau will supervise the students' work on three sites united by a common theme. All of them are a kind of transit point between urban development and parks. The curators point out that the way to recreation zones often lies through unsightly, unsafe areas - transport hubs, city dumps, ownerless territories. The students have to find solutions to this problem and unite the urban fabric with the green areas of the city on the example of specific sites. The first site of the workshop is located between Baltiyskaya metro station and Pokrovskoe-Streshnevo natural-historical park. The second is between Vorobyovy Gory and Setun Nature Reserve.

As told by RTDA, Vorobyovy Gory terminates the series of parks that cross each other: Museon, Gorky Park, Neskuchny Garden, which then leads to Mosfilmovskaya Street, the intersection of Vorobyev highway with the Third Transport Ring Road and the MCC. Thus, this large traffic interchange separates the Setun Nature Reserve, which could become a further continuation of the greenway. The third section of the workshop is the industrial zone on Lavochkina Street between Festivalnaya Street and Flotskaya Street.

This year, several Open City teams will also work on regional projects. First of them is Feodosia central square, where Aivazovsky art gallery museum is situated. The team of the workshop will make it the center of attraction for the citizens of the city and tourists. According to the co-founder of UNK project Julius Borisov the workshop will be supported by the chief architect of Feodosia, and the students will have to create a project which they can continue working on in the future.

Feodosia Square © UNK project

Meeting with curators of Open City workshops

© Moskomarhitektura

Two small towns - Igarka and Kedrovy, with a population of only 5 and 2 or 3 thousand people, respectively, will be the subject of Master's Plan workshop. The first one is a town beyond the Arctic Circle with a unique museum of permafrost. There is a task to form a concept of a central square and include a site for observing the northern lights. The second one is a small town, where almost a quarter of the population is children of different ages. For it, we will need to come up with a central space where toddlers, teenagers, and parents alike will be comfortably honored.

"The interest of architectural offices and regional authorities in public spaces is an important sign of changes in consciousness and urban planning," said Sergey Kuznetsov, chief architect of Moscow, "Firstly, we see a demand for an integrated approach, for working with urban, cultural and social context, for creating new points of attraction for citizens. Secondly, understanding of necessity of changes came not only to Moscow, but to small towns as well. The fact that young professionals are being formed in an environment where such positive shifts are taking place cannot but rejoice, and inspire hope that in the coming decades cities will become more attractive for residents.

The Open City conference, the largest event dedicated to education and careers in architecture and urban planning, is held under the auspices of the Moscow City Architecture Committee for the 3rd consecutive year. The event program includes workshops by leading architectural bureaus, sessions on the most pressing issues of Russian architectural education, a thematic exhibition, Portfolio Review - a presentation of student portfolios to leading architects and developers of Moscow, analytical research and much more. More than 600 people become guests of the conference every year - architecture students, lecturers, practicing architects, representatives of government and development community. This year "The open city" will take place on September 27-28 in the Moscow Museum.

Participation in the conference is free with obligatory registration!

Register for the "Open City" conference. ". If you have any additional questions, please contact

Registration

Ekaterina Ivanova
opencity.mka@gmail.com
+7 915 018 93 14

Media Registration

Maria Ulyanova
press.mka@gmail.com
UlyanovaMV1@mos.ru
+7 499 766 21 25