The district is isolated from the rest of the city by the river, the Moscow Ring Road and an oil refinery, so Kapotnya has naturally become almost a self-contained city within a city. In the project an empty area is divided into the same number of plots as inhabitants of the district, which are distributed to them with complete right of use. The new sites are regulated in terms of the possible area and height of construction. The high-rise buildings left by residents become public spaces.

From the review by Ilya Voznesensky:

"This project aims to resolve one of the most dramatic problems of urbanism - the formation of boundaries between the city, the constantly pushed back industrial zone and the village.

The proposed solution is in line with the latest town planning trends and almost literally illustrates the philosophy of French urbanists, formulated for the "Greater Paris" project - two environments on the border between the city and rural settlements should stop turning away from each other with fences and vacant lots, and turn into a perforated, homogeneous, interpenetrating space, a sponge (le sponge), forming a new hybrid type of settlement surrounding the city.

Residents of these areas compensate for the shortcomings of life on the outskirts with the advantages of rural life, and vice versa.

At the same time, the project offers solutions to such urgent social and urban problems, such as the issue of recreation and employment in residential areas, the difficulties of daily labour migration, the dependence of the periphery on the centre.

One could assume that this new concept of autonomous settlement implements the "libertarian communes of the future", in which barter will eventually supplant the circulation of money, and people will be freed from senseless work.

The author conducted an in-depth city planning analysis of the specifics of the site, allowing its potential to be most fully realised and turning those of its flaws that cannot be corrected into assets. "

LOCATION Kapotnya, Moscow, Russia

YEAR 2016

STATUS diploma project

PROGRAM masterplan, residential, public space

TEAM

TUTORS Yury Grigoryan, Marko Mihic Jeftic, Julia Ardabyevskaya

STUDENT Olga Tarasova