Renovation Outside Moscow: Searching for Alternative Development Methods in Post-Soviet Cities

Abstract

Large contemporary Russian cities have accumulated significant material resources in real estate and infrastructure, however their rate of decay exceeds their annual repair budgets. The uneven development of the country has led to an overconcentration of people and resources in large cities and metropolitan areas which exacerbates the inequality of the socio-economic development of regions on a national scale and widens the gap between the development of centers and peripheries within large cities themselves. In this way, large Russian cities, faced with a massive immigration, are developing extensively today, spreading to the periphery and pulling resources from the developed urban areas, leading to the degradation of built-up areas, and aggravating problems of social and infrastructural inequality. Before we face a wave of catastrophic collapse, network breaks and other problems, it is necessary to plan new mechanisms for renovating the existing housing stock, and for finding an alternative to extensive development.

Renovation outside the city of Moscow (“Nestolychnaya renovatsia”) is a challenge which requires developing tools for working with the existing housing stock, rather than demolishing it. Our basic hypothesis is that with the densification of built-up urban areas, placing new volumes within their boundaries and introducing a spatial structure into unformed territories, will create opportunities for updating and developing the existing housing stock and infrastructure. The placement of new buildings should improve the quality of the existing environment and should not create urban conflicts.

Using the example of St. Petersburg ,the study identifies eight morphotypes characteristic of the post-Soviet city. For each of the morphotypes, spatial tools were identified for working with built-up territories, to work in detail with the context, including involving the maximum number of owners of the existing housing stock in the process of urban development. Using research through design, we estimated the approximate capacitive resource of the developed urbanized territories during their development according to the proposed compact model.