Military and secret service zones Military and secret service zones

The Military group aim is to raise awareness among the Muscovites of the military presence in the city and to initiate a conversation between the public and the military about the future of the military and their complexes in Moscow. To accomplice this, they introduce a new holyday the day after Victory Day: Switch Day. On this day, all military personnel have a day off and occupy the public places. The non-military Muscovites can visit all the military complexes that are normally forbidden zones. Especially for Switch Day the Military group provides all Muscovites with a new map of the metro, with include the secret lines, and a map with all military complexes and their facilities. To educate children on this topic, educational comic books are handed out at the schools.

The brief of group Military is What if…the military and secret service would move out of the centre of the city (so it could be used for housing and amenities for the population?). According to their line of thinking you'll first need a different mindset before you can start thinking about re-using military buildings because they are still associated with fear, control, secrecy, superstition, etc. One particular type of military objects cannot be easily re-use or demolished: the bunker. There are allegedly 5000 bunkers in Moscow and these bunkers often frustrate building activities. The military is part of Moscow, part of its image, and part of the heritage. The group proposes an installation that makes the bunker network visible in the sky for a short period of time once a year. The installation is intended to initiate a conversation between architects, urban designer, the public and the city about the future of the military complexes in Moscow. Highlighting a hidden past and celebrating new opportunities.

The workshop participants visited bunker 42 to explore the scale of Moscow's hidden world. The tour guide led the group through the underground network of tunnels, blast doors and once secret communication chambers, along the way recreating scenarios that you would have seen in these spaces during the Cold War. Bunker 42 is the only declassified bunker complex in Moscow of the many believed to be out there. The workshop poses the question what if... The military and secret services moved out of the city centre? Leaving its infrastructure to the people of Moscow. Those who attend the workshop presentations at Strelka on Thursday 23 will gain security clearance and access to ideas for the future. Pictured: The fearless leader Paco Hernandez, considering top secret plans for their reuse. For more pictures inside Bunker 42 click here

What if…the military and secret service would move out of the centre of the city so it could be used for housing and amenities for the population? The group will focus on four kinds of military / secrets zones: the ones in public space, infrastructure, under ground, and heritage. The participants will choose a location from the intriguing interactive map on http://moscow.wikimapia.org/en/tag/516/

> Daniëlle Bakkes > Juan Andrés Campollo Dubois > Xiaofu Fei > Jürgen Furchtlehner > Niels Groeneveld > Paco Hernandez > Lucas Mateo > David Adrian O'Reilly > Yingjie Yu

What if…the military and secret service would move out of the centre of the city (so it could be used for housing and amenities for the population?) Defense, protection, restriction, control, limited access, buffer zones, permit - these words describe regulations in most rigid areas of our cities that are controlled by Military Services and also by Heritage Institutions. Today the two main landlords in the United Kingdom are National Heritage Trust and Ministry of Defense. Despite the fact that there is no such statistics provided for Moscow, it wouldn’t be a mere assumption to state that these two institutions paradoxically support each other in their regulations in one way or another. Studio will focus on analyzing the effect of such “double” restrictions in order to understand how this situation affects Moscow central districts, public spaces, infrastructure facilities and military service zones below the ground. Then we will define new emerging opportunities for each of these categories and strive to find the solutions for new urban prototypes, which will create free access city areas. You can have a glimpse at http://moscow.wikimapia.org/en/tag/516/ to get an impression of the task and scope of opportunities for the five days of the workshop. Studio Leader Denis Leontiev Projects Leader, Competitions Management at Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design Specialty: pre-design spatial programming of urban areas, public spaces, cultural and educational facilities; managing the international architectural competitions in Russia. Among the projects are Gorky Park, Polytechnic Museum, Zaryadye Park and others. 2011-2012 cooperation with Coop-himmleb(l)au (Austria) on project STUDY 2050 on spatial energy concept for the cities. 2010-2011 Postgraduate research program at Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, Research Project “World Heritage as Economic Value” as part of “Conservation” studio theme directed by Rem Koolhaas Studio Assistant Daliya Safiullina Project Manager at Strelka Competitions Management at Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design MArch 2011-2012 Postgraduate research program at Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, Research Project “Total Upcycling: Towards a new demolition waste management model in Russia” as part of “Citizens as Customers” studio theme directed by David Erixon