Moscow Urban Forum “Megacities: Success Beyond the Centre”. Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design, forum programme developer, presents the speakers of this year.

“The wall and the weaponised border function in a vaster ecology. That larger ecology helps explain the failures of government attempts to stop unauthorised migration via border controls. It might be argued that the Berlin wall “worked” on its own terms. True enough, but those
terms were far too narrow to keep a larger ecology from making it unworkable in the long term. It was not US tanks that brought the wall down. It was that larger ecology”. (via Opendemocracy.net)

This year’s Strelka class is the largest in the history of the Institute. 42 newly enrolled students shared with us why they decided to come to Strelka.

Today, Strelka is delighted to welcome the new students about to take part in its educational programme, and wishes them all a fascinating year, full of experimentation and discovery.

This year’s nine-month study programme will include an introductory course, a competition on urban space development, a research studio, and an outdoor exhibition project. In the course of their studies, participants will not only gain the knowledge and skills needed to work with the urban environment, but will also have the chance to improve their group working skills, explore the psychology of the work process, and find out about the principles of interdisciplinary cooperation.

Strelka Institute will take part in the Institute Effect exhibition, taking place during the third Lisbon Architecture Triennale, 2013.

Strelka will inhabit part of the MUDE Design and Fashion Museum with an installation about the institute’s role in Moscow and its place in a global discourse. Featuring its publishing arm, Strelka Press, the exhibition will explore the notion of Moscow as a crossroads for critical thinking about cities and design.

On the 8th November, Strelka graduate Liya Safina is going to Berlin to present the research based on her educational experiment Liquid Strelka, to a team of international experts at the competition finale of Falling Walls Lab.

Can a stress-measuring device improve our understanding of the urban environment? Can the architecture of small forms activate urban spaces? Strelka graduates speak about their participation in the “Sochi Peshkom” (English: ´Sochi on foot´) project and new approaches to urban research.

Taya Osipova, project manager

The summer school was the main event of the project. It lasted the whole of July and each week had its own particular theme. Students were introduced to the understanding of the city as a process; they learnt how to initiate different processes in the city and how to create the spaces needed for this, and they came to grips with issues involving the activation of urban spaces. We chose a particular area in the city and negotiated its use with the landowner. A Nineteenth Century fortress once stood there, from which the city then grew. Nowadays, there’s only one dilapidated wall left, citizens pass it by every day and are completely unaware of its importance in the city’s history. There is an “Anchor and Cannon” monument nearby to commemorate the founding of Sochi.