About the company's tasks, the most significant results of work, and plans for tomorrow – in an interview with the founder of the Agency, Sergey Georgievsky.
– Sergey, how did it all start and what has been achieved in 9 years?
– The CENTER was conceived as a "thought factory" that will bring together analysts, environmental producers, urbanists, architects, designers and economists. Its main task is to develop new strategies for the development of cities that respond to the challenges that stand in the way of global competition for the quality of human capital.
We created the company in 2014, at the same time the gradual formation of the urban consulting industry began, and we became agents of changes in approaches to the transformation of space and the environment in which a person lives. Today we are dealing with issues of strategic development of territories and the quality of the urban environment.
In 9 years, we have initiated more than a hundred projects. Together with the Moscow Government, we managed to launch Russia's first open international competition for the reboot of the largest park in Europe – Sokolniki – and the international urban landscape design competition, which annually changes the appearance of dozens of public spaces of the city, becoming one of the hallmarks of the Moscow festival. An urban landscape school has been opened. For the first time, the international association of parks IFPRA was brought to Russia, thanks to which first Moscow and then parks throughout the country became part of an international platform for sharing experiences with other parks around the world.
We proposed to hold the first international competition for the master plan of the whole city of Derbent, after which we held the first competition for the master plan of the Astrakhan agglomeration. Together with the Ministry of Construction of Russia and the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan, they launched the country's first Russian youth architecture biennale, with the teams of the Ministry of Construction of the Russian Federation, DOM.The Russian Federation and the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan – the first forum "Environment for life". Together with the Ministry of Construction, they organized the first All-Russian competition for the best projects for creating a comfortable urban environment in small towns and historical settlements and released the first study of the same name.
Our experts presented the first study in the country's recent history, "Moscow RE: Industrial. Typology of industrial territories and best practices of redevelopment", having considered industrial heritage in 4 dimensions: architecture, development, economy and heritage, as well as introducing a modern glossary of terms and concepts in this area. The study formed the basis for a number of initiatives and government programs in cities.
For several years we have been collecting the best practices of housing construction in all regions of the Russian Federation in order to create a comfortable environment, and now we are especially deeply studying the Arctic and Arctic territories.
The Agency has released dozens of studies on urban development and proposed the same number of strategies. We have become the largest operator of architectural and urban planning competitions, one of the centers of urban expertise.
Our mission has become to generate ideas for cities and regions and to promote the formation of a new model of territorial development in Russia, which creates conditions for unlocking the potential of each place through the development of new cultural, economic, and social centers.
The Agency's portfolio includes projects implemented for large developers, investment companies, owners of territories and facilities, government authorities and professional communities, which we implemented together with leading Russian and foreign experts.
For more information, follow the link.