Summer is the best time to travel. Traveling is the road to new discoveries. Discoveries are invaluable experience and knowledge. In August, our university became a meeting place where everyone is ready to explore new places, gain a new knowledge and spend their summer break productively.
On August 18 - 31, 2019, MGSU held summer school called "20th Century Mass-Housing RE3". The main idea behind the summer course was to introduce participants to the most interesting examples of mass housing development in Moscow of the twentieth century. Students had the opportunity to explore them from the different angle and to try to save and restore the objects of architectural history, breathing new life into them at the same time.
Participants from different parts of the world came to take part in the summer school: Giorgia from Italy, Mihael from Slovenia, Fan from China, Dymitr from Poland, Natan from France, Jenny from Germany, Lada from Latvia and Nastya from Russia.
Nikolai Vassiliev, PhD and assistant professor of the Architecture department is the man behind the topic idea for the course alongside with him are colleagues frotm the department, who also took part in the development of the program: senior lecturer Ivan Saltykov and senior lecturer Natalya Pushkina. Organization of the school was managed by the coordinators of the summer school, Marat Magomedov and Daria Karnaukhova.
Extraordinary on-the-go lectures around the most iconic architectural monuments of Moscow by Nikolai Vassiliev, instilled the hearts of participants with love and respect for the heritage of residential development of the first half of the twentieth century. It is important to preserve the best examples fom different periods due to the socio-economic characteristics of the time, as these buildings are living reminder of the history pages of our country.
In the second part of the summer school, students learned about the factors that must be taken into account during work on a draft concept for the reconstruction of a building with adaptation to new functions. Ivan Saltykov spoke about the structural design features of residential buildings from various materials at his lecture. At her lecture on sustainable development, Natalya Pushkina highlighted the issues of the modern integrated approach in architectural design. In addition, participants got an overview of the directions for development of urban environment that are relevant for modern Moscow.
Then followed the most interesting stage – proposal designs for the conservation of architectural heritage. Four teams under the guidance of teachers carried out the work. Since each team included future professionals from different fields, interesting, modern and effective solutions were born.
For the last challenge, students presented their projects in front of fellow students and lecturers of the departments "Architecture" and "Urban Planning". Participants had to answer to a lot of questions, their project proposals aroused great interest and lively discussions.
In addition to the main program, the participants successfully completed an intensive Russian language course under the guidance of a teacher of the Russian language department, Evgenia Skorik. At the final presentation of the projects, participants surprised the audience with a carefully prepared performance: everyone read an excerpt from the poem “I Loved You ...” by Alexander S. Pushkin in Russian and in their mother-tongue.
