Knowledge development demands haste

Monday, April 4, I stand with wet feet in the melting snow in a field just outside of Moscow. This is the future location of the National University of Research and Technology MISiS, one of the top universities in Russia. The university got the 100 hectares of land for free, through the development combination Masshtab who are developing a new neighbourhood just outside of the Moscow ring road which will bring 300,000 residents in the coming 20 years.  A strategic choice: the university as a catalyst for urban development. The campus will be located next to the planned neighbourhood centre connected to the Moscow tramline. The university’s project brief has been put together well. Seven faculties with 10,000 students and a staff of 3000 with all the amenities including a library, a business centre, conference facilities, a modern sports park, a cinema, cafes and shops. Accommodations for students and staff are also required.

Remarkably, the University has limited the height of the buildings to six floors and the student residences to only three floors. This I find to be a good starting point because I can create an attractive public space with this height; especially compared to the huge, unattractive residential buildings in Moscow and the developments which are sprouting like mushrooms in the meaningless open spaces between them.
The location is beautiful; sloping gently as a Limburg landscape with a beautiful valley lake that is now frozen. By cracking holes in the ice, it can be fished. On the high side of the hill is a forest. I've once spent days long on the Trans-Siberian Express and so have much familiarity with those endless Russian forests. Our car becomes stuck in the melting snow right in the centre of the site. I decide, while waiting for rescue, to walk around and get to know the area. It gives me time to think about a plan that we already have to present in three weeks.

In the afternoon we visit the university’s location in the city, right at a metro station. It is a university that originates from the Moscow Academy of Mines and the Moscow Steel Institute; both having played a prominent role in the last century in the industrialization of the Soviet Union. Now the government wants the technical university to play a major innovative role in the development of the Russian knowledge economy in order to remain a major player in the international academic field. As if time has stood still, I sense the atmosphere of the 50s in these buildings. People are very proud of Professor Abrikosov who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2003 for his work in the field of superconductivity. As we walk through the workshops where practical research about metals is done, I enjoy myself; this atmosphere is what I love about technical universities so much! But they really need new buildings, this is clear from walking around the workshops.

Three weeks later, on April 28, we present our plan to the international jury. Students and staff could listen in the same lecture hall. An unprecedented open discussion for Russia follows. We have embarked on creating a sustainable, healthy and green campus. With ample space and flexibility for innovation. A few hours later, it was announced that our plan was given broad support and wins. Off to work, before the end of this year they are supposed to start building, which is the condition that President Medvedev set to finance the Technical University.
International knowledge development demands haste!

Francine Houben
Het Financieele Dagblad
May 9th 2011