On July 2, Romanov Dvor Business Quarter became one of the venues of the Urban Festival held annually under the auspices of the Moscow Urban Forum. The event took place on the new floor of the Business Quarter – on the open patio with a view of the historic downtown of Moscow.
This year, for the first time in history, the Moscow Urban Forum took place in the summer, enabling to hold Festival events in open areas. The Romanov Dvor Business Quarter patio became one of the centers of the Festival that was attended by about 560 guests interested in the capital city development issues.
The Urban Festival in Romanov Dvor was held as a set of lectures delivered by renowned international and Russian architects and urban experts. Archdaily founders David Assael and David Basulto became the Festival headliners. They spoke about how the use of Internet-portal can improve the standards of living in big cities. In his lecture “New lease of life. New life of old developments”, Archspeech.com editor-in-chief Alexander Zmeul demonstrated the way the city works with its history. British architect Tim Flynn - UWC Dilijan College designer – shared his ideas on how to design modern schools and create a comfortable environment to educate children.
Speech Bureau architect Alexandra Sheiner delivered two lectures dedicated to cities’ technological prospects. In her lecture “Architectural phantasies and reality”, Alexandra spoke about how architects imagine the living environment of the future: from historical projects to present-day contests. The lecture “The city on the verge of technical revolution” was dedicated to the new tools in the hands of town developers and the “intelligent city” concept. The last lecture of the evening was delivered by Alexander Lavrov representing Vizerra – a company that works on virtual and augmented reality. Using specific projects as examples, Alexander showed how a city could use virtual technologies in the future.
Apart from the lectures, the participants of the Festival in Romanov Dvor took part in the presentation of promising startups by young entrepreneurs from Skolkovo and had a chance to test their creative potential in the open plein-air.
The Urban Festival represents a special open floor of the Moscow Urban Forum, a rendezvous for those who care about urban development, where the Muscovites and a wide range of experts become involved in discussions on the most burning issues. City activists put their initiatives on the table, while the experts – social scientists, economists and architects – offer their own vision of the future of cities. This year, the Romanov Dvor Business Quarter became one of the venues of the Urban Festival for the first time.