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Anastassia Smirnova: The Latest Architecture and News

Anastassia Smirnova: "Virtual Environment Will Help to Make Collaborations More Tangible"

Nowadays, architecture museums, galleries, publishing houses, foundations, and experimental laboratories all have rooms to show their backstage, bringing about debates and proposals of the future of architecture. This is all part of Future Architecture Rooms, a project launched early this week on the Future Architecture Platform which showcases a collection of online spaces, each hosted by one institution and one member of the platform. We talked with the concept curator, Anastassia Smirnova (SVESMI) to better understand how the idea behind this project emerged, and what innovations it can present in the way of working on exhibitions and architecture.

Moscow's Strelka Institute and the HSE Graduate School of Urbanism Launch a New Course in Advanced Urban Design

Moscow's Strelka Institute and the HSE Graduate School of Urbanism Launch a New Course in Advanced Urban Design - Image 1 of 4
Strelka Institute, Moscow. Image © Olga Ivanova

The Moscow-based Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design and the HSE Graduate School of Urbanism have launched a new collaborative international Masters programme entitled Advanced Urban Design. The two-year English language program, specifically designed for Bachelors, researchers and young professionals, intends to guide students through best practices in the area of urban planning. Under the guidance of a collection of tutors from Russia and around the world, the course aims to investigate conditions of growing cities by focusing on unstable socioeconomic contexts.

Reimagining 448 Local Libraries in Moscow, One Space at a Time

SVESMI, an unassuming studio based in central Rotterdam, is at the center of a dauntingly complex project that may eventually see the renovation of 448 dilapidated and disused branch libraries in Moscow. Architects Anastassia Smirnova and Alexander Sverdlov balance their time between Rotterdam, which acts as their design studio, and Moscow from which, alongside architects Maria Kataryan and Pavel Rueda, they oversee the project at large. Faced by the potential challenge of reimagining over 450 public 'living rooms' spread across the Russian capital and demanding unusually high levels of spatial articulation and social understanding, the Open Library project is also unwinding the hidden narrative of Moscow’s local libraries.

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