Sokolniki Park of Culture and Rest

Sokolniki Park is Moscow’s biggest and most visited park, counting 520 hectares. It was planted under the rule of Peter the Great and has evolved into an urban city forest, comparable to Tiergarten in Berlin and Bois de Boulogne in Paris, with an intensive park program.
The competition entry, called ‘Evolutionary heritage’, is a proposal for a gradual upgrading of the park. It has always changed and adapted to the times. This is its history, its heritage and its character. The park should continue to evolve and change – allowing elements to die, adapt, emerge, and return. Ideas and thoughts from the past return in a contemporary way.

Every two years a new theme is introduced the park, that structures the realisation of one one iconic project, several small scale interventions, lectures and debates en restructuring of maintenance. In the course of 14 years the park will undergo a transformation, involving a new sustainable transit connection to the inner city, improved entrances, view points, renewed axes, programmable pavilions and a boosted ecology.

One element of the evolving heritage is to form an iconic project for resilience. It is the realization of a two kilometre long greenhouse on a park axes. It will be the first winter promenade in the world. Walking through the greenhouse would lead one along many examples of resilient development and would be seen as a monument to the famous Kitchen debates. The greenhouse axis is formed by relocating existing municipal nursery. This large space in the forest will be adapted as a glade: a big open space for barbecuing, sunbathing and playing. The species grown in the greenhouse will be drastically diversified in order to plant for a diverse ecology. Next to that, the vegetables will be grown, which can be served in the restaurants in the park.