Ksenia Golubeva
Head of the Design Department of the ДОМ.РФ (house.rf in Russian)
EcoTourism EXPERT talked with Ksenia Golubeva, Head of the Design Department of the ДОМ.РФ (house.rf in Russian) state corporation, about preserving the appearance of historical cities and combining the environmental standards with the creation of a comfortable urban environment when implementing urban planning solutions.
- It has already become the norm in many countries to use modern environmental approaches when designing cities. How common is this practice in our country?
- Recently, this norm has become really common in Russia. Since 2022, a national standard for ‘green’ construction developed by ДОМ.РФ jointly with the Russian Ministry of Construction has been in effect in Russia. All these requirements are certainly taken into account in our work.
In addition to promoting the development of the construction industry, we pay great attention to various factors in creating a living environment. ДОМ.РФ participates in the implementation of environmental initiatives, as well as in regulating the control over the architectural appearance of cities.
- Are you talking about the архитекторы.рф (architects.rf in Russian) program implemented by ДОМ.РФ?
- Архитекторы.рф is an educational program that covers all current trends, including the elaboration of solutions in developing a comfortable urban environment. Recently, we took students, 80% of whom were public officials, to China (as part of an international part of the program) where we introduced them, in particular, to the implementation of the ‘green frame’ in Shanghai.
The project aрхитекторы.рф sets the goals aimed at improving the urban planning solutions, introducing master planning and developing the young specialists’ leadership qualities. Many of our graduates have become chief architects in various cities and regions.
One of the important issues we focus on today is introducing amendments to the legislation on architectural activities aimed at increasing the status, powers and responsibility of chief architects.
- What is the essence of this proposal and how will it help improve the way our cities look?
- It is important to legislate the powers of chief architects so that each region has the opportunity to establish an architectural and urban planning council with assigned responsibilities. Last year, there were a number of administrative cases against chief architects, mainly because their powers were not clearly defined in the regional legislations.
We, as a development institution in the housing sector, realize this significant problem and work together with all the federal institutions to solve it. The architectural appearance of cities can only be controlled if appropriate documents are developed for this purpose and if there are chief architects who can strictly observe and implement them.
- The appearance of our cities is also important from the point of view of the tourism development. What is the role of ДОМ.РФ in this process?
- Developing both domestic and inbound tourism is, indeed, directly related to preserving the unique architectural appearance of cities and creating new attractions. We pay much attention to these aspects, including creating tourism clusters as part of our projects. The specialists of ДОМ.РФ think it very important to identify tourism attractions and work out an architectural space development strategy.
Work is underway to prepare all the necessary documentation aimed at attracting investments for the implementation of projects for developing natural areas, creating various museums, and preserving the cities’ unique features. Successful examples of such activities include the creation of a museum in Ulan-Ude, the Republic of Buryatia, and the construction of a public center in the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. This direction will be continued in our other projects.
Photos courtesy of ДОМ.РФ corporation
