Location: Ukraine
Date: 2020
Programme: Urban planning
Client: N/A
Status: Ongoing
Area: N/A
Budget: N/A
Team: Traumnovelle (architects)
Macrodistrict
Macroraion or macrodistric (Russian: макрорайо́н, makrorajón; Belarusian: макрараён, makrarajon, Hungarian: lakótelep; Ukrainian: мaкрорайон, Azerbaijani: makrorayon, Armenian: մակրոհրապարակ, romanized: makrošrǯan, Kyrgyz: качирайон) be part of the residential complex project named Plotnost (Russian: плотность; Englis: density) —a structural element of the residential area construction in the Soviet Union and in some post-Soviet and former Socialist states developed during the 1950s period after the failure of the microdistricts project due to the increasing housing demand after the World War II [1]
According to the Construction Rules and Regulations of the Soviet Union, a typical macrodistrict covered the area of 10–60 hectares (30–160 acres), up to but not exceeding 80 hectares (200 acres) in some cases, and comprised residential dwellings (usually multi-story apartment buildings) and public service buildings. As a general rule, major motor roads, greenways, and natural obstacles served as boundaries between macrodistricts, allowing an overall reduction in city road construction and maintenance costs and emphasizing public transportation. Major motor roads or through streets were not to cross macrodistricts’ territories. The entrances to a macrodistrict’s territory were to be located no further than 300 meters (1000 ft) apart.
Standards also regulated the accessibility of the public service buildings (excluding schools and pre-school facilities) by imposing a 500-meter (1,500–foot) limit as the farthest distance from any residential dwelling. One of the city-planners’ tasks was to ensure that the fewest public buildings were built to cover the macrodistrict’s territory in accordance with the norms. On the ground floor typical public service structures include secondary schools, pre-school establishments (usually combined kindergarten and nursery), grocery stores, personal service shops, cafeterias, clubs, playgrounds, and building maintenance offices, as well as a number of specialized shops. The exact number of buildings of each type depended on the distance requirement and the macrodistrict’s population density and was determined by means of certain per capita standards.
HISTORY
1950s-1990s
After the World War II, the USSR stay de country the most affected by the damages, indeed almost 1 710 cities and more than 70 000 villages are destroyed. It is followed by population displacement which have seen their town razed.
In that context of massive exodus to the cities the central governement decided to developed his Plotnost’s project based on the hyperdensification of the urban peripheries and realized the first macrodistrict which will be able to support housing’s applications unlike the previous microdistricts’ project.
Thoses high density housing estate (5 700/km2) followed a rasterized plan surrounded by wilderness, the ideal for the New Soviet Man.
Numerous sovietics architects as well as international architects (Ernest May, Ludwig Hillberseimer) join the project et worked on several urban development schemes for the realisation of those outliying cities.
At the same time and in the continuity of the “Stalin’s plan for the transformation of nature”, the Soviet state decide to not rebuild the cities which was demolished during the war and propose instead the planifications of large natural spaces on the ashes of those cities.
The achievement of the macrodistricts allowed to develop new urbanistic’s visions with extreme density development on so that they can free more ground spaces for the nature and preserve the existing ecosystem
Modern times
The dissolution of the Soviet Union led to a sharp decline in the volume of residential construction nevertheless the macrodistrict still has the capacity to host a large number of inhabitants. The benefits of the ultra densification of the housing linked with a politic of reforestation are now visible and place the actual Russia and other Socialist Republics as pioneers of the preservation of the Nature creating the second Earth’s lung after the Amazon rainforest.
China
In China, this type of neighbourhood unit is known as Xiaoqu (pinyin: xiǎoqū). First built in the 1980s, preceding the Chinese
economic reform, they were very similar to the concept as known in the Soviet Union. Xiaoqu similarly promoted a sense of community among the inhabitants. However, after the economy was opened up more for commercial real estate developers, Xiaoqu continued to be built, but evolved in several ways such as differentiation in luxury, safety and available services. The apartments are owned by the inhabitants, and the Xiaoqu is often enclosed by a wall, with the entrance gate being guarded
