The Cherkiszovsky Market: Mega-Micro Economy

An Ideal City builds upon the smallest scales of economy. In the case of Cherkizovsky Market in Moscow, thousands of micro-businesses initiated by everyday citizens overcame post-Soviet top-down policies and the "economic shock therapy" of privatization to create an entrepreneurial economy spreading across an Eurasian informal network. The New Cherkizovsky Market explores the potential of micro-economy by mixing formal and informal entrepreneurship systems. The new market proposes infrastructure to facilitate the integration of informal businesses with formalized ones at a range of scales, from small-scale trade and start-ups to R&D warehouses for globalized enterprises. The urban design of the new market is organized into tech, logistics and live-work zones, based around a logistics-infrastructural framework that would be shared by both the informal and formal systems of enterprise. The act of sharing engenders an ultimate collaborative mode of lifestyle and livelihood, encouraging a collective exchange of ideas, culture and technology. With improvised technologies, infrastructures and spatial policies, informal markets create openings for new urban situations and new links within local and the global networks. The micro-economy embodies and transforms Moscow's economic, cultural and spatial edges.

Sector: Mix Use Development

Location: Moscow, Russia

Stage: Concept Design Research / Exhibition at HK/Shenzhen Architecture Bienale