The complex, which includes a school for 1,100 students and a kindergarten for 220 children, will be built near the village of Nikolo-Khovanskoe in the area of Sosenskoe. This land, situated mere 5km away from the Moscow Ring Road, began to be actively developed as soon as it was officially joined to Moscow. The construction of the first stage of “Spanish Quarters” started in 2012 . Now this is a fully domesticated place – a piece of Barcelona, as the developer, A101, is marketing it. The spirit of a Spanish city is indeed there: medium-rise buildings, closed-perimeter blocks, green vehicle-free yards, small shops and cafes. Even the streets and avenues are named after famous Spanish people. The development is concentrated along Cervantes Street. The residential areas are pierced by the long pedestrian boulevard of Velazquez. 

All the necessary urban and transport infrastructure is also present in the new formation, including the recently built kindergarten and the school named “Logic”. The “Prokshino” metro station of the Sokolnicheskaya line is a 15 minutes’ walk away. The nearest areas of Moscow can be accessed by the Kaluzhskoe Highway by bus or by car.

The successful implementation of the project – and it was announced as the best one by popular vote on the “Active Citizen” website in 2020 – provided momentum for the further development of the land. For the construction of the second stage, a large piece of land behind the Novomikhailovskoe Highway was allotted. The residential development, which, in addition to the houses of the block type, also included seven towers, straddles both sides of the Magellan Avenue – the main transport artery of this area that connects it to the Kaluzhskoe Highway. Currently, the buildings have been completed and the residents are moving in.

The 2.6-hectare riverside land site on the right side of the avenue is still lying vacant. When still in the design stage, the developer reserved it for the construction of a new educational center. There is a necessity for it, despite the recently-opened “Logic” school for 1,300 students. “Spanish Quarters” is essentially cut off from the city infrastructure – there are only private residences and country homes lying around it. Schools and kindergartens are few and far between, and those that are there are filled to capacity. Until the school was built, children had to ride to school to neighboring areas. But even after it was finally opened, the issue of lack of educational places remained quite acute, as the population continues to grow.

Andrey Asadov, ASADOV architects

“The atrium and the amphitheater are particularly important. This is a unifying, multifunctional space, the territory of childhood and one of the key elements of education, because it is during the process of informal communication that a student can feel like a part of society, a part of a large and friendly world.”