The project was developed by a Dutch-Russian team of architects as part of an international competition. MAXWAN acted as the consortium leader. The proposal is based on five key principles.

First, the river should be easily accessible, and routes along its banks should be continuous throughout its entire length. Second, each bend of the river requires its own visual and conceptual accent. Third, the adjacent industrial territories should be repurposed for public and residential functions. The fourth principle concerns the clear definition of the river’s eco-basin and the creation of an intelligible connection with the urban environment. The fifth, and equally important, principle is that the river should become a thread linking together the diverse mosaic of Moscow’s landscapes, including the ecological zones of its tributaries. These ideas, logical for almost any urban river, were applied by the authors to the specific character of the Moscow context: the granite embankments of the city centre and the wild riverbanks of the outskirts, the distinctive topography of the “seven hills”, the rhythm of development from different periods, and a transport infrastructure that still lags behind global trends.