The Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron has unveiled plans to redevelop a six-hectares old factory area in the heart of Moscow. Located at the former Badaevskiy Brewery that sits along the river, the project will renovate and repurpose the remaining clusters given the site's cultural heritage status. In addition, the firm will also raise two residential blocks above the site.

The result is a "horizontal skyscraper"—described as a "piece of city lifted up in the air,"—that sits on many slender stilts. According to the firm, the choice to elevate the additional buildings 35 meters in the air brings three key advantages: "first, the new green area, an urban park, emerges in the vacated land under the hovering structures, between the heritage buildings and the river front; second, despite the substantial densification of the site, the historical buildings retain their direct connection to the river and their clear visibility and access to the city; and third, all the flats in the hovering structure are top floors with prime views to the Brewery, Kutuzovskiy Prospekt, Ukraina Hotel, the State Duma, Moscow City, and beyond to greater Moscow."

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