Client: Strelka KB (Moscow), for a recreation/tourism development study
Location: Moscow, Russia
Year: 2016
Sector: Accessibility · Reach Analysis · Consulting · GIS
A rescue-and-deliver consulting engagement for Strelka KB — SPIN Unit fixed an unworkable analysis plan, then produced Moscow’s green- and water-space accessibility maps when the client’s own team fell behind.
Strelka KB needed a citywide picture of how well Moscow’s green spaces and waterways actually serve residents on foot — part of a wider plan to raise standards for recreational infrastructure. When their draft methodology proved undeliverable and the in-house team lacked GIS capacity, SPIN Unit stepped in twice: first to fix the plan, then to build it.
Commissioned as outside expert support for Strelka KB’s multi-volume study “The development of the recreation and tourism industry in 2012–2018.” SPIN Unit’s first visit reviewed the client’s draft methodology and found it implied 153 analytical outputs in a 20-working-day window — practically impossible — and proposed a workable 15-output restructuring instead. A second visit followed when the client’s team hadn’t completed the underlying data prep or analysis.
Reach index (developed with Raul Kalvo, via a custom Rhino↔QGIS tool) measured accessible green and water area per building within 350–800m of real walking distance. Betweenness centrality between homes and transit stops served as a proxy for pedestrian flow, since no mobile-positioning data was available. Google Places and Instagram data mapped where recreational activity actually concentrates.
Two consulting visits in mid-2016: a methodology review and knowledge-transfer workshop, followed by direct production of the missing Reach and Betweenness analyses and final maps when the client’s own team could not complete the work in time.
- Green space reach is largely adequate city-wide — the real barrier to access is a disconnected street network, not a shortage of parks.
- Water access is a genuine supply problem, not a design one — only central Moscow has walkable access to rivers or ponds at all.
- Parks and waterfronts sit outside people’s daily paths — the busiest pedestrian routes (home to transit) largely bypass them, making recreation a weekend activity rather than part of the daily routine.
- High-flow streets systematically avoid parks, consistent with international research — an argument for deliberately routing pedestrian corridors through green space rather than around it.
- A commercially purchased street-network dataset turned out to have major topology errors, which SPIN Unit had to diagnose and repair before any Reach results could be trusted.
Delivered the Reach and Betweenness analysis Strelka KB’s own team could not complete, informing the first volume of a planned seven-part recreation and tourism development study for Moscow.