Moscow Green & Water Accessibility Analysis

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.