Nike Upgrades Moscow’s Gorky Park With Multifunctional Sports Hub

The Nike Box MSK is a newly established sports and cultural center in the heart of Gorky Park in Moscow. Providing crucial public amenities, Nike's latest intervention blends in perfectly with the wider trend of brand urbanism.

Launched in summer 2018, the sports facility seeks to promote an active lifestyle amongst park visitors and Moscow residents. The comprehensive sports complex includes an outdoor football court that was inspired by the notion of korobka (box). Traditionally, this is a small fenced football pitch that can be found in many residential areas throughout Russia. Apart from providing space for a variety of sports, Nike Box MSK has emerged as a creative hub and a space for culture and self-expression through curated programming and partnerships.

Nike and Strelka KB arranged a competition to come up with a functional model for a sports center to serve the interests of a broad spectrum of citizens with a wide variety of needs, as well as various recreational and urban communities. Drawing inspiration from the aesthetics of prefabricated Soviet modernist housing and industrial outskirts, Box MSK creates a functional public space integrated into the city’s most visited park.

The proposed plan by Kosmos

The Nike Box MSK blends into brand urbanism — an emerging trend in which brands allocate marketing budget to improve cities. Nike has long been on the forefront of brand urbanism by merging their brand value with urban interventions for healthier cities. Some of Nike’s most renowned urban projects are the public basketball court installed in New York City and the Nike Biketown PDX bike-sharing system in Portland that was launched in July 2016.

Brand Urbanism

A growing number of consumer brands are investing in the city, working together with cities to find solutions for urban issues. In a time of austerity, brand urbanism provides local governments with more possibilities in realizing ambitious projects, while giving brands a one-off opportunity to show their involvement in and responsibility for the city.

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