The federal agency responsible for funding mortgages in the Russian Federation is sponsoring a new program which is intended to set new standards for housing and urban development. The goal is to fund a huge new housing program which will meet the requirements and best-practice standards in a sustainable manner.

The agency has contracted the consulting firm StrelkaKB to conduct research into new housing standards as well as urban design. It was decided that the practice of building huge mono-function dormitory cities has failed and that new concepts and ideas were needed.

StrelkaKB contracted DPZ-Europe as an urban design and masterplanning consultant for this project. In addition to providing information about US and German housing standards, DPZ-Europe was intensely involved with StrelkaKB in developing the basis of a SmartCode for the Russian Federation which would then be calibrated to take into account the different climate, culture, urban morphologies found throughout the Federation. The City of Saratow (population ca. one million) was chosen as the first city to be studied in detail.