Badel block competition, Zagreb
With this project we asked ourselves how to design sustainable after an era of pricy and exuberant architecture. Considering both the economic and ecological aspect of sustainability we react by proposing the building method that combines low-cost recycling (stacking of shipping containers) and traditional building technologies. Social aspect of sustainability we try to satisfy primary by the proposed new function of the Yeast factory – communal workshop and incubator of creative manufacture.
Urban form and a design are derived from our analysis of adjacent area and Zagreb’s Lower City structure. Since a defined urban block in a popular imagination of inhabitants of central Europe represents a city centre, we chose to stay within the typology, but reshape it in a form that captures and satisfies all the spatial and social tensions of the surroundings.
The lack of parks and abundance of paved open space (Kvaternikov Trg) in the vicinity we counteract by treating almost all open-air surfaces of the areal as a green space, in a hope this decision will also motivate more people into using the underused pavement of Kvaternikov Trg.
/ author with Zvonimir Kontrec, associate Luka Bekavac, competition, 2012. /
