BLOK BADEL ZAGREB. Competition for the urban-architectural concept design for the BADEL SITE redevelopment COMPETITION NUMBER: ZG-UA

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1 BLOK BADEL ZAGREB Competition for the urban-architectural concept design for the BADEL SITE redevelopment COMPETITION NUMBER: ZG-UA

2 1.0 DESCRIPTION AND EXPLANATION OF THE OVERALL CONCEPT The Badel Block Project represents a unique opportunity for a large scale intervention in one of the last available blocks limits of Zagreb s city centre. The idea behind the project is the creation of a new attractive centre of commerce, business, culture, tourism and leisure. The revitalization process in not only based on a dense urban design, with criteria for minimum energy consumption for housing, green space and accessible public transport, but also the recovery of lost public space through the recovery of the characteristic Industrial Heritage Urban Fabric of the area. The following strategic axes are proposed for the revitalization of the Badel Site: To maintain centrality To improve the quality of life of its inhabitants To promote residential use To attract new residents To incorporate criteria of sustainability To promote economic revitalization To involve different stakeholders Figure 1. Badel Block location in Zagreb, Croatia The project transforms the old industrial areas of the Badel Block into a high-quality environment for working and living. As a project of urban refurbishment, it responds to the necessity of recovering the social and economic dynamism of the City s Centre and creates a diverse and balanced environment where the different facilities coexist with state-subsidized buildings, equipments and green spaces that improve life and working quality. As a project of economic refurbishment, it constitutes a unique opportunity to turn the Badel Block into an important cultural platform transforming Zagreb into a more dynamic and innovative city. As a project of social refurbishment, it facilitates the interrelation among different professionals who work in the area and the participation of the district's neighbours in the opportunities information technologies offer.

3 The architectonic proposal is divided into six areas: Public Spaces/ Green Areas: m² All residents will have a green space less than 200 metres from home. Public space development is the vital key that drives the transformation of the island, supports its conversion and lays the groundwork for balanced and sustainable changes to its functions: o Creating new enjoyable living places o Improving public spaces by promoting alternative modes of transport (public footpaths, cycle tracks) o Creating new routes to meet the needs of an urban centre open to all Badel Block 2012: Public space 0m² Badel Block 2015: Public space 8.500m² Industrial Heritage / Tourism Centre: m² The distillery building will become the new core centre for the Badel Block. As a new tourism centre, its activities will not be limited to the area but to Zagreb s City Industrial discourse. With its historical and industrial heritage background, the Badel Block is the place where an abounding range of cultural and artistic initiatives are hosted and developed be they long-term leisure infrastructures and places, or temporary performances and events. Cultural heritage is our debt to the past, our promise to the future. Offices/ Hotel / Auditorium: m² m² A new activity area is proposed to incorporate new technologies companies, where international events could become part of the City s aim. One auditorium for 200 people and other for 300 people. Commercial / Retail & Restaurants Areas: m² ( ) The aim is both to support the development of existing activities and to promote the settlement of new economic activities, particularly high-quality services. Housing: m² (190 units) The project is strongly in favour of mixing production spaces with new housing in order to allow people to live close to their workplace, foster the development of local commerce and guarantee vitality in public spaces throughout the day. Subsidized housing units, favours social diversity in the area and guarantees the vitality of all streets and public spaces throughout the day. Parking: spaces (580 per level) Badel s actual use a parking lot shows the deficiency for the area. The new parking will not only cover the necessity of the program, but will help unpressure the use of the car in the city s centre due to Badel s strategic situation and close relation to public transport. 1.1 Urban innovation The project aims at the transformation of the old industrial area, with obsolete factories that had long ago been abandoned or were simply not very productive, into a magnet for new activities. This transformation cannot happen with a traditional rezoning from industrial to residential designation. One of the goals is to replace the previous industrial activity by offices or other business services and equipment related to new technology and knowledge, encouraging land owners to update obsolete urban planning elements while maintaining economic activity. The proposal is building a new compact city, where companies co-exist with housing units, facilities and green areas. This model city coexists with the neighbourhood s industrial heritage thanks to the recovery of the Industrial Heritage which conserves elements of architectural interest.

4 1.2 Economic innovation The coexistence of new companies with local district ones -shopping, small workshops, service sector- configure a rich productive fabric. This environment favours the synergy in pro of knowledge and the processes of innovation and allows the improvement of the competition as business group and the quality of life of the citizens that live and work in the Badel Block. 1.3 Social innovation By means of the space for professionals, the project promotes the creation of new networks of formal and informal relationship fostering the creation of local and international business cooperation projects to improve the social and business cohesion and increasing the quality of life and work in Zagreb. At the same time, it stimulates and supports innovative projects that foster both the use of new Information and Communication Technologies and the collaboration of citizens and professionals with social, educational and cultural organizations in the district. The new block carries out innovative actions in order to foster the use of the new information and communication Technologies in everyday life and to facilitate communication among people. The project also tries to reach other objectives such as for instance, to bring in what Internet and information and communication Technologies offer to several associations and institutions aimed at improving their life and work quality or to make neighbours to be pioneers in integrating new technologies to everyday life.

5 2.0 PRESENTATION OF TRAFFIC AND ROAD NETWORK The public space is conceived as a meeting point and has a symbolic value with respect to their people, designed according to their security and diversity of uses. The mobility system will facilitate access to services and facilities and work, getting the reduction of car journeys. Mobility model is based on pedestrian or bicycle travel. A common parking is defined on the perimeter of the industrial heritage building, which not only satisfy the demand of the Block but also wants to function as a new meeting point for the city s centre. Regarding public transportation, buses lines connect to the centre of the city, and a tram line through the neighbourhood that also has a commuter rail stop. An organized association of car sharing is also proposed. PEDESTRIAN ACCESS PARKING ACCESS PEDESTRIAN ACCESS PEDESTRIAN ACCESS PEDESTRIAN ACCESS BLOCK PARKING NECESSITY (1.120 cars) CITY S CENTER PARKING PROPOSAL (+560 cars) Figure 3. Badel Block access & existing road network + parking scheme

6 3.0 DESCRIPTION OF SPACE ALLOCATION, FUNCTIONAL AND SPATIAL RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN THE DEFINED COMPETITION ZONE, VALUATION AND USE OF PROTECTED BUILDINGS A new model for the Block: Quality public spaces The project devotes 10% of the previously industrial land, to the creation of more than 9,000 m² of new public spaces and green areas, and establishes a high standard of quality in its streets. Public space is a support element for the urban fabric, for relationships and activities, and because of this, it is one of the basic guidelines for the city's configuration. For this reason, the structure of the green areas has been proposed according to a sequence of measurements in which the large open spaces extend gradually toward squares and smaller streets with houses, becoming true meeting places for residents. The street subtly modifies its route in order to improve both vehicular and pedestrian traffic. On one hand, this reduces traffic problems in the area by defining a reduced number of main streets, which carry the majority of private vehicles as well as public transportation, and a larger number of secondary streets, with minimum traffic flow, used to access buildings. On the other hand, it introduces a new standard in urban planning that optimizes pedestrian routes, improves visibility and security conditions at crosswalks and increases accessibility for those with reduced mobility. At the same time, it widens sidewalks to seven meters in order to encourage foot traffic and help develop commerce near the corners. Industrial Heritage Badel favours a diverse urban model, where new buildings and public spaces coexist with traces of history and elements representing the neighbourhood s industrial past to create a place with great cultural value where tradition and innovation come together. Zagreb s rich industrial heritage is evident when consulting the number of buildings and other elements that are catalogued as heritage sites. New elements have been added to the previously catalogued, have been put forward as cultural assets of local interest due to their great importance. In order to aid conservation of this group of buildings, special regulations will also protect other elements, like alleyways, residential buildings and structural elements. New facilities The Badel project aims to have 10% of the transformed land devoted to public facilities (3,000 m²), which include a tourism centre for the City of Zagreb, and new office area with auditoriums and a hotel for congresses purposes. This measure favours synergies between the work place, living and location, in general and improves overall efficiency by guaranteeing the availability of highly qualified workers and collaboration between research teams and companies. At the same time, these endowments help alleviate the lack of community facilities in the neighbourhood, which calls for the construction of schools, community centres, old age homes, etc Housing The project is strongly in favour of mixing production spaces with new housing in order to allow people to live close to their workplace, foster the development of local commerce and guarantee vitality in public spaces throughout the day. Subsidized housing units, favours social diversity in the area and guarantees the vitality of all streets and public spaces throughout the day. Advanced infrastructures The infrastructure network in the Block industrial area will probably be clearly insufficient. For this reason, the project introduces a new Special Infrastructure Plan that allows for urban improvements on streets of the district with highly competitive utility infrastructures. The new Infrastructure Plan calls for an investment for the implementation of a modern network of energy, telecommunications, district heating and pneumatic refuse and waste collection systems. The design of these new networks gives priority to energy efficiency and responsible management of natural resources. The new Infrastructure Plan allows for the introduction of important improvements in urban services, like: A system of underground service galleries interconnecting the blocks and enabling service networks to be repaired or improved without the need for excavation in the streets. New fiber-optic telecommunications networks, with a dark fiber network that allows companies to contract any service provider they wish and create direct links between different parts of the district. Moreover, companies can also install antennas and radio transmission systems. Currently, the companies which offer telecommunications services are: The new system of centralized public climate control, which involves savings at both the economic level and in the emission of CO2. The selective pneumatic waste-collection network, which differentiates between organic and inorganic waste and paper. The new electricity network which guarantees a quality electrical supply through a total power five times that currently available, and more powerful and efficient gas and water-service supplies.

7 4.0 ELABORATION ON SOCIAL, ECOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY The fundamental principles of urban sustainability would be the reduction of energy and material inputs, by using local resources (solar, water and waste itself generated), the reduction of waste outputs in the form and the enhancement of local economies. Among the actions to achieve urban sustainability, prioritize of those related to the consolidation of the occupied territory. In that sense one of the key actions would land reclamation and abandoned transformed but underused as industrial facilities. The importance of urban density needs also to be emphasized, increasing the density of existing urban areas by building new housing and facilities in urban voids as to avoid the sprawl model. Second place a mobility model based on pedestrian and bicycle accessibility. To do so require that urban design offers a variety of safe and attractive routes for pedestrians, that space is permeable and legible, it is easy to navigate and retrieve the route. Pedestrian mobility requires a public space in which the scale and proportions of streets, buildings and places provide a human scale urban character, and that a high density with mixed uses make possible the proximity of offices, shops, and equipment. As for traffic, would not be so as to reduce it to remove it with deterrents such as reduced lanes and parking space to introduce trees and reclaim the streets for cyclists and pedestrians. It also highlights the importance of a public transport system. Another pillar of urban sustainability would be savings and energy efficiency. Reduce the use of energy applied to the construction of infrastructure and construction, for it re-emerges the need to prioritize the reuse of roads and land, buildings and adapting the existing heritage and thinking about adaptability and recycling new construction, taking into account from the earliest stages of design costs associated with the entire life cycle of a building. As for electricity generation proposes to reduce inefficiency and losses due to consumption of electricity over long distances by smaller plants and close. Regarding waste, beyond centralized collection systems separative should take advantage of economic activities related to the reuse and recycling as part of local development. In the water cycle, the actions would be aimed at reducing the costs associated with the linear system of distribution and clearance, closing cycles locally, using materials and systems that facilitate the absorption or evaporation of rain, or its use for irrigation and other secondary uses. As for the grey and black water, use filtered scrubbing systems, lagoons, algae, plankton... linking them also with the organic waste for obtaining compost. They also highlight the importance of green spaces within the neighbourhood and intended to enhance environmental quality and welfare of the inhabitants, and as areas of biodiversity. It proposes the introduction of urban agriculture in these green spaces as an activity also related to the recycling of waste and water. For a socially sustainable community is necessary to improve the quality of life of its inhabitants, and that the environment is pleasant to live and visit. To achieve the required complexity is necessary over time to develop the urban system in all its aspects. To achieve diversity is not only important to the mix of uses and the existence of different models of accommodation: in the purchase, rental, etc.. Simple mixing of income in the same space is not enough to make it work as a complex community. The diversity and social cooperation can only be achieved through a community of interests and objectives. The urban character to which reference was made in the previous section facilitates a sense of ownership and responsibility. Also through the processes of participation in the design of social housing projects or the creation of cooperative management, responding to the needs and desires of the people and also creates a community structure, in which participants develop a sense of responsibility to the group and the building or space. The urban projects implemented in small areas, plot by plot, can better correct faults to be better able to react and adapt to changes, favours the evolution of diversity in slow times.

8 5.0 PLANS DIAGRAMS The following diagrams show the intervention proposal for every level. 5.1 Demolition + Parking m² m² [560 cars] x 3 levels 5.2 Street Level: Public area + Built area COMMERCIAL AUDITORIUMS m² m² 5.3 Floor Plan: 4 & 3 levels TOURISM CENTRE OFFICES HOUSING HOTEL