Earth, Wind & Water

TEAM PORTRAIT

VIDEO (by the team)

INTERVIEW
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1. How do you define the main issue of your project in relation with the theme “Living Cities Imagining architecture taking care of the milieus”? And in which way do you think your project can contribute to an ecological and/or social evolution?
The project “Earth, Wind and Water” raises a major issue for the city of Makarska, as in many other coastal cities of the Mediterranean Sea: the impact of mass tourism on a place's social and cultural heritage. The site's specific territorial and atmospheric conditions (Biokovo mountain/Earth, Bura/Wind, Adriatic Sea/Water) give unique tastes to local products, strongly defining Makarska’s unique identity. Three sites in the core of the city center were proposed with programs gravitating around culture and food: a market, a gastronomic center, and a cultural platform. These programs set great opportunities to define public spaces that could offer new synergies between locals and tourists.

2. How did the issues of your design and the questions raised by the site mutation meet? 
Our approach focused primarily on the understanding of the existing context. The emptiness of each site is perceived as a quality in the core of the city center. Systematically, these voids are reconfigured through their topography, from which superstructures and series of elements could offer polyvalent activities, and programs. Thus, we propose a covered square for the market, a terrace for the gastronomic center and wine cellar, and a performative park for the cultural platform. Each part of the project interacts in a different and complementary way with the existing: its natural and built environment. Specific climatic conditions are offered on each site to meet the program and the comfort of its users.

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