Contextual Interpolation

architects Borislav Doklestić & Vedran Pedišić
project Housing nad Offices, Zagreb, Croatia
written by Ivan Oštrić

 

One of the collage fragments of the urban structure of Zagreb’s Trnje is the green area stretching parallel to the Slavonia Avenue, which appears as the specific component of this part of town. The discontinuity of the peripheral areas of this zone, which in the form of various building forms – from office terminals to residential “rockets”, follow the avenue, is intensified by the rich green break – an area into which the architects Borislav Doklestić and Vedran Pedišić have placed their residential building. In respect to existing arguments that Trnje should strive towards an unambiguous urban matrix founded on the urban development of the 19th century, the above authors affirm an opposing principle. It is in the zone’s fragment-like character that they see its contextual uniqueness and the outcome of future interventions. They have, therefore, placed their house in the depth of the site of the Zeleni trg otherwise open to the Slavonia Avenue, so that, protected by treetops, and visually hidden, it affirms the values of the basic sequence.