Temporality, Adaptability, Mobility

authors Robert Barbir, Nika Bralić, Ivana Brzović, Ivan Bulian
project RE: Parasites of Rijeka - Floating Pool Parasite, Rijeka, Croatia
written by Zorana Protić

 

Created as part of the graduate workshop, entitled RE: Parasites of Rijeka, the Floating Bath project is aimed at revealing potentials of abandoned urban spaces and their transformation into sites of social interaction by using materials, tools and building techniques. The term parasite occupies positive connotations in the field of spatial practices, denoting the temporary and adaptable structures that, through their form and program, explore new ways of activating urban spaces.

 

Observing the everyday life of the city, the students Robert Barbir, Nika Bralić, Ivana Brzović, and Ivan Bulian recognized the spatial potential of the industrialized coastline, and created proposals for its alternative future. Through their focused development of the idea, the group of authors has discovered new principles and procedures that can affect the city as a whole by means of a simple intervention. Mobile architecture thus becomes an agent of an active, participatory environment, incorporating into the city a coastline area that has been isolated for decades. Building on the utopian visions of the 1960s, the work affirms the three key aspects of contemporary society: temporariness, adaptability and mobility, (re)interpreting them in a new communal model of a floating pool.