VRBANI DAY CARE CENTRE IN ZAGREB
2005 – Competition Entry
Area: 2.552,00 sqm
Author: LOVORKA KAIĆ MATEŠIĆ, M.Arch.
Co-author: ANETA KARLOVČAN, M.Arch.
The plot of land that the day care centre sits on is surrounded on 3 sides by a wide corridor road, with two-side parking, and by an open unsightly creek on the north-east side. All of this has led to a creation of the space that functions as a micro world and shuts itself away from the outside with a monolith building in the north-west of the plot and by creating partly made up ground in the south-east.
The form of the house is a result of all factors of construction of the surrounding area and of its position in the existing micro situation where it stems as one volume from the very plot, and its roof pours from a separate entity into the ground and blends with the surroundings. The ground is “rolling” from the roof along the south-east side of the plot and together with the house makes a unique entity, and the space stretched out between the house and the ground becomes an intimate space for playing. Playing and rolling (or sledging in the winter) runs both in and on the house. The ground and playing are intertwined and run throughout the plot. At the point of coming down from the roof of the house to the ground, the movement of a child has not been stopped; it rather runs continuously through the wavy grass-covered ground along the south-east boundary of the plot. The movement stops at the entrance to the nursery unit or continues into the central part of the space for playing.