VUKOVAR SECONDARY SCHOOL
The site of the future school is characterized by its dual nature, as it is positioned on a marginal, still unarticulated and natural zone, but at the same time within the city center. This duality was derived from the longitudinal development of the city along the Danube river combined with the spatial obstacles in the form of the Vuka river and the railway. Retaining this specificity and further intensifying contact between the urban and the natural surroundings are the core pillars of this project.
The long linear volume of the school and the outdoor sports facilities organize the space into five “city fields”. Their orientation suggests contact between the existing settlement to the north of the Vuka river and the planned settlement to its south. Meanwhile, the gradation of program intensity in the orthogonal direction articulates and marks the transition from an urban to a natural environment.
The urban axis spreading from the city center dissolves in the following sequence:
square > school > park > playground > forest. The main school entrance is designed as an extension of this public axis in the form of an interior student square with the library above.
The school program is grouped and arranged as a linear series of rooms, resembling a traditional Slavonian house. Each room has its own appropriate spatial organization and lighting. The sports hall continues the series of public buildings along the river embankment and gets its soft northern illumination through the roof structure. An alternate entrance on the north side provides access to the wardrobe and the school administration above it. The central common areas are positioned around the main entrance area, and the adjacent gymnasium can double as an event venue on a city scale. Further to the north, an array of classrooms is assembled around a private educational square. The series ends with several specialized classrooms overlooking the neighborhood in the north.
LOCATION: Vukovar
CLIENT: Grad Vukovar, competition
YEAR: 2018
SIZE: 7.438 m2
COMPANY: ONDA ARHITEKTURA
COMPETITION DESIGN TEAM: Nika Dželalija, Iva Martinis, Krešimir Renić, Ria Tursan