Case Study
- “concept of the street” as the basic building element of the urban design of the neighbourhood
- urban designa and architecture_ Marjan Bezan, Vladimir Music, Nives Starc
- landscape architecture_ Dušan Ogrin
- duration of the project from 1967 to 1980
An exceptional example of high-density development in Slovenia is the Bežigrad residential neighbourhood Ruski car. The project group under the leadership of architect and urban designer Vladimir Braco Mušič achieved the clearly legible ground plan by using the street as the basic building element of the neighbourhood’s design. With the dynamic design method, they defined the key guiding points in the surrounding area (terrain relief characteristics, spatial landmarks, views of the nearby mountains) and design elements which tie the neighbourhood together into a whole. Streets delineated with tall agglomerated development of uniform apartment blocks alternate with wide squares, which gives provides the neighbourhood with a spatial dynamic. The linearity of street space is relived by the shifting of the building volumes of varying heights. The repetition of the prefabricated concrete facade elements provides the space with a rhythm, and vertically and horizontally structures it at the same time. The neighbourhood comprises three linear streets; two of them were meant to be raised half a level above grade with parking garages placed beneath them – a solution that separates motorway surfaces and pedestrians by placing them on different levels. A central park space with a carefully designed relief is placed in the centre of the neighbourhood, planted with clusters of tall trees.
Assessment of the current condition:
There is a dire lack of parking spaces in neighbourhood (partly due to the fact that the envisaged parking garages in neighbourhood Ruski car were never built, and the considerably higher densities of inhabitants in neighbourhoods Koseze and Trnovski Blocks)
