A dark square, or a living subcentre?
Forgotten and overgrown like in a fairy tale, a conservated utopia and a neglected space. That is the current presence of the so called Sunny square. How can we return life to a square, which will be always the second one in the town? How to bring life somewhere, where nothing ever really happens? The answer is easy – give the place to the people. Let it be a place for the youngest kids with mothers, boys and girls playing games, young athletes and teenagers with skateboards, fathers teaching children to play football, whole families waiting with a coffee and a cake for a new movie and grandparents resting in the shadow or trying pétanque for the first time. The new square can not be a centre of the town, but it can become a living center point for the community.
In the green world of modernistic urban planning, much more is needed than just a cultivation of the form. A complex rethinking and change of its essence is necessary. To give this place a meaning and the people a reason to stop and spend some time. Therefore a crucial part of the revitalization is, besides the quality of the space, the density of functions and activities of the public space and its surrounding objects too. The new square should work as a frame for a mosaic of actions, a frame for a clear, inclusive space without barriers. It is crucial to support synergy of the space and the objects and to introduce a strategic governance of the whole locality.
A dark square, or a living subcentre?
Forgotten and overgrown like in a fairy tale, a conservated utopia and a neglected space. That is the current presence of the so called Sunny square. How can we return life to a square, which will be always the second one in the town? How to bring life somewhere, where nothing ever really happens? The answer is easy – give the place to the people. Let it be a place for the youngest kids with mothers, boys and girls playing games, young athletes and teenagers with skateboards, fathers teaching children to play football, whole families waiting with a coffee and a cake for a new movie and grandparents resting in the shadow or trying pétanque for the first time. The new square can not be a centre of the town, but it can become a living center point for the community.
In the green world of modernistic urban planning, much more is needed than just a cultivation of the form. A complex rethinking and change of its essence is necessary. To give this place a meaning and the people a reason to stop and spend some time. Therefore a crucial part of the revitalization is, besides the quality of the space, the density of functions and activities of the public space and its surrounding objects too. The new square should work as a frame for a mosaic of actions, a frame for a clear, inclusive space without barriers. It is crucial to support synergy of the space and the objects and to introduce a strategic governance of the whole locality.
Revitalization of a public space
Competition: 2020
Place: 2nd place
Location: Žatec
Co-author: Ivan Březina
Team: David Neuhäusl, Matěj Hunal, Veronika Paľová, Jakub Zelenák