POVŠETOVA URBAN BLOCK

LOCATION
Ljubljana, Slovenija

COMPETITION YEAR
February 2021

ARCHITECTURE OFFICE
Ravnikar - Potokar arhitekturni biro d.o.o.

ARCHITECTURE
Ajdin Bajrović, Viktorija Bogdanova, Robert Potokar

COLLABORATORS
Tina Gradišer, Jernej Borko

PRIZE
2nd Prize

The relocation of the premises, workshops and municipal service facilities of VO-KA Snaga from Povšetova to the outskirts of the city transforms the programme of the site and creates an opportunity to densify the urban fabric. By redefining the programme and introducing a new residential neighbourhood together with a recycling and collection centre, the valuable existing urban land is used more efficiently and returned to the city and its residents, who gain a new home within the Povšetova City Block.

The new residential neighbourhood is defined by six courtyard building volumes: three taller buildings along Povšetova and three lower ones towards Poljanska cesta. The six buildings are organised as a double sequence, establishing a relationship between the taller volumes – tower-like buildings along Povšetova Street – and the lower volumes – courtyard blocks or villas – located deeper within the site and responding to the scale of the surrounding urban fabric.

The courtyard configurations define both internal residential courtyards and the intermediate spaces between individual buildings, creating a sequence of shared spaces intended for the wider community. Within the taller development, the courtyards are predominantly paved and urban in character, evoking the scale and atmosphere of traditional urban squares and enclosed courtyards – hofs. In the lower development, the courtyards become wider, more open and extensively planted. In this way, the architecture incorporates green courtyards directly into its fabric, improving the microclimatic conditions while establishing semi-private communal spaces for the residents of each individual block.

The buildings are arranged along a connecting street at the upper level. The spaces between the blocks open towards a sequence of long-distance views: Golovec to the south, the Kamnik–Savinja Alps to the north, and the Ljubljanica to the northeast. The spatial arrangement thus establishes a dialogue between the immediate neighbourhood and the wider landscape of Ljubljana.

Through dual-aspect orientation and natural cross-lighting, all apartments achieve favourable orientations and generous access to daylight. This principle is expressed directly in the façades: all three primary façades incorporate balconies and larger openings, while the façades facing the internal courtyards are more restrained and enclosed. The buildings have virtually no conventional northern façades; these are reduced primarily to vertical circulation cores containing the staircases and lifts.

The apartments are conceived as self-contained modular units arranged according to a structural and spatial grid that allows their dimensions to be extended by adding individual modules. The units are assembled with deliberate offsets, creating external balconies within the resulting recesses while simultaneously preventing direct views into neighbouring apartments.

The offset also establishes a clear architectural boundary between individual dwellings, reinforcing their identity as autonomous units. Like individual houses brought together beneath a single roof, the apartments retain a sense of individuality while participating in the collective structure of the block.

On the internal courtyard side, the same principle of offsetting creates partially separated entrances with a distinctly semi-private character. A transitional space is formed in front of the kitchen window, accompanied by a convenient storage area directly adjacent to each apartment. The resulting sequence of entrance, threshold, courtyard and interior establishes a gradation between public, communal, semi-private and private space.