Tales from Savska

This is the report of the Zagreb based workshop of the students from the Academy of Architecture Amsterdam. In the first weeks of this project we concentrated on our fascinations and our perception of a street. This research was to land in a project on what was to be the location for this project, the Savska street in Zagreb, Croatia. The workshop was held between September 23rd and 26th 2009.

On Wednesday 23rd professor Lada Hrsak welcomed us in Zagreb. She took us for a tour through the city. We started to drive from the new part of the city towards the old centre of Zagreb and up into the hills. During the tour we stopped at several places, the museum of modern art, the National Bank Cooperative Housing blocks, the Mirogoj Cemetery and we passed by a lot of different typologies of housing blocks. Then we went to the University of Zagreb and met the students whom we were working with during our stay in Zagreb. We presented our work to the students. The Croatian students chose a model designed by the Dutch students and explained to the group the way they felt connected to it. According to the connection the teams were made and we made an approach for the project we were going to work on for the rest of the week in Zagreb.

Our hotel was located at Savska street, the location of the project, so we started the day with a walk through the area of Savska street in teams. After making many pictures of the street and getting to know each other, we met at the university where we attended a lecture on the history of Zagreb. After lunch we worked on the projects in groups until the end of the day. We had dinner with Professor Jukić. Afterwards Lada Hrsak took us for a walk through the old city and showed us the view over the city by night. Later that evening we met the Croatian students in the city centre for drinks.

On Friday we continued working on the project and just before lunch we attended a lecture about how the strip in between Savska and the railway could look in the future according to a computer-rendered project, making the strip into a dense high-rise area with roads in the air. When we left the lecture room the weather was so nice that we had lunch in the park. After a discussion with the professors we worked hard to finish in time for the presentation the next day. All groups helped each other to finish their models. With a short break to eat pizza that we ordered at the university, we worked until three in the morning and finally went to the hotel were we had a drink in the bar

On Saturday, with only a few hours of sleep, we went back to the university to find the studio in exactly the same chaotic state as we left it. With a little help of the professors and their assistants we managed to clean the room and set up the tables for the presentation just before the first guests arrived. We presented our projects and the process that led to the final result to our professors and a team of experts from the field of architecture. The enthusiastic comments we got were positive and helpful in working further with our designs and looking critically at our design process.