Jose Maria Gomez- Acebo Botin-Sanz de Sautuola

Methods of Analysis and Imagination, Positions in Practice

The project’s critical point occurs at its middle entrance where the logics of the underground conflate with those of the overground.
Listen to the audio fragment about the project here.

Continuity and Change: Dwelling in the In-Between

What is the role of architecture in civic discourse? The project takes as a case study the neighbourhood of Kosančićev Venac in the historic centre of Belgrade. On a larger scale, the intervention densifies the area and unearths its historic outer wall to form a pedestrian pathway that connects the river to the city. On a smaller scale, the proposal inserts a community centre that progressively dematerializes as it pierces through the ground, from the existing carved-out cave below to the sailing belvedere above. The point of highest expression is in-between, where the pedestrian pathway and the community centre ambiguously meet. Like the neck of the figure eight, here lies the spatial resolution of the vertical and horizontal movements, the stereotomic and tectonic assemblies, and the existing and new constructions. The resulting melting point is a celebration of architecture's capacity to negotiate seemingly irreconcilable socio-spatial forces through measurement, geometry and constructive technique.

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