Meandering through vast and diverse territories of wild peripheral terrains into principal urban center; agricultural lands into aquatic nature-reserves, Morača’s continual flow transpires a diverse range of multilayered socio-ecological encounters reconciling natural and human spheres. While the 20th century urban planning strategies of Podgorica omitted the rivers and avoided reciprocal relationship; same strategies allowed Morača to maintain itself as a robust ecological green belt in the city.

Aiming to preserve and restore the unique ecological nature of the river within the city, the project manifests Morača river as an “oasis” in the heart of Podgorica; offering an easy escape from the hectic pace of the constructed environment. This strategy focuses on minimize impacts on the natural environment; intents to be unobtrusive and avoid adulteration of the natural components of the area; and offers an abundance of nature-based socio-cultural recreation opportunities including canoeing, kayaking, paddle boarding, fishing, geocaching, hiking, nature education, trail running, mountain biking, picnicking, play areas, swimming, bonfires, climbing, rappelling, birding, resting and looking-out points, urban camping, zip-lining, urban farming, etc. A range of open upland areas from riparian steeps to deep aquatic canyons offer the natural background for these socio-cultural and active recreational public programs. These eco-friendly spatial scenarios can guarantee socially, economically and ecologically a sustainable future for Podgorica, regarding the city not only locally and regionally but even globally, a case study of incorporation of natural ecosystems and nature-based public activities within the very center of the city.

"Everyday Oasis" is the winner of the International Urban Design Competition.

KOOZ What prompted you to partake in the competition?

OA As a design studio that operates at the intersection of infrastructure, public space and ecology, we aim to constantly produce in different places that excite us therefore when we first encountered with this competition we understood that Morača is a unique place. Meandering through vast and diverse territories of wild peripheral terrains into principal urban center; agricultural lands into aquatic nature reserves, Morača River’s continual flow transpires a diverse range of multilayered socio-ecological encounters reconciling natural and human spheres. Its pristine aquatic resources, devious course and terrain morphology not only incites life in Podgorica as a city, but also, conceives a contradictory urban form which is both divided and adhered by the presence of this eminent river.

KOOZ What questions does the project raise and which does it address?

OA The river’s unique conversation with the city was the main focal point for us during the design process, all questions developed around it and tried to be answered. In almost all European capitals around a river, the rivers had been profoundly manipulated, tamed, constructed and urbanized throughout history, whereas in Podgorica, due to the unique morphology of the riverbed and also due to the historic urban planning approaches, Morača River persisted as an almost untouched, untamed wilderness right in the middle of the city. This essence of the river instigated a preserved space for constant natural transformation yet of outstanding permanence, enduring and witnessing through time, becoming the common heritage of natural and human artifacts, and perpetually connecting the heterogeneous and diverse ecosystem, history, ethnicity, culture, civilization, religion, architecture and urbanism of Podgorica.
In answer to this situation, while aiming to preserve and restore the unique ecological nature of the river within the city, the project manifests Morača as an oasis in the heart of Podgorica; offering an easy escape from the hectic pace and constructed environment of the everyday urban life into an ecological destination.

KOOZ How did you approach the competition brief?

OA Although the main quest of the brief was to concentrate on ways to re-establish and re-question the connection of the river and the city, the extraordinary character of the river in this capital opens up other possibilities to incorporate natural ecosystems within the very center of the urban environment. This specific potential and offering of Podgorica probes distinct reinterpretation and exploration of Morača’s existence within the urban realm. Therefore, instead of an urbanized riverbank park, the project concentrates on discovering non-invasive socio-ecological encounters while intervening in this extremely valuable natural environment; it aims to develop socio-cultural density without being necessarily urban; and envisions to provide a mutually harmonized common habitat balancing human use, ecological processes and natural preservation.

KOOZ What case studies did you look to for inspiration? How did these inform the design?

OA Our first source of inspiration for this project is the engravings made by an Italian traveler in the 1700s while passing through Podgorica, which we found in the De Agostini Collection. These engravings perfectly captured the atmosphere of Moraca’s close surroundings and the city’s relationship with the topography. During the design process we developed our visual language through inspirations of these engravings.

Our second inspiration is not for particularly this project, Alexander von Humboldt always inspires us with his sections, his perspective on nature and the way he interprets nature.

Stan Allen’s Infrastructural Urbanism is another important source of inspiration for the main approach of the project. Inspired by what Stan Allen said, this project aims to make the proposed built environment work like an artificial ecology and proposes a responsive and communicative virtual ecosystem that embodies an augmented environment of user interaction and data.

KOOZ How does the design respond to the surrounding natural environment? (urban sprawl, choice of materials etc)

OA Augmenting socio-ecological encounters at the intersection of the human and natural spheres, the project reframes a relation between the urbanity and nature by introducing a framework of gradience to systematically define methods of co-existing on every level and layer from program to circulation and ecological restoration. Devising the framework based on the aquatic and terrestrial ecological functional zones of the river, this gradience from the river to the city in a cross-section includes aquatic zone, riparian zone, upland/buffer zone, and urban zone. As each ecological zone operates differently but cohesively, the opportunities and constraints offered by each zone also prompt different yet cohesive design solutions.

Establishing the range of eco-functional zones of Morača River as the basis to guide the design proposals, each strategic intervention layer is introduced and employed within the framework’s gradient zones. These intervention layers have been grouped into three layers of strategies: Ecological, Circulation, and Programmatic. These strategic layers synthesize the priorities of Morača and illustrate a vision to enable eco-spatial conditions, socio-ecological interactions and an active public realm promoting systems of reconciliation, adaptability, resiliency while creating an eco-political project that inclusively evolves with the city; it becomes not a project of passive preservation and re-naturalization, but of characterization and symbiotic activation.

KOOZ What are the values of designing in closer connection to and with a greater awareness of the natural environment?

OA Engaging ecology by recognizing that human agency and the evolution of the environment are inseparable, our projects intends to preserve, restore and recuperate each ecosystem to enable its dynamic unfolding.

For example in this project, the proposal focuses on resilient functional solutions and utilizes multilayered ecologic strategies to revive and protect the habitat, morphology, and the green-blue infrastructure of Morača and consists of strategies for water, plantation and soil stabilization. The planting strategies of the project are developed with native species with low water consumption, and the upland and riparian buffers are aimed to provide a strip of hydric soil with facultative vegetation to offer niche ecotone services for the habitat and wildlife of Morača. While the plantation of the riparian strips is designed to structurally stabilize banks and shorelines to prevent erosion and slumping, the proposed multi-layered plantation provides the necessary conditions for the nutrient exchange and the survival of some aquatic life as well as create resting/nesting points for the fauna.

KOOZ How is this ambition reflected through the drawings with which you chose to explore the proposal?

OA The project contains an extensive catalog of solutions fostering an ecologically self-sufficient urban ecosystem, boosting biodiversity and providing performative and programmatic public engagement of water and green within the public space. For this reason, we wanted to show the union of the natural and the proposed built environment in the drawings by visualizing them integrated and intertwined. It is always tried to be reflected in the drawings and visuals that the proposed designs are landscapes and structures inspired by the natural environment and transformed from the very beginning by the flow of the river.

Bio

OPENACT is a multiple design practice that operates within the fields of architecture and urbanism. Conceived as part-laboratory and part-workshop, OPENACT employs research as a performative act in architecture and envisions the design of open-ended systems as the basis for adaptable, flexible and organic infrastructures, across a multitude of scales that support and promote contemporary urban life. Recent work and research focus on strong design relationships between public realm, infrastructure, and the environment.
Led by Zuhal Kol and Carlos Zarco Sanz, OPENACT has received several international and national awards in multiple architecture, urbanism and design competitions. In addition to the implemented and on-going projects of OPENACT, the productions of the studio operate through diverse media and platforms ranging from exhibitions, publications, research, and academic work.