Masterplan for the new ‘Rakyta’ district in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Area: approx. 40 hectares
Building: approx. 300.000 m2
Client: Lucron Group
(2021-Present)
IN PROGRESS
In 2021, an international competition was held for the design of the new district of Rakyta: 40 hectares on the northwestern outskirts of Bratislava, near the Austrian border and opposite to the old Devínska Nova Ves neighborhood. The two-stage competition, invited 8 teams from different countries to develop ideas or visions for the new habitat.
A diverse jury made up of different agents: some of them academics, prestigious architects and representatives figures of Lucron (the land developer), unanimously awarded us the first prize in the competition. Since then, Arenas Basabe Palacios, working together with our Local partner MoroczTacovsky, the Austrian landscape office Yewo and the Lucron Team, have designed together a Masterplan for the New Rakyta District.
When we analyzed the Rakyta context, we recognized the great value of the preexistence creek landscape and a few dense forest islands around it. Building upon these ecosystems, lines of infiltration will enhance the wild, natural and informal atmosphere of the future habitat. The urban fabric will be sensitive and respectful with this natural environment and it will be adaptable to the terrain in a gradation of different scales, making a diverse, porous and attractive place of living with a dual character between urban and natural.
A mobility loop clearly structures the new urban development while minimizing its impact into the landscape. A North-South axis of shared-space cross the loop, improving the people flow to the central square. As an urban condenser, the new core will be surrounded by commercial uses, restaurants, cafés and the required facilities (school, kindergarten and sports hall) and it will provide direct access to the public transport (bus and tram). A homecoming bike line network completes an hyperconnected and pedestrian friendly district.
When we are dealing with the great number, it is important to have different sizes of communal relationships and identities, where residents recognize the unity of their residential cluster but at the same time feel identified with the entire district. So we propose a proper and controlled scale to become liveable neighborhoods, and to generate all together a multiple identity for Rakyta.
The result is a Masterplan that aims to be unitary and diverse at a time: six different identities emerge to create a complex, porous and attractive district, each one with its specific character: The Gate, The Core, The Creeklands, The Meadows, The Hill and The Open End.
But the city should be more than the sum of its parts. The different identities interact with each other and assume complementary roles in the urban landscape through an appropriate balance of compactness, density and mix of functions. The borders between the different identities are dissolved within a diverse urban texture and intertwined landscape strategies of both macro and micro scales.
New urban developments must also anticipate responses to contemporary problems: the model of rigid regulations, inflexible with the diversity of current ways of living; the growing pandemic of loneliness, which particularly affects our elderly; or climate change, unfortunately already present and increasingly frequent, which we must consider in order to minimize its serious consequences on the habitat.
Water management reinforces the idea of the ‘sponge city’, with a free space design based on a network of multifunctional raingardens, which are used as playgrounds, leisure and sports areas, but are prepared to receive large quantities of water in the event of torrential rain. A significant grid of permeable surfaces completes the porous district both horizontally and vertically, preventing flooding and its negative effects.
Passive strategies for sunlight control, wind comfort and noise protection are combined with the purposes of fossil-free construction, material sustainability and soil balance, limiting the negative impact on CO2. To this end, the masterplan design has engaged experts in energy, solar analysis, technical mobility, infrastructure, soil and water management, etc., who contributed both qualitive and quantitative insights into urban design through different parametric tools and multiple layers of information, which all overlapped in a collaborative design process that we call ‘workshop-based urbanism’.
Competition:
. authors: Arenas Basabe Palacios, Madrid
. landscape: Atelier Divo, Czech Republic
. collaborators: Paula Fernández, Sofia Perini, Diego Regalado, Hernán González.
Masterplan:
. authors: Arenas Basabe Palacios arquitectos (Madrid) + MoroczTacovsky (Bratislava)
. landscape: Yewo Landscapes, Vienna
. client team: Karina Danková, Matej Privrel, Dušan Štefanides, Martin Truba.
. collaborators: Paula Fernández, Javier Ortiz, Pablo Ogando, Paula Gómez, Elisa Rodríguez, Diego Regalado Patrícia Vlčková, Michaela Vikukelová. AS phase: Ricardo Sabogal, Andrés López, Giada Ranaldo, Michal Vitkovic, Rafaella Ribeiro, Lukáš Velický, Patrícia Vlčková, Michaela Vikukelová. DUR phase: Michal Vitkovic, Paola Venturi, Lukáš Velický, Patrícia Vlčková.
. experts: Fondrk František (electricity), Janák Milan (energy), Vašková Milica (geodesist), Jaroslav Hruškovič (wind analysis), Nechaj Juraj (dendrology), Franek Dušan (acoustic), Šajgalíková Barbora (infosystem), Škvarka Juraj (AG-E), Šembera Tomáš (EIA), Škvarka Juraj (IGP+IGHP), Straňák Zsolt (light engineering), Čierna Zuzana (mobility), Kocianová Mária (DKP), Heriban Ján (water management) and Alejandro Fuentes (parametric tools).