VELENJE CITY CENTER

The existing promenade was created by closing

the erstwhile traffic road almost thirty years ago.
Even though it was re-paved, a sufficiently
thorough transformation never took place and the
promenade has retained the character of a road,
remaining too wide and rather dull due to the lack
of content. It has been chiefly a straight path
quickly leading the users to the inner centre.
Through renovation, the wide straight connection
underwent a transformation into a kind of
sequence of micro-ambients, of locally widened
surfaces connected by a slightly twisting narrower
path. These instances of widening (in effect
squares) feature attractive concrete urban
elements (benches) whose careful arrangement
slows down the users and provides focus, framing
the space for the additional programme content
to take place. As the path locally twists along the
surrounding buildings, it gives rise to larger
contained open spaces, allowing future expansion
of the content from the buildings outwards, or the
accommodation of other additional content as
required over time.
With the transformation, the Promenade is
turning into a main event axis of the city, its
centre being placed into the new amphitheatre
along the river. The river Paka is a torrential river,
which means that its watercourse swells up
significantly a few times a year, but remains
relatively shallow at all other times. As a
consequence, the riverbed is very deep and until
now, the river, which is an attractive element of
any city, flowed out of sight somewhere down
below. The wide bridge also meant that anyone
walking across it had a hard time seeing the river
at all. By narrowing the bridge and placing it off
the former axis, the space for the construction of
an amphitheatre, which slowly slopes down
towards the river surface, is recovered. The
attractive amphitheatre by the river, with the new
bridge serving as its backdrop, becomes the centre
of the activity in the city, and the river may once
again claim an important spot in the
townspeople's consciousness.

project Velenje City Center Pedestrian Zone

type open competition first prize
year 2012
status completed 2014

size 17.020 m2
budget 2.700.000 EUR
client Velenje Municipality
location Velenje, Slovenia

architecture ENOTA
project team Dean Lah I Milan Tomac I Tjaž Bauer,
Andrej Oblak I Polona Ruparčič I Nuša Završnik
Šilec I Alja Černe I Nebojša Vertovšek

structural engineering Elea iC

structural engineering Nom biro
electrical planning Elsing

photo Miran Kambič

project Velenje City Center Pedestrian Zone
type open competition first prize
year 2012
status completed 2014

size 17.020 m2
budget 2.700.000 EUR
client Velenje Municipality
location Velenje, Slovenia

architecture ENOTA
project team Dean Lah I Milan Tomac I Tjaž Bauer,
Andrej Oblak I Polona Ruparčič I Nuša Završnik
Šilec I Alja Černe I Nebojša Vertovšek

structural engineering Elea iC

structural engineering Nom biro
electrical planning Elsing

photo Miran Kambič

project Velenje City Center Pedestrian Zone
type open competition first prize
year 2012
status completed 2014

size 17.020 m2
budget 2.700.000 EUR
client Velenje Municipality
location Velenje, Slovenia

architecture ENOTA
project team Dean Lah I Milan Tomac I Tjaž Bauer,
Andrej Oblak I Polona Ruparčič I Nuša Završnik
Šilec I Alja Černe I Nebojša Vertovšek

structural engineering Elea iC

structural engineering Nom biro
electrical planning Elsing

photo Miran Kambič