"Swap on the River", the 1st prize winner for Europan 13 Zagreb, Croatia

And here's our next featured Europan 13-winning entry! For the Croatian capital of Zagreb, this competition focused on revamping four unused and derelict sites along the city's Sava river. City officials believe these riverfront sites have the potential to eventually be transformed into dynamic public spaces.

Project description:

"Expanding into the vast urban/suburban territories of Zagreb, Sava River runs through approximately 20 km adjacent to the city. Aiming to reintroduce the riverside to its inhabitants, the project examines four underused but critical sites and focus on the question of how intervention on four separate sites can have holistic effect to change movements and relationships of the entire river with the city." 

"The project stands as an exploration of opportunities to experiment the effect of relatively small, soft and temporal interventions that are characterized by dynamism, immateriality, and indeterminacy."

"Therefore, the proposal introduces a framework of negotiation in which a constant conversation of the sites/their surroundings/programs is promoted through movement and exchange on/around the water. As the medium of this exchange, activator structures will be swapped/interchanged between the sites enhancing the east-west connection of the city through river."

"Consisting of nine structures with different roles and capabilities, the activators are pivotal for negotiation of programs, activities and goods in between the sites. By visiting each site and being carried through water, the activators foster conversation between the sites, convey programs from one to another, and adapt to the needs of the sites." 

"While every single structure is able to host multiple activities through slight changes, combination of varying number of activators generate endless possibilities of events and uses."

Did you participate in Europan 13? Submit your winning entries to Bustler! We'll be posting a selection of entries in the coming weeks.

To find out how to submit, click here.

You can also check out previous winning Europan projects here.