Revitalisation / renaturalisation of a quarry in Podutik in Ljubljana.

Team: Damjan Pirc, Irena Ostojić (City Studio)

The easiest way to explain what a re-naturalization is to say that it is the return to the nature!

New residential area represents a link between the urbanized and natural space in which the buildings and nature are mixed into one. New settlement is placed on the edge of the city of Ljubljana, where the nature is dominating. The new construction is merged into the nature in order to preserve the green context of the area.

Neighborhood consists of 20 containers, arranged in two floors. The lower floor consists of long containers (12.19 meters x 2.44 meters x 2.59 meters), the upper of short ones (6.095 m x 2.44 m x 2.59 m). Neighborhood can be arranged into different types and sizes of housing. GFA of a neighborhood is 450 m2. It can be organized into 3 - 10 residential units, optimally 4 - 6. 56 neighborhoods have been planned. Within neighborhoods, according to the design flexibility, from 168 to 560 residential units can be arranged.

The complex consists of 616 short and 2824 long containers. A total of 3440 used ship containers.
Underneath the housing roofs there is a network of rainwater retention ponds. Water is collected and pumped through the system to the basins. Rainwater is cleaned and sent back into the system for the needs of sanitary water in individual households. Because the rainwater basins are located on the upper level of the quarry the advantage of terrain drop is used for water supply. The system can be upgraded with the installation of water turbines on the lower level.

The solar chimney is combined of three proven technologies: natural draft effect, greenhouse effect and wind turbines. The system consists of:
 - chimney (three tubes that run from the bottom to the top of the quarry and also serve as a supporting structure for the cable car and utility shafts),
 - air collector (collector is connected through the underground installation with a slope that has a northern position and is ideal for capturing the cold air),
- wind turbines (electric turbines are installed into a power plants tubes, powered by the wind draft).