the project proposal considers the competition territory as an accessible and permeable park-botanical garden with free-standing buildings within it. The park’s identity is determined by its complex playful topography and is a nod to the area’s previous state, known as “The Hole”, inhabited by natural vegetation and frozen in a state of unrealized potential. All areas “below sea level” of the main squares – open spaces for culture, social contacts, performances, debates and recreation – are intensively rich in greenery and offer “immersion” in a hybrid natural-architectural environment in the very heart of the city.

The individual building volumes of the cultural and library-administrative program are carefully positioned within the urban planning framework and in relation to the surrounding urban environment (including the planned future private building in the immediate vicinity of the competition area) in a way that preserves the overall balance of built-up to open public areas in the central city.

The complex topography of the park solution is an actively sought counterpoint to the pragmatic and simple volumes of the buildings. The individual building volumes are centers of a kind of interference, which becomes the basis for the construction of the dynamic park landscape. The contrast and interaction between buildings and the park environment give a new meaning to the area and turn it into a significant and inspiring heart of the city. The landscaping of the park is planned to be carried out in rings, which continue the story of the interference picture of the influence of the main buildings on the terrain and the cultural zone on the central part of the city. On the periphery of the property outside the functional and square zones, planting of tall deciduous and other endemic species is planned. In the depth of the park, along the completely grassy topography outside the alleys and squares, afforestation with rare and exotic species and the development of a kind of botanical garden are planned.

The architectural image of the buildings is deliberately industrial – both as a reference to the spirit and history of the city with its suburban industrial facilities in their inherent construction and aesthetics and to some of the most current models in the world for dynamic, sustainable and transformable buildings for culture.

The freedom of the open plan that the large-scale steel structures presuppose allows the full competition program to be deployed in a way that is in equal parts pragmatic (and in this sense economically and seismically expedient), complex, exciting and dynamic in terms of possibilities for use and habitation, and frank with the history and poetics of the city.

The image of the interior spaces is a logical extension of the dynamic image of the topographically complex park. The material presence of the open areas outside the polyvalently programmed and technically equipped halls is welcoming and frank, aimed at being colored (through the reflectivity of the polished concrete and the metal cladding of the ceilings) in the tones of the natural environment outside the building during the day (from sunrise to sunset and in the four seasons) and in the colors of the interior lighting in the evening.

DYNAMICS OF HOUSING

The project proposal emphasizes the cultural, educational and public function in the assignment, as the Culture zone, encompassing the reception area of ​​the complex, the multifunctional auditoriums, the exhibition spaces, the artists’ zone and the training zone, are the semantic core of the largest building volume – BUILDING 1, and the library and the administration zone – of the high volume (BUILDING 2).

The reception building (BUILDING 1) of the complex interacts actively with the open public spaces in the territory, intended for recreation, culture, social contacts, performances. The open public lobbies contact two squares at different levels in the park’s topography (-3.00 and 0.00), accessible to all visitor groups through a landscape with a moderate slope and positioned so as to provide additional space for the functions and events described in the assignment of the adjacent pedestrian zone and the square.

The hall spaces in the Culture zone offer flexibility in terms of typology and size, achieved in the project in the following ways: the possibility of the large hall to function on two levels – with a sloping and flat floor, respectively; the possibility of connecting it with the small hall, the possibility of using it with and without a raised stage and proscenium, with and without scenery.

The second semantic core in the free development of the complex – the library building and the Administration area – BUILDING 2 interacts with the external spaces of the park here manifesting itself in the form of an open ground floor with a zone for debates, training and small cultural events, located symbolically at the foot of the library. The free ground floor allows the flow of the space under the building and connecting the park with the surrounding streets and squares in the spirit of the modernist ideal, to which this building refers in its architectural image.

This project proposal directs a look at the poetics of ordinary everyday urban life in the city of Burgas, a bearer of two important qualities from an anthropological point of view: liveliness and connectivity.