New Air Traffic Control Center at the Ljubljana airport (ATCC), designed by the Sadar+Vuga studio from Ljubljana, has been officialy opened in May this year and since then awarded the ICONIC AWARD 2013 winner by the German Design Coucil, GOLDEN PENCIL 2013 for the excellent realization in the field of architecture and nominated for PIRANESI AWARD 2013.

New Air Traffic Control Center at the Ljubljana airport, comprising air control center with 24/7 amenities and office premises, is a highly demanding and complex object due to the nature of the institution it hosts. It is designed to enable safety and high operational activity as well as consistent comfort for visitors and staff 24 hours a day all year around.

The building is located in the middle of the plot, at the north there is a parking platform and at the south high vegetation of the garden. Within, the object is organized by five levels of security zones with access control at each passage. The further one moves from the rim that holds administrative and rest areas towards the centre of the object, the greater the security level of the areas. The compact design serves to enhance the operational efficiency of the object, paths are short and manageable. The clear division into a pentagonal head (control center) and two wings (offices and public program) provides easy orientation within. They are connected by a central multi-leveled area with an entrance lobby, restaurant, conference room and gym. The vertical hall is a place for meeting, informal socializing and communication.

The Center appears as a monolithic shell, opening towards outside only when necessary. Building is wrapped in belts of glazing and combined aluminium parapets and brise-soleils that regulate the intensity of heat and light transmission to the interior. The angle and the size of the brise-soleil are determined by the layout of the windows and the intensity of solar radiation related to it. The height of the parapet is determined by the interior of individual areas and the related wish for greater or lesser openings for views. The windows are made of bronze reflective glass mirroring the mountains in the surrounding. The beige and bronze colour coding of the façade visually reflects the building’s character of security and protection. The roof is rising in terraces, thus continuing the play of blinds and parapets on the facade, providing daylight to the interior areas, especially to the control room in the pentagonal core of the object.

Andreas Ruby, Quote from the jury report about the excellent realization of ATCC:

With their air traffic control centre building, Sadar+Vuga have achieved something incredible. They have managed to make a typology visible that normally does not register on the radar of our architectural culture. This structure wants you to look at it, and it looks at you: its meandering banded windows are crowned by obliquely cantilevering sunshade panels that read like eyelids. Inside, the porosity of the facade pays off in generously lit interiors, which yields another exotism – daylight in a control building. The atrium is a carefully sculpted well of light that you would expect in a cultural institution or high standard office building, and stands emblematic as an architectural strategy to overwrite the usual misery of this typology with an abundance of tectonic care and sensual consideration. This investment in design is no boutique-fetish, but acknowledges the exceptional kind of work of those who work there. Now, from the inside, you also understand the rationale for the design of windows and sunshades. The size of the window strip corresponds to the hierarchical importance of the program behind it.

Thanks to this primitive parametricism (Boštjan Vuga) the design of the building never slides off into arbitrariness and formalism, which you can better witness on site than from photographs. The building uses its form not as an end, but as a means to transform the conventions of its typology. It wants to restore cultural value and dignity to a type of building all too often treated as junk or inconsequential space. One could easily (mis)take it for a cultural or public building, but that’s exactly the effect the architects worked to generate with their design: to make us reconsider the role of such buildings for our cities and endow them with a greater mission and ambition.

Source: Sadar+Vuga.

This summer a new design hotel was open in Ljubljana – Hotel Vander, whose design is the work of the famous Slovenian architecural office Sadar+Vuga. The hotel is located in the historic centre of Ljubljana, right next to the Ljubljanica river and on one of the busiest pedestrian paths in the town.

The hotel is constructed within the interior space of four historic adjacent buildings. Because of this specific location and conditions, the design of the building plan is spread vertically, with a ground floor space that serves as the main public part of the building and contains the reception, restaurant and bar/lounge areas. The next three levels are organised around a vertical atrium with stairs and contain 16 rooms. The top floor of the hotel includes a glasshouse with a large open terrace and pool.

The exterior facade of the building remains untouched and preserved. Conversely, upon entrance to the hotel you enter a new identifiable area that is the innovative space of Hotel Vander. The design of the hotel was based upon the kaleidoscopic play of 3D patterns in different materials, and reflections that extend the borders of the constructed space. The space created inside appears almost endless. Due to the reflections created inside the building, the visitor becomes a part of the interior.

The rooms inside the hotel are designed with light colours, textile floors and contain glass partition walls to the bathrooms. Inovative interior design and detailing allowed for maximum use of relatively small surface areas. Rooms appear to be more like homely living rooms, due to custom designed furniture pieces such as the black tables and mirrored wish box with mini bar.

A special feature of the hotel is the long terrace with wooden decking and swimming pool. Intended for the relaxation od guest, the wooden deck allows spectacular view of the picturesque roofs of old Ljubljana. Here also the space appears to extend, mostly thanks to the “endless” pool that seems to overflow over the terrace edge. This whole ambient presents an oasis of peace and tranquility right above the busy and buzzing pedestrian zone of old Ljubljana.

All the floors inside the building are interconnected with a vertical hall that also serves as a light shaft. In addition the northern wall of the atrium is cladded with a hanging metal curtain which allows light to diffuse inside the core of the building.

Photos: David Lotrič and Miran Kambič

All photos and drawings courtesy of Sadar+Vuga

Centre for Architecture Belgrade invites you to visit this fall one of the most interesting and biggest creative festivals in Southeast Europe – Ljubljana’s  Month of Design, organized by Zavod BIG.

Although a relatively young event, the Month of Design brings future into the present moment and is intended for all those who wish to experience future – today. Read their  Manifesto!

Month of Design is the first development oriented and proactive platform in Southeast Europe, or to put it simply, a visionary “industry and craft fair of good design and creativity”, that brings together 18 fields – from enterior design to transportation, from fashion to medicine, as well as 11 creative activities, so-called “creative industries” such as design, architecture, advertising etc., all based on personal creativity, knowledge and talent.

Don’t miss the forward exhibition event Design Expo, that will captivate you first with the exhibition space, and then with the exhibit itself, provocative cocktail presentations and shows on the Stage 180^o. Attend the annual slovenian design award, and the conferences Embedded design and the Finnish experience and Food and Health: future scenarios now.

Visit the exhibitions Timeless Slovenian Design and Little tourist architecture, as well as unique events Eat&Drink Design and Flower&Fashion Design. As part of the whole month of Design in the city you can visit over 50 exhibitions and event in various locations in Ljubljana’s center. This year’s conference emphasizes the visionary and the interdisciplinary.

This year the organizers would like to connect the notions of future and eternity, and motivate the visitors to become part of this intent as well as to start thinking about their own future. After all, future is not someplace we go to, but rather someplace we create for ourselves. It is therefore no accident that this year’s conference is being organized in the collaboration with the review Scenario and the experts for the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies.

Month of design in numbers: 200 exhibitors / 150 performers / 10.000 m2 of exhibition space.

We invite you to create the future with us!

Through the Centre for Architecture Belgrade you can  receive a discount of 50% on the registration fee for this festival.

Photo credits: © NASA archive and Milena Zindović