VISITOR CENTER LOZOVAC

won the first prize at the public architectural-urban competition for the main entrance of the National park Krka in Croatia, EU.

CONTEXT

Krka river has cut a 25 kilometres long, wide canyon through the vast Miljevac limestone plateau. Merciless nature raises summer temperatures over 40 ⁰C, while winters are characterized by a cold, strong wind called bora, often reaching the speed of over 200 km/h.

CONCEPT

The building of the visitor centre was designed as both a shelter and a viewpoint. The upper side is a triangle-shaped square – sloped surface – viewpoint overlooking a fundamental phenomenon: Krka and Čikola canyons cut in stone. The shelter beneath provides protection from bora, a strong northern wind most common in the winter, and from strong sun during summer.

The visitor centre offers a multimedia centre, office, restaurant, public restrooms, and service facilities. Its main function is to introduce, direct and distribute tourists to all parts of the National park Krka. The centre includes an immense parking space (50 000m2) for cars, campers, buses, motorcycles and bicycles, as well as a spacious pedestrian area just in front of the entrance. Bus stop shelters are equipped with photovoltaic panels for the supply of electricity in the centre, and the rainwater collected on the rooftop is used as sanitary water. The water from the parking space is collected through surface water drainage in collectors and is filtered by water purifiers in order to prevent environmental pollution.

This whole project is developed in detail using BIM methodology and contains all necessary specifications. The studies on insolation have been conducted for each month of the year from sunrise to sunset in order to gain enough information to decide on glass structure and shelter ratio.

CURIOSITIES

For the calculation of the construction and preparation of a detailed plan, we have hired world-renowned structural engineers, Cecil Balmond and Antonio Adao de Fonseca. Their participation in all phases from static calculations to final static project drawings has immensely contributed to the simple and elegant aspect of the triangle-shaped roof. During the preparation of project documentation, all associates have participated with great enthusiasm and interest trying to contribute to the realisation of the project.

The project should be financed through EU funds, and the project’s realisation is estimated to cost 15 million EUR. The return on investments may bring multiple benefits for the city of Šibenik, not only financially as a multimedia-educational centre with interesting content attracting visitors to the upper zone of the National park Krka in the periods of hibernation, but also as a vision of planned spatial expansion of the city towards the hinterland.