Waterblock
Fabrizia Berlingieri (I)
architect
Europan 9 Kotka
runner-up
In Kotka, the water and its uses constitute main characters of urban identity to focus on.The aim of the project is to address these uses and functions to a common way to live the city, with an architectural and urban approach that looks for multiple connections.The work focused on integrating land and sea space toward the new residential area, expanding the city meaning toward a natural limit. Starting from the concept of urban block and its relationship between housing and context, private and public space, the project came to a different approach, thinking at the living as an active part of the seaside, then the name and the shape of waterblock.
This project is connected to the following themes
Housing - Typology
The housing typologies, grouped together into a dense (water)block, provide a bold and innovative vision of a new relation to the city and to the water.
Nature - Limit / Reconnection
The introduction of a promenade defines new relations between the town and its seafront: an external boundary on the existing jetty in direct relation with the water; an interior relation with a thicker boundary that generates a park between town and water, on the edge of which the “democratic group” is established.