Belgrade, Serbia

Competition

Great cities connect us; to our past, to our future, and to each other. Our proposal for the Beton Hala Waterfront Center seeks to make these connections felt by converting an area of competing and isolating forces into a confluence of cultural and physical connections. The rerouting of existing car traffic liberates what was once a severed industrial parcel and connects it back to the larger city fabric. A sweeping new structure containing shops, cafes and galleries emerges from the foot of the adjacent park and reaches out like an arm to embrace a generous new pedestrian plaza. Wide arcades are cut through the building at strategic points in order to connect this plaza with the water. A pleated, inhabitable roof unfolds like a fan from the park above toward the water, providing both a pedestrian scaled rhythm to the plaza and an unforgettable new identity. The proposed Beton Hala Waterfront Center creates a new locus for the city that links old and new, park and plaza, water and land, and people with each other.