Our challenge while designing the European Center of Geological Education was to find a coherent answer to the following assignment: How can an artificial object fit in the landscape and merge with it, and at the same time, be easily recognized as a human touch in it?
The buildings, housing the functional program of the center, were shaped as simple geometrical blocks that do not try to mimic the nature. The most visible human-designed gesture is the composition of the volumes- they are put in an order, one next to another, in a way that respects the landscape.
The surroundings of the center represents unique quality and the proposal tries to take to most of it. The new buildings open up to the landscape, on the north side the center closes an existing quarry. The cladding material- corten steel-indicates the time factor of the architecture and justifies the presence of the new structure in the context of the place, which is strongly marked by the ruins of a medieval castle.
Inside the center, a recreational zones are created: sport facilities, picnic areas, open-air auditorium spaces. The center is also well connected to the net of bike paths in the neighborhood.
