situated in the pazdigrad neighborhood of split, croatia, x3m has designed a school as a place not only for education but also as a common space for the local residents. the architects? idea for the project, even in the early phase of the competition, was to create a place for socialising, playing, recreation, fun and relaxation, with the aim to strengthen integration and community by enabling numerous new scenarios of use and the possibility of different activities within the school surroundings.

the school is located on the outskirts of split in the area that has been in transition from agricultural suburbia to a ?proper? residential quarter for the last 25 years
all images © bosni?+doroti?
 
 
for the last 25 years the pazdigrad neighborhood has been going through the process of transformation from agricultural suburbia into residential area. this is the area of the city where one can still find abandoned farming fields, family gardens and orchards, commercial greenhouses, as well as small craftsman workshops, service stores and family houses next to the new multistory housing, apartment buildings and shopping malls. the public space of the area is nonexistent and is reduced entirely to the network of streets, without adequate or, indeed, any kind of hierarchy, coherence and interconnection. the area where the school is located is, in fact, one of those so-called suburban ?islands?, formed by just such a network of streets.
nikola ?urek?s typography intervention on...