Residential District Komló

This project is an urban design student competition from 2000, organized by Otis Elevator Company. The assignment was to design a new Residential District of 1000 flats on a freely chosen site. The proposal was working with the rehabilitation area of the former Coal Mining Centre in a small town, Komló in Southern Hungary. The concept of the design is based on the enthusiasm on the Theory of Relativity.

The Coal Separating Building I The Bath

Komló is a typical communist industrial town - mostly built in the ‘50s and ‘60s in the style of social realism - on the bases of a small mining village in the Valley of Mecsek Mountains. The former Coal Mining Centre is located actually in the middle of the town; historically it had no intense connection with the centre of the town. This area used to be always an industrial enclosure in the urban tissue. Cleaning up the remains of the industrial zone and extending the centre to this area is a long time wish of the local community.

The analysis of the existing urban structure tried to find two and three dimensional schemes which are loosely related to the Theory of Relativity. There were different patterns and lines of force to be found in the structure. These elements shaped out in curved trajectories starting from or heading to a few points of density. The trajectories were modified by the geographical characteristics and give the bases of the general urban layout of the town.

urban patterns and trajectories

The urban concept of the new district is based on these observations. It was also the ambitious aim of the design was also to find a general formula for urban analysis that can possibly be used for studying any kind of town pattern.

urban sketches

The layout of the new district is basically parallel with the valley. The site is divided into two main parts with a Transitional Zone in the middle and a separated Eastern Zone close to the centre. The layout of the Southern and Northern Zone is following trajectories parallel with the valley. Both areas’ architectural character is based on existing and reconstructed industrial buildings which are going to operate in the future as the new main public buildings of the district.

The main building of the Northern area is the former Coal Distribution Building. This building is going to be the new cultural hub of the town, integrating both residential and public functions. Its volume has been slackened by the reconstruction. Spontaneous elements have been built on the original regular volume. The layout of the Northern area is following with the repetition of ad hoc elements grown and layered on each other, from various recycled materials. It has a very complex and closed pattern which is connected to the other parts of the town point by point (bus stops, parking places).

The Southern area is a sequence of plain brick blocks, starting with the former Bathing Building of the Mining Centre - after reconstruction operating as a Thermal Spa. Its buildings are forming a perforated border line between the site and the hill. The urban pattern here is much more loose than on the Northern area.

Thermal Spa (The Bath) - Cultural Centre (Coal Distribution Building) I Thermal Spa

The Transitional Zone - which is parallel to these, along the brook of the valley - connects the Northern and Southern Area like a garden with its public buildings (school, kindergarten, etc.) .
The natural characteristic of the Transitional Zone is exaggerated by the tower-like layout of the Eastern Area which is integrated into one of the existing patterns of the urban structure. The homogenous, loose pattern of the Eastern Zone makes a slack transition between the centre of the town and the site.

Although the two main areas have inverse design principles – the Northern is spontaneous, using various materials, starting with closed border walls; the Southern is regular and placid, using only one main material, working with a perforated border wall – according to the urban concept metaphorically they are heading to one infinite point of density. In this way the layout is getting more and more loose and more and more similar to each other while reaching the total equality. This progress and the result are supposed to symbolize the permanent validity of the design formula.

cross sections of the site

Residential District, Komló, Hungary
urban design competition for students - competition

postition: architect, urban planner

design: 2000
architecture, urban design: Matúz Melinda, Molnár Judit, Rose Balázs