The National Urban Design, Planning and Landscape Competition on Zonguldak Lavoir Protection Area and its Surroundings

The Lavoir area is the most important urban node and/or image of Zonguldak’s memory. The functioning statue used to be the life vein of urban economy. Coal production facilities have played a crucial role in the formation and location of Zonguldak’s urban texture, with the city shaping around these facilities on steep slopes.

The project aims to produce an interaction of industrial archaeology and contemporary urban architecture, while reconfiguring the relationships between city center and the Black Sea, and city center and pedestrians. The project aims to reload urban memories while fulfilling new urban needs such as: a funicular system proposed between the new urban square to the west of the project area; transforming the Lavoir structure into an art node; an abstract and permeable structure right next to the partly ruined Coal Washery building; a black granite monumental miner statue, called the ‘black diamond’, located inside the permeable structure; cypress trees symbolizing miners planted along the boulevard; and landscape restoration initiatives to rehabilitate the natural land spoiled by washing and storing coal.

This project won the first prize in the National Urban Design, Planning and Landscape Competition on Zonguldak Lavoir Protection Area and its Surroundings in 2010.