The pilot site of Rijeka

Environmental sustainability

Pilot site:  Re-use center

How was the building before the transformation?

The Rijeka’s Forget Heritage pilot site is a cultural heritage building and also a residential - business building, located in the Rijeka City Centre, within the old city core. It was constructed in the period from 1914. to 1916., originally designed as a children's day care at the ground floor, the business premises in the basement and the collective residential building on the rest of the floors (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th floor and the attic).

While residential and business premises have kept mostly their initial purpose, the space of the former day care was modified by the second half of the second part of the 20th century in the premises for business purpose where there were functioning several commercial facilities.

The interior of the premises was in a non-optimal state and did not satisfy completely the technical and safety conditions (heating, cooling and ventilation systems) for the operational activities of existing users. Thanks to the investment the City of Rijeka has made and still is doing, the building’s conditions have improved so that all the mentioned systems are now in function.

What is the change in the building and what phase is it at the time?

The subject space is connected to the re-use center, which will be established in September 2018. within the RiHub complex – the new work/social space, as the future epicenter of the European Capital of Culture (2020) project.

In the ground floor and in the basement changes are currently being made - in the space of the revitalization intervention, with the previous approval of the city authorities, intervene also independent artists, informal citizen initiatives, cultural and artistic activities/organizations, as well as representatives of the company Rijeka 2020 and the Cultural Department for the City of Rijeka.

The main change to the structure concerns the shared space of the  RiHub complex, which consists of the ground floor of the building and part of the basement floor. The showroom of the re-use center is being placed in the basement floor – the partly buried room on the north-east part of the building, with the direct access on the Ivana Grohovca Street. It is connected to the ground floor by internal stairs. The spaces of the basement and the ground floor are mutually connected by the common stairs of the building thus creating another entrance to the space.

Ground and basement spaces are now taking up a total net surface of 1.025,2 m2, of which the basement ground floor – working space of the future pilot project/showroom - takes up a 138, 6 m2 surface.

This space is used for implementation of different cultural, social and informative events (informal education programs, artistic fairs and exhibitions, festivals, press conferences and similar).

So, the ground floor space will be given to management to the company Rijeka 2020 in 2018, for the establishment of aforementioned RiHub – the epicentre of the program of the European Capital of Culture, for the period of 4 years.

The space of basement ground floor will be entrusted to the future manager - in our case the association Molekula, which already signed the contract - with the purpose of implementation of the pilot project, for the period of 6 years. The activities will start in the fall of this year.

This type of activity is closely connected to the future purpose of the space – the creative aspect of the re-use center, as well as with the vision of RiHub as a space of encounters, motivation of cultural creativeness, citizen initiatives and co-operations and nourishing active citizenship.

Higher floors of the building remaine a residential area (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th floors and the attic) and their purpose is every day inhabiting of residents.

For the purpose of maintaining quality relationships, the residents/the tenants were informed on the revitalization process.