Zonguldak Lavoir Protection Area

Coal production facilities have played a critical role in the formation and location of Zonguldak’s urban texture for many years, with the city shaping around these facilities on steep slopes.

Currently, the major problem of Zonguldak is the extreme density of the city center, the chaotic vehicular traffic and the inadequacy of the roads. The continued presence of the pedestrian movement in Zonguldak emerges as one of the most challenging problems of the city.

The project aims to produce a synergy between industrial archaeology and contemporary architecture, while reconfiguring the relationships of city-sea and center-pedestrian. The claiming of the TTK and Lavoir areas for public use will breathe life into a very narrowly east-west oriented city, which is currently being torn apart by these very areas themselves.

The project revolves around design decisions that aim to re-establish the balance between nature and the city while replenishing urban memories 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.