Details
- Supervisors
- Faculty
- Degree label
- Abstract
- This thesis focuses on the reconversion of a military brownfield site on the coastline of Pula, Croatia, at the Vallelunga site. This project was born from a personal journey, the first I ever made alone, where I discovered a city, a culture and a site that profoundly marked me. Pula, the seventh largest city in the country, was built around its bay, which has been used since Roman antiquity. However, over a century and a half of militarisation, from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Yugoslavia, progressively closed off the coastline from its inhabitants. Today, the shore is fragmented between disused military areas, port zones and tourism enclaves. The Vallelunga site, although officially abandoned, is one of the rare coastal spaces still accessible to residents. Fishermen, walkers, families, craftspeople and cyclists can be found there on a daily basis. This spontaneous appropriation reveals a lack in the city's offer of public waterfront spaces. In response to the institutional projects planned for the area, this work proposes a complementary approach: building on existing uses rather than replacing them. The project, a "shared workshop" (fabrique partagée), rehabilitates existing buildings using simple means (rammed earth made from local terra rossa, lightweight canvas and timber roof extensions) and formalises the practices already in place: a boat workshop, a fishermen's house, a tool library, craft workshops, community gardens, multipurpose spaces and a guinguette. At the territorial scale, the restoration of quays, a water bus and a greenway along former railway lines reconnect the site to the city. The project demonstrates that an ambitious reconversion of the coastline is possible without erasing what makes the place valuable to those who use it every day.