Sun park Lucija
Low-cost, hands-on transformation of a derelict racetrack into a public space for the entire town.
The Sun park in Lucija is an experiment in low-cost repurposing of degraded space. The area was once a go-cart racetrack; but since the site is located in the middle of a residential town, and very close to a tourist marina, the municipality banned the use of the carting track.
Scapelab proposed to repurpose the space as a large public space. The essence of the proposal was to transform a racetrack, a space of traditional, fossil-fuel mobility, into a space for contemporary mobility – running, cycling, rollerblading, kids' traffic education…
The main challenge was the size of the area - almost 30.000 m2 – and the low budget available. Through careful planning, the transformation was achieved for a meagre 7€/m2.
The objective was to transform a flat, infrastructural space into a space for relaxation and play. The transformation relies on a few key elements. The little hills, which were placed throughout the space, create visual barriers and separate the space into smaller sub-areas. The new trees will, in a year or two, provide shade during hot summers. The sculptures, on loan from a well-known forma viva sculpture park, are placed onto key areas in the park and create focal points in the area. The fountain and rose garden add more refined programmes in the area.
But the main element is the pattern of dots on the racetrack. This element serves as an abstraction layer; it masks the remains of the racetrack infrastructure and gives the park a necessary element of identity.
Painting this layer, consisting of around 1200 dots about 80 cm in diameter, proved to be an arduous task. Due to delays in construction and lack of funding, the entire office helped paint the dots – thus creating the park not only in design, but also in execution.
