Tatiana Lyubimova
Landscape Architecture
Mending Varna: Authentic Landscape as a Fountainhead and Essential Element of Urban Continuity and Identity
The project explores the role of the authentic landscape as inspiration for ideas of urban coherence and identity at various scales. The experimental design is located in the Varna Lake valley, at the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea.
Initial observation of the city revealed its spatial and functional detachment from its mountainous coastal position. Mending Varna is an experiment of revealing and directing water streams from the mountains through the cityscape. Landscape processes introduced in the city could stir urban life and quality by interrelating spatial, social, environmental, cultural and economic aspects.
A particular site on the edge of the historic center of Varna and the harbour area illustrates the sequence of spaces re-discovered by a stream: a site of ancient ruins, a new pond in the harbour, a shimmering edge of the city dissolving into the wild landscape of the lake. Here small interventions narrate the story of the old sunken city and its hidden treasures.
The approach reveals how the logic of natural processes can metaphorically - without literal implementation - guide the understanding of the site and interrelations with the urban environment.