video by Miran Kambič

The main street in the city of Ljubljana, Slovenia, was transformed from a busy four-lane road dominated by vehicular traffic into an urban shared space giving priority to pedestrians, cyclists and public transportation. Despite the large volume of pedestrian and bus traffic, the street is designed as a “shared space”, one where users participate equally and height differences are reduced to a minimum. 

The street is divided into three sections, with a concrete road surface and a paved pedestrian area. The vertical element of the avenue is a tree line of manna ash trees (fraxinus ornus); the horizontal a geometric pattern of the pavement, which creates the impression of a fine carpet and increases the optical dimension of the urban space. A manifest of the future of the city of Ljubljana, it is a visual transformation of the capital, but more importantly, it gives sustainable modes of transport a key advantage in moving through the city.