Brdo Castle near Lukovica has been degraded since it was burnt down during World War II. It is located above Lukovica, close to the old town centre and the motorway exit. It was once an important public space, for many years the seat of the judicial district for the wider area, and home to the Slovenian writer Janko Kersnik. Although the castle's outer walls were renovated at the turn of the millennium, the interior in particular remains a ruin overgrown with greenery.
It is an important spatial and semantic landmark in need of renovation and a new programme for the community. The municipality of Lukovica was the first starting with foster care with the establishment of the first health post in Slovenia, which remains an important activity today. The municipality lacks facilities for adolescents to spend their free time and facilities to serve as a support programme for foster families.
As in the past, when it was a judicial district, the renovation of Brdo Castle will make it once again a public space - a youth centre for the local community, and especially for local young people, and a centre for school and extracurricular activities for young people from other places. The design is defined in relation to the immediate and wider area under consideration: it maintains its importance as a dominant feature in the space and, with its youth programme, it is linked to the nearby Janko Kersnik Primary School and becomes an active point for targeting spaces for young people, both local and external.
The castle has an original Renaissance layout with a square floor plan and corner towers, and the best preserved of the interior walls is the Baroque staircase. These elements should be preserved and structurally reinforced in the new design, while the remaining interior walls should be demolished. The new design is an inset volume with its own timber structure, which preserves the Renaissance and Baroque elements of the former castle design with an inner courtyard, a square floor plan and a Baroque staircase.
The outer surroundings of the castle will be landscaped and a connected walking path will be created between the avenue of trees, the castle and the primary school.
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