This master’s thesis addresses the issue of degraded, visually fragmented, and economically unpromising handicraft zones through the case study of the Ugar handicraft zone in Ribnica. These are areas that developed in spaces originally not intended for economic activities but were recognized as suitable for craft programs due to their urban location, scale, and existing architectural structure, such as former military barracks.
Today, such craft zones face problems of mixed ownership and lack of community, resulting in uncoordinated spatial and programmatic development. The absence of a shared development strategy is also reflected in the economic underperformance of the zone. Companies face a spatial crisis, which they attempt to resolve through architecturally poor interventions, further deepening the spatial and functional degradation of the area. Mixed ownership also encourages mixed-use, including housing and central activities; however, these areas lack human-scale design and public meeting spaces, which are necessary to establish quality conditions for the development of new programmatic content.
Due to the absence of community and a long-term development vision, these handicraft zones fail to establish active connections with the city and urban life. Instead, they remain passive, visually and socially unintegrated parts of the city.
The goal is to design a spatial-economic model for the self-regulation of degraded handicraft zones. The proposed model connects key stakeholders: economic enterprises as the foundational element of the handicraft zone; the municipality, responsible for local public affairs, residents’ needs, and the management of land and buildings; and a youth cooperative, providing high-quality and economically accessible housing for young people and young families, as well as community spaces aimed at fostering social interaction and actively linking the area with the city.
The spatial-economic model simultaneously enables the development and growth of economic enterprises while ensuring an organized urban, architectural, and programmatic framework integrated into the city. The outcome is a hybrid settlement, where craft, housing, and community spaces form a cooperative community oriented toward fulfilling the public interest of the city.
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