The masters’ thesis aims to examine the practice of appropriation of inherent qualities of certain sites in the city and the necessity of their preservation against dramatically developing trend of private real-estate and consumer-capitalism driven land-claim. The latter, in combination with inadequate response from government institutions can contribute to a total loss of areas of public interest in the city. The location of the former ”Kasarna Morača” military barracks in Podgorica makes for a valuable target for the greedy investors, but also to the public, which could benefit from a large mass of greenery in the very centre of the capital next to the Morača river. For this reason, questions have been raised sparking public debates on how this location, currently an asset of the state, ought to be managed. This project aims to develop an urban regeneration solution for the brownfield area by means of two interconnected segments. The first one is the recreation area along the Morača riverbank which incorporates a large part of the existing greenery and extends to the Mausoleum of the Partisan fighter on the Gorica hill. The second is situated at the Eastern edge of the site. With the adaptive reuse of the existing barrack structures and a new adaptable and flexible structural system, it proposes a set of public and cultural programs along the”Vaka Đurovića” boulevard. Both the green belt and the cultural complex are connected via pedestrian and cycling paths which also lead to a proposed pedestrian bridge connecting the public institutions, neighbourhoods and recreational areas along Morača riverbanks.
