Hármashatárhegy: An airfield and a hiking spot – Reloaded

The function of the project is to serve the Airfield of Hármashatárhegy, and its gliding purposes, the design proposal of Complex 1 is composed of two existing Hangars, that are to be renovated and remodeled, and adding two masses to serve the purpose of housing the program that is composed of entertainment, relaxation, and administration spaces to the visitors and the project’s and/or site’s users. The Activities of entertainment and relaxation is housed by spaces of restaurants, cafes, small pools, sauna, showers, changing rooms, resting area, congregation areas, lobbies, offices, workshops, lecture halls and storages.

Project name: HAR (Hármashatárhegyi Airfield Redevelopment) Part I
Location: 1028, Budapest, Hungary
Year of the planning: 2018
Area in m2: 7500 sqm

The hill as named after being within the Borders of Three Mountains, which historically was the meeting point of the formation of the city of Budapest, as each hill of the three came out from a different county and region, of which one was of Buda, the second was of Óbuda and the third is of the Pest County, which the three met at this point of land in the 19th century.

So to celebrate this site value of the location, the main site composed a fractional representation of these three hills to house the activites of Entertainment, Spa, Workshops and their services, and definitely emphasize the site’s main potential activity, the Hármashatárhegy Airfield itself, and its aviation purposes.

The site being worked on has a very good topography. A flat airfield, low hills, and moderatly high hills make a great composition of nature. So many people use the site for walking their dogs, hiking, picnic, biking, paragliding …etc 

So as a design strategy, the two existing hangars are renovated and remodeled, and two new masses have been added from a total of three, of which the latter is to be for a future expantion. The two new masses are brick-cladded buildings of 500 sqm and 700 sqm consequentively sitting on the southern-east side of the 7,500 sqm plot, where it is a bit familiar in the region, to have less building footprint in a site that is on a forest land or a natural side, and that somhow was the reason to build there, due to the existing infrastructure, to cut short any building on a virgin land, as to promote the environmental atmosphere of the site and promote the great open air landscape that is on site, where the HAR celebrates a 5200 sqm of landscape which makes up around 70% of the site, whereas the functions of the buildings are devided on three and two floors, respectively, to use up to an equal of around 60% of net area of the site with only a 16% footprint (of the four buildings combined, and it is noteworthy that the building are to be erected on an existing infrastructure). The HAR complex is mostly occupied by entertainment and spa facilities in building D and offices and commercials in building C and ofcourse the dedicated service spaces such as electrical room, mechanical rooms (Plant Room) and dedicated storages.

HAR CONFORMS NOT ONLY TO THE HÁRMASHATÁRHEGY, BUT TO ITS ENVIRONMENT, AND TO THE NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE FROM THE HILLY SECOND DISTRICT TOO.

It is also worth mentioning that it was an early vision of the designer to have an intended integration of the revitalizating activities that are added to the hangars, such as cafeteria, lounges, and spa with the site’s main function, which is the airfield, that is designed in a way that impulses and trigers a visual connection with the hangars, and the fascinating landscape of the Hill of Hármashatár Hegyi. To celebrate the latter, and to also celebrate the beauty of Budapest from the heights of the hill, an observation tower is to be proposed on the highest peak of it.

The experiences and activities intended to be given to the users of the Hármashatárhegyi, through the design of the built and unbuilt environment and spaces are meant to be unforgetable and inevetible, through providing new methods to act through the same activities. The aim behind this is to revitalize the Hármashatár Hegy district and make it the spiced up zone that would influence not only the Second District, but also the whole city of Budapest.

And the project intends to achieve the following:
1: Develop the gliding activities, and revitalize/redesign the existing hangars
2: Initiate a camping site in the middle plain and fascilitate the functionality of camping within the pine woods.
3: Facilitate the activities of Paralgliding and create workshop spaces, near the training field. and also Cycling workshops and storages
4: To Facilitate Hiking, landscape features including shading and resting areas will be supplied throughout the designated hiking routes.
5: The Picnic friendly hill, lacks the needed landscape features, thus, the design will take care of the needs of a memorable picnic
6: The high tides of the wind serves as a great Kite attraction, with the scenery of the fascinating pine forests around
7: The huge area of the site is hard to be covered by a group of people trying to enjoy every bit of Hármashatárhegyi, thus Cable Carts are to be designed to connect the main attractions
8: create Event friendly spaces within the built environment and the landscape scenaries for the intended activities to be celebrated
9: Create Spa activites, to house meditating and relaxing activites for the tiring experiences existing on the site including baths, massages. etc
10: Facilitate the pedestrian movement on the plains and throughout the forests in a well manner by creating resting spaces along the way.
11: Create Entertainment facilities in the woods, including ziplines, and other facilities, by maintaining a minimum building footprint on site
12: Create catering facilities and temporary Pavilions for when needed