The Zeimuls Center of Creative Services of Eastern Latvia was designed as a proposal for a competition to design an innovative and creative environment that would encourage young graduates to come back and live in Rezekne town after their studies. Latvian design studio, SAALS Architecture, embedded the center into the terrain of the surrounding landscape and created open views towards a nearby castle mound and church.
The building is located on the edge of the town center facing an ancient castle mound with medieval, state-preserved ruins, which is the main tourist attraction of the town. It was the topography of the site that inspired the architects to position the building settled deep into the ground so that the fifth facade – the geometrically triangulated green roof – should become the main feature of the structure.
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The building is a structure of exposed, monolithic concrete, plastered on the exterior. Most of the rooms are rectangular in plan and the dramatic ceilings of exposed concrete and variable window geometries create a sense of diversity and uniqueness of space. The new structure is an integral part of the existing dramatic landscape.
