The combination of architecture with a valuable natural landscape is a difficult and responsible task. The Kwadratura studio, which has created a design for a building to house the Educational Center of the Swietokrzyskie National Park in Nowa Slupia, has its own idea for solving this problem. The new ŚPN attraction will have to wait a little longer, but we already know the details of the investment.
Until now, the most important educational facility of the Swietokrzyskie National Park has been the Natural History Museum located at the top of Lysa Gora. The museum's headquarters, which is basically the western wing of the Benedictine monastery founded on Holy Cross, came into the hands of the Swietokrzyski National Park back in 1950, and the history of the buildings themselves dates back to the 17th century. It is not difficult to imagine that running a modern educational institution (since 2010 the Natural History Museum has been operating a new exhibition) in a historic building that has not been adapted to serve this function is not the easiest thing to do. Suffice it to say that the Swietokrzyskie Park currently has only 600 square meters of usable space there, and is only accessible to those who reach the top of Lysa Gora. The remedy of the Swietokrzyskie National Park for this situation is to be the construction of a new facility - the Education Center.
The abbey at Holy Cross, where the Natural History Museum of the Świętokrzyski National Park is now located
Photo: SchiDD © CC BY-SA 4.0 | Wikimedia Commons
monastic plot twist
However, the matter is not so obvious, as it also has its spiritual-political dimension - not only the Swietokrzyskie National Park sought the relocation, but also, and perhaps above all, the Oblate congregation, which wants to set up its own exhibition in the western wing, which now houses the Natural History Museum, to bring closer the history of the monastery, which housed a Russian prison in the 19th century. An agreement was signed in 2023, according to which the monastery grounds on Bald Mountain were leased to the monks. These, for the next three years, must grant the space of the west wing, which houses the Natural History Museum, to the Swietokrzyskie National Park free of charge. In 2026, the Natural History Museum will have to move out, and its new location will be at the foot of Bald Mountain.
Educational Center of the Swietokrzyski National Park in Nowa Slupia
© Quadratura
Museum trio near Lysa Gora
The project for the new museum was conceived back in 2018, when it became clear that the relocation of the Natural History Museum would most likely take place. Three locations were potentially in play - Bodzentyn, Bieliny and Nowa Słupia. It fell on the latter, where there are already two interesting museum facilities built in recent years - the Legends Park (designed by the Architecture and Construction Design Studio of Maria and Andrzej Glowacki) and the Mieczyslaw Radwan Museum of Ancient Świętokrzyskie Metallurgy, which is basically an expanded facility from the early 1960s. Together with the new Educational Center of the Swietokrzyskie National Park at the foot of Lysa Gora, along the Royal Path, there will thus be a museum complex presenting two faces of the region - cultural and natural.
Educational Center of the Swietokrzyski National Park in Nowa Slupia
© Quadratura
museum hidden in the field
The building is to offer visitors 3,000 square meters of floor space spread over two floors - the vast first floor and two small rooms on the second floor. The entire building is divided into three oblong blocks with undulating roofs. From the entrance side they open up to visitors with glazing occupying almost the entire surface of the front elevation, to "disappear" in the surrounding landscape in the further part. The effect of the disappearance of the building mass was achieved in two ways: first, by covering the Education Center with a green, wavy roof, which, like the rest of the building, was divided into three sections, resembling in their forms striped farmland, characteristic of the landscape of the Świętokrzyskie province. The second measure to fuse the new building with the landscape is the appropriate choice of materials - here local stone comes to the fore, which will be found on the side "wavy" elevations of the Education Center.
The aforementioned green roof will perform an important function - its individual fragments are to be accessible to visitors, and the designers have planned an observation deck or glass dome there for watching the sky. In one of the hollows formed in the roof structure, in turn, there will be a gołoborze - a rocky debris cover characteristic of the Świętokrzyskie mountains. The gołoborze will be viewable from the roof slope and a small back room at the height of the second floor.
Educational Center of the Świętokrzyskie National Park in Nowa Słupia
© Quadratura
swietokrzyskie from the inside
Inside, the main role will be played by the space intended for the permanent exhibition, which is located in the western part of the building. According to the preliminary concept, developed by Piotr Kossobudzki, the exhibition will be divided into four main sections: "Topography and Climate of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains," "Nature Rules Itself," "Man for Nature" and "Nature for Man." The exhibition will feature interactive exhibits showing, among other things, the process of "fighting for light" in the various forest floors, the effects of logging or the rock formations found in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains. In addition to the permanent exhibition, the building will also house rooms for temporary exhibitions, conference rooms or restaurants, as well as all the infrastructure necessary for the operation of the facility.
Educational Center of the Swietokrzyskie National Park in Nowa Slupia
© Quadratura
passive, green and distinguished
As befits a building to be built in the buffer zone of a valuable natural area under the highest form of protection, Kwadratura studio's design features a number of pro-environmental solutions to reduce the negative environmental impact that the erection and use of the Education Center in Nowa Słupia will generate. The Warsaw-based studio has quite a few projects with an ecological profile in its portfolio, and this is also not the first educational center on nature in their portfolio. The facility will be built to the standard of a passive building - as the architects write, thanks to integrating the block into the terrain and covering it with a green roof, piercing the walls with only a small number of windows and using heat pumps orphotovoltaic panels (installed on a platform above the parking lot), it was possible to achieve annual energy costs for heating and ventilation of just over 10kwH per m² of space. This is 1/3 less than the definition of a passive building.
The project was also recognized by the jury of the PLGBC Green Building Awards back in 2020, which singled it out in the "Best Green Project" category, justifying their choice with the following words:
The jury singled out the project of the Nature Education Center in Nowa Slupia, appreciating the creation of a facility that skillfully combines the tradition and context of the place with the challenges of modern times. The Jury was struck by the authors' multifaceted view of the issue of responsible resource management - starting with energy consumption - the Center was designed as a passive building, through the minimization of greenhouse gas emissions, ensured by the use of renewable energy sources, the introduction of solutions that promote small-scale retention and thereduction of drinking water consumption, to restraint in the choice of building materials, evident in the prefabricated structure of the building, the use of local stone in the facades or the marked reduction of finishing materials in the interiors. The building fits discreetly into the landscape, giving way to streams, ponds and wooded areas, gracefully imitating the undulating hills of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains covered with colorful ribbons of fields and meadows.
Educational Center of the Swietokrzyskie National Park in Nowa Slupia
© Quadratura
The contractor will design and build - and where are the architects in all this?
The Swietokrzyski National Park recently selected a contractor for a project created by the Kwadratura studio, to be carried out under the "design and build" formula. And although in this case the contracting authority consults with its contractors on the project, the controversial form of the construction process can generate numerous problems:
The "design and build" formula limits the creative possibilities of architects, since the entire process is managed by the construction company, which has a certain discretion to accept or reject individual ideas of concept authors. The contractor often chooses solutions guided primarily by financial criteria - we also design with cost in mind, but we also pay great attention to the appropriate aesthetics of the project and its functionality. We try not to design rooms with minimum compliant dimensions. Even if they meet the norms, it does not at all mean that they will be comfortable for future users. This is just one example of the conflicts of interest that arise in such a situation. In the worst case scenario, the designer may not have any contact with the developer at all, since the entire process is handled by the construction company's office. Such a setting of the process, in my opinion, disturbs the provisions of the construction law, which define the balance between the participants in the construction process, namely the designer, investor and contractor. Serious discussions can take place between the investor and the contractor, who often have a different point of view on the final result from the designers, who are at a disadvantage in this arrangement. Some people realize that such an arrangement yields inferior results and then cooperation goes very well, but such situations are rare.
- Says Pawel Kubacz of the Kwadratura studio.
Fortunately, as the architects assure, in the case of the Educational Center of the Swietokrzyskie National Park in Nowa Slupia the cooperation goes smoothly. However, the Education Center is only at the beginning of its journey, as the project is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2028, and its cost is PLN 72 million, of which nearly 50 were obtained from EU funds.
