Post-industrial areas are becoming objects of revitalization not only in the largest cities, such as Poznań, Łódź or Warsaw. An example of a similar activity, only on a much smaller scale, can become the area after the former sewing factory in Buk. Designs for new buildings for the Center for Intergenerational Integration and the Social Welfare Center were prepared by Poznań-based Neostudio Architekci.
This is not the first project that Neostudio has prepared for the city. At the end of 2021, a concept was created for the modernization and expansion of the Buk Library, which, for financial reasons and due to the scope of other investments on which it depends, is still waiting to be implemented. Now the studio has prepared a project for the revitalization of the space left behind by the old "Bukowianka" production facilities. Two buildings are to be built as part of the investment - the Center for Intergenerational Integration and an administrative and office building for the Social Welfare Center. There are also plans to develop the space created between them.
Intergenerational Integration Center in Buk
© Neostudio Architects
The facilities are part of the revitalization of a post-production area in the town of Beech, whose neighborhood includes existing elementary school buildings with a gymnasium, a nursery. The purpose of the investment is to create a place to serve residents in an attractive, intended for socio-educational purposes part of the city. The construction of a new OPS office building, in place of a demolished and defunct one-story manufacturing infrastructure building, and the use of an old sewing room for CIM - Center for Intergenerational Integration, will change and complete the space of the revitalized area.
- explains Bartosz Jarosz of Neostudio studio.
The site of the former manufacturing plant will undergo a complete metamorphosis:
The challenge for our office was to create a completely different character of the space as before, to propose the layout of the buildings and to properly connect the social and educational functions, where the place of intergenerational integration is to become a multifunctional space in attractive greenery. Two differently situated buildings, one in a sharp border with part of the post-production development, the other free-standing in the place of the previous barracks, are completely different issues, each with a different function, different conditions, but with one goal - to build less, use more and be guided in design by sustainability.
- explains the architect.
Center for Intergenerational Integration in Buk
© Neostudio Architects
Phase I involved the design of a building for the Center for Intergenerational Integration. For the purposes of the new center , the architects chose part of the buildings of the former "Bukowianka", a sewing company operating in Buk since the 1970s. When the company went bankrupt, the city bought back the brownfields, allocating them, according to the provisions of the 2022 local plan, for public investment. The one-story building on the plan of an extended rectangle, which previously housed a production line, will be expanded and adapted to serve a new function. Designers from Neostudio proposed a block preceded by extensive corrugated metal arcades, with a facade that is substantially glazed. In areas devoid of windows, the walls will take on the brick-red color designated in the local plan. The building will use green roof technology.
Center for Intergenerational Integration in Buk
© Neostudio Architects
spaces tailor-made for the community
TheCenter for Intergenerational Integration is to be a facility with a rich yet flexible functional program. In the expanded production hall, the architects planned workshop rooms, quiet work and relaxation areas, rooms for integration and meetings, offices, and a modular conference room. Care was also taken to provide exhibition rooms, catering facilities, locker rooms and sanitary facilities. Interior spaces were conceived by referring to the free plan principle. The interior of the Center for Intergenerational Integration in Buk is basically a continuous open space, from which smaller, closed zones are separated. Depending on the current needs of the functions of each, some of the zones can be separated, or integrated with the rest of the interior spaces using transparent curtains visible in the visualizations.
Center for Intergenerational Integration in Buk
© Neostudio Architekci
Adequate lighting of the interiors is to be achieved thanks to the large-area glazing of the facade, and numerous skylights located above the recessed parts of the buildings. The availability of daylight also weighed on the location of individual zones - workshop spaces will be located where there is most of it. On warmer days, the places for conducting such activities will be expanded by the spaces in front of the building, hidden in the arcades. This will be facilitated by the character of the front elevation, in which no single entrance zone has been designated - depending on the needs, each of the fragments of the glazed elevation can be "opened", uniting the interior of the building with its surroundings.
Center for Intergenerational Integration in Buk
© Neostudio Architects
squaring the circle
Unconstrained by previous buildings, the forms are presented, in turn, by the design of an office building for the Social Welfare Center. In this case, the architects opted for a building on a square plan, covered with a circular roof slope, which, projecting beyond the outline of the foundations, creates an arcade.
Social Welfare Center in Buk
© Neostudio Architects
Due to the fact that, urbanistically, the OPS is free-standing and surrounded by greenery, we felt that the building should have a slightly different, softer character. Hence the roof supported by wooden columns got arched CLT wood walls in green in the background. The soft shape and calm color was important for the future stakeholders of such an organizational unit.
- Bartosz Jarosz of Neostudio Architects says.
Thus, the designed building is basically a cube glazed on all sides, which, like a hat, is covered by a circular roof. Large glazings will provide adequate light in the lobby and office spaces, which are planned mainly along the building's perimeter walls. In its center, in turn, will be a conference room, which will be brightened by rays coming in through several pairs of skylights located in the center of the roof.
Social Welfare Center in Buk
© Neostudio Architects
A project for now, but with an eye to the future
An interesting approach that was taken during the preparation of the documentation for the building for the Social Welfare Center in Buk is to take into account, already at the design stage, the possibility of a later superstructure of the building.
In the local zoning plan, the municipality allows for a two-story building, adequate to the neighboring one. Due to the fact that the designed building will meet the functional and area assumptions, even with a reserve, it is not necessary to design a second story today. On the other hand, in the case of introducing a new function in the revitalized area or expanding the operation of the business unit, we decided to leave the possibility of superstructure. We have adopted a suitable foundation, determined the risers and places where staircases can be made and floor walls can be erected, the ceiling can be quickly adapted to the ceiling of the next floor.
- explain the designers.
Social Welfare Center in Buk
© Neostudio Architects
The architects' forward thinking is also evident in planning the ecological aspects of the building that the Social Welfare Center in Buk will receive. Part of the building's structure will be built using wood, heat pumps will take care of the right temperature, while the roof will have vegetation and photovoltaic panels. Some of the materials left over from the demolition of the buildings previously standing here will be used in developing the areas between the buildings. These will play an important role in the functioning of the entire complex.
Social Welfare Center in Buk
© Neostudio Architects
Between the Center and the Center
The new version of "Bukowianka" is also a green space that will be made available to residents:
Maximizing the potential of the existing site, fully in accordance with the principle of sustainable development and in harmony with one common green space are the assets of this project. Here, between the buildings, there will be access and access to the buildings, including the necessary fire road, crosswalks through the site connecting two streets in the city, low greenery shrubs and tall grasses giving shelter to small birds, insect hotels, two rain gardens, existing trees. Due to the need to provide an adequate number of parking spaces for the school and other institutions, they had to be properly designed by blending them into the greenery. Part of the pedestrian access is to be created from reclaimed paving blocks of the current square in front of the existing sewing room building, and the trash shelters are designed from gabion baskets filled with rubble from the demolition of part of the existing walls.
- Bartosz Jarosz explains.
Social Welfare Center in Buk
© Neostudio Architects
Buk's social center
The grounds, which the city bought from the former sewing factory "Bukowianka" in 2020, will become the social center of the town. Already in 2022, a nursery was built here, which inherited its name from the former manufacturing plant. In the immediate vicinity of the plot is an elementary school, and a little further away is the municipal Sports and Recreation Center. The cultural and social area begins just beyond the eastern border of the old city buildings - it opens with Reszka Square, along with the library to be rebuilt. The revitalization of the post-industrial complex in Buk also has an urban dimension - an important change that will take place if the project is implemented will be the creation of a pedestrian route between the two previously unconnected Otuska and Dobiezynska streets.
Center for Intergenerational Integration in Buk
© Neostudio Architekci
Revitalization of the space after the "Bukowianka" sewing factory is still in the realm of plans.
