Can the vision of a great residential neighborhood with no cars driving around come true? It looks like it can, and the best example of this may turn out to be Nowy Wełnowiec, a new Katowice development designed by the JEMS Architekci studio.
In Wełnowiec, a district located in the northern part of Katowice, a modern housing development will be built, which is one of the largest residential projects in the post-transformation history of this city. The area to be developed is huge, but also very difficult, between Korfantego and Konduktorska streets: 30 hectares of post-industrial space left over from the Silesia "Metallurgical" Works, extinguished in 2005, whose origins date back to the 1820s. The investor plans to build a multifunctional district of the future here, where residential, commercial, retail and recreational functions will be combined. The total floor area is expected to be about 300,000 square meters. The start of the work was made possible by the city's adoption of a Local Development Plan for the area. The entire investment is to be divided into a number of stages, and in the first one, which, according to plans, will begin in the first quarter of 2026, the developer plans to transform an area of 7 hectares, building residential facilities and arranging green areas.
A steel mill in Welnowiec before 1939
Public domain | via Wikimedia Commons
green change
The change is to be fundamental - in the place where industrial plants once operated, there will be a housing estate, which, according to the developer's assurances, is to be thoroughly ecological. The investor plans a number of pro-ecological solutions, thanks to which the character of the place will be in harmony with the name given to it by the city. Thus, a central waste management system is to appear, a number of blue-green solutions (including retention tanks), and above all plenty of green areas. These are to total 10 hectares, of which as much as 4 hectares will be occupied by the so-called Central Park. In addition, there will be green roofs and renewable energy installations.
New Welnowiec
press mat. © JEMS ARCHITEKCI | Capital Park Group
unwanted leftovers
A big problem for the investment could have been the soil in the area - over two centuries many metallurgical contaminants, including zinc, lead, cadmium and other metals, have seeped into it. Reclamation will begin in the near future.
More than one million cubic meters have been designated for cleanup. We undertook the preparation of this concept without knowing what we would find there. There were only preliminary studies. Only thorough research gave a clear picture. We took a breath. It turned out, contaminated is the embankment soil. It is mixed rubble and soil, indeed contaminated with zinc and lead. Zinc, arsenic, lead and some tin, copper. We were afraid that the metals had migrated into the native soil for so many years, and they didn't. That's when the concept of remediation, remediation and phytoremediation of the site began to take shape for us. It may take a total of four years to clean up the entire site, but we will do it in stages
- told Dziennik Zachodni in 2021 Arkadiusz Primus from InvestEko, the company in charge of the site's reclamation.
A neighborhood without cars
An unusual solution in Nowy Wełnowiec is to be the way traffic is organized. The district is to be a place fully dedicated to pedestrians. According to the investor, all car traffic will be directed underground, where there will be a complex of huge parking lots.
New Welnowiec
press mat. © JEMS ARCHITEKCI | Capital Park Group
a place with history
Although the area where Nowy Wełnowiec will be built has an industrial history of more than 200 years, not much remains of the former steel mill buildings here. For this reason, the project will not be a typical revitalization of nineteenth-century buildings, such as many now being built on the Polish housing market. However, from the infrastructure of the Silesia "Metallurgical" Works, one building has survived - the "Compresorownia", which, according to the assurances of the investor and designers, is to undergo a thorough renovation. The building, erected around 1905, will be restored to its original form, and its interiors are planned to include an entrance area to the complex, where there will be meeting places or an information desk.
New Welnowiec
press mat. © JEMS ARCHITEKCI | Capital Park Group
Subcenter North
The creation of the Nowy Wełnowiec estate is clearly part of the dynamics of spatial development in Katowice. Last year's document on the city's development strategy included a provision on Subcentrum Północ, the place where the Katowice Północ Eco-City area, covered by the Local Development Plan, was delineated Although there have been objections in discussions regarding the creation of a second city center, in practicepractice, it should be noted that betting on intensive development from the very beginning of thinking about the spatial development of a given area can counteract the negative phenomenon of suburbanization, i.e. urban sprawl.
New Welnowiec
press mat. © JEMS ARCHITEKCI | Capital Park Group
greenery instead of cars
The New Welnowiec project was first presented back in 2020. Already then, an unusually large amount of green areas and a characteristic, seemingly chaotic distribution of buildings was striking. For the next four years, things were rather quiet about the project - it turns out that the dynamically changing developer investment market has not verified the plans, because the concept, whose realization is fast approaching, still represents the same values. The project is still a long way away from becoming a full reality - it remains to keep our fingers crossed that the developer will keep his promises, and a residential development will be built in the north of Katowice that can serve as a model for the development of residential neighborhoods in cities - with plenty of greenery, but without cars.
