Jakub Krzysztofik is interviewed by Ania Diduch
06|A&B
"We are in the eye of the cyclone, right now the most revitalization investments are going on at the same time," he says. - convinces Jakub Krzysztofik, president of the Łódź branch of SARP, the main designer and co-author of the urban revitalization concept for the center of Łódź, which is entering the final stage of implementation. How is Łódź supposed to function in 2035 and what will the quality of life of its residents be measured by? What does combining hard and soft revitalization look like in practice? Is regeneration a process that can be automated?
Area revitalization of the center of Lodz, project 4; the area includes the areas of Liberty Square, Staromiejski Park, East Street; revitalization is carried out by renovating tenement houses or reconstructing streets to calm traffic
© www.lodz.pl
Ania Diduch: Let's start with a trip to the future: imagine that we are in the year 2035. What kind of city is Lodz? What is its character and what is its image?
Jakub Krzysztofik:I'll answer not as an all-knowing architect demiurge, but as my intuition tells me, in terms of the needs of the residents. In this view, Lodz is a sustainable and well-kept city, full of greenery. The center is a comfortable area, people from different professions and social strata live here. Efficient public transportation works, and people have stable employment. They enjoy culture and aesthetic public spaces.
Ania: What industries do downtown residents from the future work in?
Jakub Krzysztofik: I don't want to guess, I see it as a healthy mix of different professions. Today, I observe an interesting regularity that some residents work around construction going on in revitalized areas. Companies need catering, warehousing, logistics, accommodation. This is a very positive trend at this stage. Going forward, this entrepreneurship should be stimulated in such a way that jobs are maintained, and zero-emission industrial plants (processing, assembly of equipment from semi-finished products), from other areas of the city move to the center. There are spatial reserves here for small-scale job creation. I would call this reindustrialization. Nowadays we are moving away from the strict division of parts of the city into functions.
The areas around the modernized Factory Station include EC1, a completely different scale of regeneration of the industrial architecture of Lodz
© www.lodz.pl
Ania: What about the so-called creative industries and the catchy slogan from the early 2000s: "Łódź is the capital of creative industries" and "Łódź creates"? Do graduates of the Lodz University of Technology stay in the city? Do young architects find employment, or do they have to emigrate?
Jakub Krzysztofik: In my opinion, the emigration trend has slowed down, and I am an example here. On the one hand, average wages have risen and unemployment has fallen, on the other hand we still have relatively cheap housing and land in the center. And the development of the Internet and transportation makes it possible to live here and work nationwide or internationally. In the process of regeneration, the City Council is slowly implementing program assumptions for students and graduates to keep them in Lodz, to provide them with cheap rental housing, for example. And stimulating new jobs starts today: by changing the image of the city, investments and innovations.
A lot has changed since the slogan "Łódź creates". My point of view is based on my experience with the area revitalization of the center of Lodz, a unique project in the country, which is entering the decisive stage of implementation. I am the main designer of the urban planning concept for the area revitalization of the center of Lodz (areas 1, 4), which covers about 67.5 hectares of the downtown area, including key spaces and streets: the Old Market, the Old Town Park, Liberty Square, the New Majewski Passage, the Passage of Roses, the Luther Passage, Kilińskiego Square, Jaracz Street, Revolucja 1950, Wschodnia, Ogrodowa, Północna, Próchnika, Włókiennicza, and Pasaż "Włókiennicza Bis". The program is supplemented by pocket parks, playgrounds, water and mist fountains, city monitoring, illuminations of streets, buildings and squares. Today Lodz is creating, but no longer on paper or in marketing. It's actually happening.
Ania: Does the nomenclature of Lodz's urban planning efforts matter to you? Which is a more apt term: regeneration or revitalization?
Jakub Krzysztofik:When I work, I call these activities revitalization - and I mean it in the true sense of the word. This means that it includes two complementary areas of activity: investment, or so-called hard revitalization (renovations, construction, infrastructure), and soft revitalization, or social activities. On the other hand, the concept of regeneration, if I'm not mistaken, was introduced by Professor Tadeusz Markowski, former president of the Society of Polish Urban Planners, a professor at the University of Lodz. Regeneration is a broader concept than revitalization, it takes into account economic processes. The revitalization process is initiated by the municipality and the expected result, in addition to solving the crisis problems present in Lodz (social and economic), is to stimulate the private sector, which will take the initiative in the development of the city. We can call the whole process regeneration. Regeneration also differs from revitalization in that it is subject to cyclical evaluations. Every few years its effects must be checked. The regeneration of a post-industrial city is an ongoing process that is never finished.
Manufaktura - so far the symbol of revitalized Lodz and private, foreign capital in the city
© www.lodz.pl
Ania: So what is the timeframe of Lodz's regeneration and the revitalization inherent in it?
Jakub Krzysztofik: Our role as designers was to prepare the urban concept, but we acted using the results of a very broad team consisting, among others, of economists (responsible for the EU application, the feasibility study). The project was created throughout 2016, the schedule was tight. Earlier, the city had been preparing for the revitalization process, being aware, for example, of the specific timeframe of EU grants. Public consultations were held, and guidelines were created, gathered by five city units: the Conservation Service, the Office of the City Architect, the Urban Planning Bureau, the City Investment Board and the Revitalization Bureau. These teams jointly determined what tasks faced the designers, that is, me and my team, for example. What we proposed together in 2016 then had to be approved by the disposer of European funds, i.e. the provincial marshal. After the contract was signed and tenders were held, the revitalization began in 2018.
Ania: How big was your team?
Jakub Krzysztofik:I headed an urban planning team of almost forty people, which dealt with inventories, appraisals, infrastructure, greenery, and of course included architects who wove these elements together.
Ania: What was included in the plan developed by your team in 2016?
Jakub Krzysztofik: Its uniqueness, and the uniqueness of revitalization-regeneration in general, lies in the integration of the aforementioned hard and soft elements. The renovation of buildings, coming up with a new program for their functioning (for example, by varying the size of apartments, which initiates the creation of a social mix, or service spaces - commercial and creative in the first floors), in addition, public spaces (streets, squares, squares, pocket parks, arcades, small architecture). Separately was the design of urban greenery. Cooperation with the so-called public and private stakeholders operating in these areas, namely theaters, restaurants, residential communities. The buckle for all our activities was to counteract the social problems that exist in the revitalized areas. And this is where soft revitalization already begins. We had to plan the activities and functions of the spaces, for example, day care centers for young people, a center for women's activation, a civic center, therapeutic day care centers, offices for local streetworkers. On the one hand, they are to improve the quality of life, on the other hand, to counter violence, alcoholism and so on.
Revitalization and regeneration on May 1 Street: roadways have been narrowed, traffic calmed, and trees are being planted in greens and trellises; in the revitalization areas, species are appropriately selected, resistant to the harsh conditions in the Downtown area
© www.lodz.pl
Ania: How is the work of combining soft and hard elements done in practice? Do you create a team of fictional individuals, or do you think more in terms of groups and social strata?
Jakub Krzysztofik: It's always a multi-perspective and multi-scale work: we thought both about overarching functions and about details counted in centimeters, like the height of a curb. The starting material was the results of public consultations, which we then repeated during the development of the concept. From these surveys, we emerged a model resident of Lodz - a fictional character who had certain characteristics common to all social strata in the revitalization areas. One such trait, for example, was an aversion to living in the center, and here arguments were made, such as the unsightly appearance or technical condition of buildings, and the lack of greenery. This defined our challenge: to break this stereotype.
Ania: As a native of Lodz, I can confirm that the city has been gray and neglected for years. It's no coincidence that David Lynch felt so comfortable here.
Jakub Krzysztofik: Unfortunately. The percentage of apartments with poor sanitary facilities in the center until a few years ago was striking. The second recurring argument in the surveys was access to green space. Our area of work included, for example, the Old Town Park, which has always functioned well, despite much neglect, but we recognized that radical action was needed, that residents needed greenery "immediately": in yards, on pergolas, in the streets. The flagship example is East Street, which is being implemented at the moment, which is 14 meters wide, so it is quite narrow, but through our intervention today we have two rows of trees there. That is, from a one-way street, which had a traffic lane and a parking lot, it was narrowed to 5.5 meters, on one side we planted trees on the sidewalk, in trellises, on the other side we planted trees in so-called greenery, plus sidewalks 2.5 meters wide, where two people with baby carriages can pass each other comfortably. The quality of urban space is measured by the ease with which disabled people, seniors and families with children can use it. I myself remember a situation when I went to a public consultation a few years ago and had no one to leave my five-year-old twins with. On Tuwima Street, I had to hold them tightly so they wouldn't run into the roadway and fall under a car going sixty kilometers per hour. At the moment Tuwima is calmed down, the sidewalks are wide and even separated from the roadway by a green belt.
According to the plans programmed by Jakub Krzysztofik, every possible sliver becomes a green miniskirm
© www.lodz.pl
Ania: What role do pocket parks play in this green design puzzle?
Jakub Krzysztofik:They are part of revitalization projects, as well as non-revitalization projects, such as "Green Polesie." The areas of Wólczańska Street or Gdańska Street do not allow for the introduction of a regular park, but they have spaces for pocket parks, such as abandoned areas, the so-called "gantas. And these activities are already financed exclusively with city money, from taxes.
Ania: When is this stage of revitalization we're talking about, that is, the eight areas in the center (out of the twenty separated in the whole city), supposed to be completed?
Jakub Krzysztofik:The plan is to finish in 2023. Minor delays are possible. Now we are in the eye of the cyclone: most investments are going on at the same time. Textile Street and the surrounding area is a big construction site.
