One is closing, the other is opening. Poznan's Adam Mickiewicz University has a brand new dormitory for four hundred students. The building, designed by the Dedeco studio, stood in the peripheral campus in Morasko. At the same time, UAM is closing the modernist DS Jowita in the center.
Thefirst student dormitory at the universitycampus in Poznan's Morasko opens forty-six (!) years after the symbolic start of construction of the university complex (the first building: the Department of Physics was put into use successively in the 1990s). Originally, the dormitories were to be built much earlier, in a different form (skyscrapers) and in a completely different place on the campus. However, at Morasko, essentially everything was built in a shape far removed from the concept that won the 1974 architectural competition (proj: Marian Fikus and Jerzy Gurawski, in collaboration with Jan Godlewski).
stamped on the periphery
The design from half a century ago envisioned that a complex of freely joined repetitive modules would be built on the northern outskirts of the city. They were to surround an extensive green space of irregular shape for recreation and integration of scientists and students of various disciplines. Instead, separate and often inbred faculty buildings realized every hundred meters or so were created. They stand in two rows along the street of the University of Poznan and the adjacent strip of spacious parking lots. Thus, the space of the campus resembles an airport runway enclosed on two sides by blocks erected "from the stampede" and - the younger the project - increasingly closed to the surroundings.
Morasko campus, Poznań - open space with a street and extensive parking lots between two rows of faculty buildings (in the foreground Collegium Chemicum on the left and Collegium Historicum on the right)
photo: Jakub Głaz
The first two rather sprawling edifices were still designed by Gurawski. The buildings of subsequent faculties were selected in competitions. The design of the new dormitory "Meteor" was also selected in this mode: in 2019, the proposal of the Dedeco studio was chosen(second place - Front Architects studio, third: H. J. Buszkiewicz Authorship and Legal Office).
"Meteor" student house in Morasko campus, Poznań, proj. Dedeco - western elevation
photo: Jakub Głaz
"Meteor" completed after almost three years of construction (cost: PLN 70 million, work contractor: Alstal) is located at the southwestern end of the complex and is the first building on the campus that does not serve research and teaching functions. Its closest neighbors are the Collegium Historicum designed by the aforementioned H. J. Buszkiewicz studio and the Wielkopolska Center for Advanced Technologies (proj. 1997 Pracownia Architektoniczna).
Competition design of the UAM student house, 2nd place, proj. Front Architects (2019), this unrealized proposal interacted with the surrounding semi-open courtyards
© Front Architects
hammocks in birch trees
The "Meteor" will house 400 female and male UAM students(160 single rooms and 120 double rooms - with kitchenette and bathroom; on each floor a room adapted to the needs of people with disabilities). A cafeteria, a student club, a kindergarten and the headquarters of the university's Meteor radio station are planned for the first floor. A gym and a "minimarket" are also planned. The building also includes shared laundry rooms, dryers and kitchens with dining areas. Above all, the spacious green courtyard is to become a place of integration.
"Meteor" student house in Morasko campus, Poznań, designed by Dedeco - view of the courtyard from the west
photo: Jakub Głaz
All this is housed in a simple five-story block, which stood on the plan of a regular quadrangle. It is formed by four residential segments adjacent to the courtyard and rising from a more massive first floor footing.
An element of the exhibition on the construction of DS "Meteor" in front of the entrance to the building - on the board: a drone view of the four segments of the building (photo: A. Wykrota)
photo: Jakub Głaz
Above the first floor, the modules are united by narrower glass connectors. However, the entrance to "Meteor" and the lobby with reception area are located in the glazed connector to the north, at the University of Poznan Street.
"Meteor" student house in Morasko campus, Poznań, designed by Dedeco - view of the courtyard from the western clearance
photo: Jakub Głaz
From the courtyard, in turn, three ground-floor clearances of different sizes lead outside - two toward open green spaces, and one to a very picturesque birch grove on the south side, where a relaxation area with hammocks and ping-pong tables has been arranged.
"Meteor" student house in the Morasko campus, Poznan, designed by Dedeco - rest area on the south side
photo: Jakub Głaz
Next to it, a playground was created that also serves as a court. New trees were also planted: next to the grove and in the courtyard. A spacious trellis-type steel structure with benches and a partial canopy also stood in the courtyard.
Meteor student house in Morasko campus, Poznan, designed by Dedeco - trellis with benches and tables in the middle of the courtyard
Photo: Jakub Głaz
Seats and tables are also present in the widest clearance conceived as an opening to the possible next dormitories that may stand at the western end of the campus.
"Meteor" dormitory at Morasko campus, Poznań, designed by Dedeco - western clearance with seats and tables
photo: Jakub Glaz
interior counts
From the open spaces of the campus, "Meteor" looks very modest. Flat facades with rather monotonous rhythms of the same windows, are clad with glossy panels of varied size. This is somewhat reminiscent of economical typical hotels. The courtyard space contrasts favorably with this somewhat disappointing form.
"Meteor" student house in the Morasko campus, Poznan, designed by Dedeco - view of the courtyard from the south clearance
Photo: Jakub Głaz
The facades here are faced with moldings resembling the yellowish brick typical of most campus buildings. Their irregular texture and warmer color give the place a friendly character. Unfortunately, here too most of the windows are of the same shape and size, although the competition visualizations showed a greater variety of their forms.
The first fiddle, however, is played in the courtyard by rich greenery: trees as well as shrubs and lower plants. Thanks to them and the seating, the courtyard is already a friendly space for relaxation, as is the birch grove outside, with which the greenery of the courtyard is visually connected through a clearance and a glass transom between the segments.
The new student house "Meteor" at the Morasko campus in Poznan, designed by Dedeco, the intermingling green of the birch grove and the courtyard
Photo: Jakub Głaz
Such a free and luscious greenery is needed for the building on all sides, not only on the south. Besides, the entire treeless strip of campus parking lots should be turned into a green and very diverse space. One that will merge with the picturesque natural greenery of Morasko and connect the isolated "islands" of individual departments to each other. The university should launch a well-prepared competition on this issue as well. So far, the unification of the character of the campus has succeeded in the University with the introduction of successful visual information.
The "Meteor" student house at the Morasko campus, Poznań, designed by Dedeco - part of the new successful visual information of the campus
photo: Jakub Głaz
Inside the building, the modest but refined common spaces are also pleasing. Consistent with them is also the furnishings of the rooms, the form of which - judging by the few photographs available on the university's website - roughly corresponds to the designers' intentions shown in the competition visualizations. A great advantage of the rooms located on the outside of the segments will certainly be the open views of the campus, the surrounding nature or the city skyline.
Some students will have a view of the Wielkopolska Center for Advanced Technologies standing on the north side of the "Meteor" (designed by 1997 Pracownia Architektoniczna)
photo: Jakub Głaz
downtown not for students
If the weather is good, from the upper floors it will probably be possible to see the silhouette of the downtown Bałtyk office building, next to which stands Poznań's most famous dormitory: DS. Jowita. The university has just closed it and has no plans to modernize it. The university is also thinking of selling this modernist building from the mid-1960s, which would probably go for demolition. In May, we described in more detail the protests by part of the student community, which demanded that Jowita be preserved and renovated. Activists pointed to the dorm's prime location near the Kaponiera traffic circle, its centrist character (students in a downtown area abandoned by a large part of UAM's faculties) and low rental costs.
DS "Jowita" on Zwierzyniecka Street in Poznań, view from the east across the Kaponiera traffic circle - on the left the Concordia design center in a former printing house and a fragment of the Bałtyk office building
photo: Jakub Glaz
The university responded that the new dormitory in Morasko would more than replace Jowita (higher standard, proximity to many departments), and that it would be far too expensive to modernize and adapt to modern requirements. The spring discussion about Jowita was rather chaotic, as UAM communicated its intentions and arguments extremely poorly and even arrogantly, and students and activists were far too emotional and - not infrequently - weak on substance. In the Jowita case, the university has not changed its mind to this day. Thus, students in the center will decrease, instead, it will revive, perhaps, the empty and dead so far after "office hours" campus in Morasko. "Meteor" will welcome its first tenants in a few days.
