A housing estate by the young rmk.architektura studio is under construction inWarsaw's Wawer district. Designing in a district that is currently undergoing intensive urbanization, the architects set themselves the goal of creating buildings with distinct façade tectonics and diverse spatial perception. All of this relates to the surroundings - dense single-family housing and farm buildings.
Located along the Vistula River, the Wawer district is currently undergoing a process of intensive urbanization associated with the creation of the Warsaw Southern Ring Road. Our task was to give the right framework to this process and to propose solutions giving the quality appropriate for a capital city, while respecting the assumed budget of the investment, the architects say.
The architects opted for a distinctive body and facade
© rmk.architecture
Getting down to design work, the architects set themselves the goal of achieving an architecture with a distinct façade tectonics and diverse spatial perception. An additional condition was to fit in with the existing property divisions and administrative decisions in force in the area. The buildings relate to the neighborhood, occupied mainly by single-family houses of different typology and character, and accompanying outbuildings, often of the scale of small houses.
Wawer estate project, site development plan
© rmk.architektura
The result is buildings whose front building line continues the building line on neighboring plots, while the elevation line located along the required internal road jumps in relation to the individual segments. The geometrized, pleated composition of the facade rhythmizes the urban reception of the premise, changing the perception of the viewer as he or she moves," explains Roderyk Milik.
The architects also took care of the privacy of future residents by adding sheltered entrance and terrace niches. The buildings' interiors are characterized by the openness of the living areas and their connection to the gardens through large, sliding HS windows.
Large windows open up the first floor space to the garden
© rmk.architecture
interview with Roderik Milik
Dobrawa Bies: The investor of the project you are working on is Senn Development, what were their assumptions and guidelines?
Roderyk Milik: The principal is a young development company that wants to promote its investments through architecture. It is managed by people with a passion for what they do, which translated into finding a common language. The project was created through a process of discussion, through often stormy conversations, which ultimately resulted in a mutually satisfactory outcome. I think it's very important that the client identifies with the project, giving substantive input to it, while being open to our ideas. Discussion and weighing of arguments is the key to quality design. In this case, the starting guidelines are primarily a combination of the density of the building resulting from the conditions of development issued for the plot, with maximum emphasis on privacy for residents and refined details of the entrance and terrace areas, with which the final recipient has the most frequent contact - if we are talking about the aspect of the first meeting with the buildings.
The body of the building has been divided into two parts
© rmk.architecture
Dobrawa: We already have the guidelines, now it's time to design - what were the first steps ? What is the shape of the mass of the buildings and the characteristic colors of the facades?
Roderyk: Traditionally, we start designing by getting to know the investor's expectations, actively participating in their analysis and clarification. On the design side, we wanted to emphasize the physical separateness of the buildings by shifting the masses in relation to each other. We referred to the character of the Wawer district filled with dense single-family buildings surrounded by outbuildings by dividing the body of the buildings into a "base " - the first floor with a protruding part of the first floor, and a "bungalow " - the retracted body of the first floor, which was further emphasized by the variation of materials. The material range consists of plaster and corrugated sheet metal - found among the surrounding outbuildings and temporary buildings. The color scheme is a desire to break the homogeneous "anthracite" style of the newly designed estates - we combined light gray with accents of dark green. In addition, we opted for large windows in the living areas, and the terrace window is a sliding window that does not take up interior space.
estate project, first floor plan
© rmk.architecture
Dobrawa: Let's talk about the estate itself and its audience. How many apartments have you envisioned and what is the profile of future residents?
Roderick: Twelve apartments are envisaged in the project - two-story single-family houses with the possibility of adapting the attic for additional space. The development, according to the conditions of development, is semi-detached, which entails a number of limitations and design challenges. Recipients of the investment are people who want to live within a large city, who, for example, having an apartment in the center of the capital, are able to convert it into a house with a larger area. The project emphasizes the functionality of the rooms and their well-thought-out layout.
The project envisages twelve apartments - two-story single-family houses
© rmk.architecture
Dobrawa: The biggest design challenge?
Roderyk: Designing a layout of buildings with a repetitive plan that look good in a grouping when seen from a human perspective. Hence the accentuated verticals in the massing, which give a vertical "pleated" perception of the estate's internal frontages. The goal was also to disenchant the myths about current housing developments - often moving from city to city, we have the impression that we are looking at the same houses, usually of low architectural and material quality. With this project we want to show that it is possible to do things differently, boldly and with flair. The interior challenge was to design the living space so that the view of the garden would not be disturbed by structural columns or stringers protruding from the ceilings.
the estate seen from a bird's eye view
© rmk.architecture
Dobrawa: According to you, is multi-apartment housing designed quite differently from single-family houses? What do you need to pay attention to?
Roderyk: We don't see a special difference - in both cases what matters is the functional projection, which must translate into a mass with an interesting structure. Inherently associated with apartments are cars and the space required for them, which disrupts pedestrian traffic and the aesthetic perception of the overall composition. In this case, the estate is equipped with parking spaces for guests visiting the residents - I consider this important, as often new developments face the problem of an excessive number of cars parked anywhere. We put architecture in the foreground, which can also be seen in the location of the parking spaces - we located them between the buildings, rather than in front of the houses, as in most cases, which allowed us to hide the cars, show off the facades and enlarge the gardens.
Dobrawa: Thank you for the interview.
