FOPA 2025 - What studios will we visit this year?

Ola Kloc

14 of March '25

Festival of Open Architecture Studios, 11th edition

FOPA 2025

Broadcasts of the meetings will be available on our channels

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Three cities, three studios, three visions of architecture and one goal: welcome to the Festival of Open Architecture Studios, an event of 5th International Congress Digital Regeneration of Cities in Łódź (April 9-10). Which offices will we visit together?

Ahead of us is the eleventh installment of FOPA, the Festival of Open Architectural Studios organized by A&B since 2018. FOPA is a unique opportunity to learn about the work of the best Polish and foreign design studios from behind the scenes, get a sneak peek at the way the architects and architects who work in them work, and ask about the challenges of the profession. All meetings will be broadcast live on A&B's YouTube channel and Facebook page.

This time we will visit the offices in Katowice, Poznan and Szczecin:

Konior Studio
April 7, 1 pm

We will start the festival in Katowice, at the headquarters of the Tomasz Konior's stuio, operating since 1995, which for 30 years has been among the best architectural offices in the country! What is architecture for architects from Upper Silesia?

Architecture is an inspiring atmosphere and beauty. It is a passion to create for people in the context of time, place, nature and culture

- they write on their website.

National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice

Consistent realization of these values these brought laurels to the studio's founder from the very beginning of his career - the architect won the SARP Award of the Year in 1998 in the Young Architectural Creator category, and just 5 years later, the SARP Award of the Year for architectural creativity. The studio's projects have been repeatedly nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award and awarded in national competitions, which is not surprising, since the studio's portfolio includes such architectural icons as the building of the NOSPR headquarters in Katowice and the New Reading Rooms of the National Library in Warsaw (Grand Prix of the 9th Architecture Prize of the Mayor of Warsaw, SARP 2023 Award of the Year in the category of Interior Architecture).

Currently, the team is working on the daunting challenge of restoring eleven tenement houses in the very center of Katowice and creating a development quarter in the city center.

Dworcowa Quarter in Katowice.

You can read more about the studio here.

PL.architekci
April 8, 1 pm

From Katowice we will move to Poznan, where the studio of Bartłomiej Bajon and Katarzyna Cynka-Bajon has been operating since 2004. The PL.architekci team leads the way in single-family house projects - what they don't touch turns to gold: in 2023, the Multifaceted House of their design won an award in the NAWW competition, and the betOnowy House won a Special Award in the Polish Cement in Architecture competition. Slit House, in turn, received the SARP Award of the Year in 2021, and a year earlier the LUS_4 House won the same title.

Multifaceted House

Photo: Piotr Krajewski © PL.architekci

However, the team does not rest on its laurels - it also undertakes (successfully!) public utility projects, for which it also "rakes in" industry awards. Do you remember the Wolsztyn railroad station (Grand Prix and Best Public Utility Building of the 2nd edition of the NAWW competition) or the sports and entertainment hall in Książ Wielkopolski (Grand Prix, awards in the Public Utility Building category and in the Interiors category in the 5th edition of the NAWW competition)? Yes, these are also their works!

Integrated Transfer Center on Dworcowa Street in Wolsztyn

Photo: Nate Cook © PL.architekci

You can read more about the studio here.

Analog
April 11, 1 pm

We will end the festival with a visit to ANALOG studio, operating since 2016, which has its offices in Szczecin and Koszalin. The office is headed by Piotr Smierzewski, previously operating under the banner of HS99 office.

Full Life Factory

The team has a track record of projects on a variety of scales - from single-family houses to the creation of entire city centers as in the case of the transformation of a huge part of Dąbrowa Górnicza into Fabryka Pełna Życia! This complex vision was the only Polish project to win recognition in the Architizer A+Awards 2020 online poll! The studio also received global recognition for its project to renovate the center in Włocławek, for which the team won The Plan Award in 2018.

Architects from the ANALOG studio also willingly and successfully compete in competitions - they won First Prizes in, among others, the competition for the design of the Forsythia Estate in Stargard or for the design of the extension of the Zagłębie Theater in Sosnowiec.

Competition design for the expansion of the Zagłębia Theater in Sosnowiec

You can read more about the studio here.

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The Festival of Open Architectural Studios is a great opportunity to see from behind the scenes what happens every day in architectural offices and personally ask the architects working in them about issues of interest to our profession. We invite you to FOPA and the 5th International Congress Digital Regeneration of Cities. See you there!

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