The chaotically developing southern part of Gdansk lacks services and recreational areas. Only now is the City doing the fitting to create a new neighborhood center to help turn the bedroom community into a place where residents will want to spend time. The concept for the district center will be chosen in a study competition that officials have just announced.
Theidea of a district center for the southern part of Gdansk is not new. The vision was already floated in the 1970s and 1980s, when this piece of the city was planned. Unfortunately, those plans came to nothing, and today Gdansk South is a huge bedroom community with chaotic infrastructure and cumbersome access to the center, which does not create a real urban space.
Gdansk South closer to services
It is only now that the City is making attempts to shore up the space; plans include: South Park and a new line of the Pomeranian Metropolitan Railway. On May 6, in turn, the authorities announced a study competition for the concept of a district center, which would become the vibrant heart of the district. Residents of Gdansk South - by 2030 there will be 100,000 of them - would gain a swimming pool and an ice rink, but also commercial services: grocery stores, vegetable gardens, fitness clubs, and eventually perhaps cinemas or recreation areas.
The announced competition is a study, which means that we will still have to wait for the results in the space. On the basis of the winning project, the spatial development plans under development will be refined.
On the other hand, the competition will be an input to the public-private partnership, says Piotr Grzelak, deputy mayor of Gdansk for sustainable development and investment. - This formula will help us realize public functions, such as an ice rink or a swimming pool, and on the other hand it will provide a commercial service, but also new jobs. Thanks to this, the residents of Gdansk South will not have to migrate towards Wrzeszcz or Oliwa, because all these basic services will be provided here.
Gdansk South center - visions will be announced in November
Piotr Lorens, Architect of the City of Gdansk, stresses that there is a long history of planning the center, but in the age of pandemonium it has become apparent that we don't necessarily work while sitting in an office, and we don't necessarily shop exclusively in big stores.
So we have to reinvent, as it were, what the South Center can be," Prof. Lorens points out. - We care about quality concepts. In the first stage, we invite you to submit programmatic and spatial concepts. In the second stage, to refine them and submit urban-architectural proposals.
Applications for participation in the competition can be submitted by May 24. A condition for participation is that the design team must demonstrate that it has at least one person with architectural qualifications. The winning concepts will be selected by November 15. There will be prizes ranging from PLN 15,000 to PLN 60,000 for the creators of the awarded projects.
