How to shape good residential architecture? Answered by Tomasz Grębski

06 of June '23

Niwnica | proj.: Grębski Pracownia Projektowa

...

Article from A&B issue 05|2023

How to shape good residential architecture?

Good residential architecture should, as much as possible, facilitate the daily life of its residents. While this answer seems obvious, it is made up of the following factors, not all of which are usually taken sufficiently into account. It should be created with an awareness of how it affects the performance of daily activities of the householders, but also their physical health and, often treated secondarily, their psychological well-being.

Niwnica | proj.: Grębski Pracownia Projektowa

The basis is the utility program, which should be adapted to the number of residents and their needs, or should be as flexible as possible to adapt to their needs. However, it is important to optimize its scope, since not every activity is performed equally by the residents, the spaces may have several functions at the same time, depending on the person or the time of day, and the consequence of the often practiced excess of separate rooms is the lack of ergonomic space in each of them.It is also necessary to be aware of the paths that residents will take in the interior to perform their daily activities, and to create such a functional-spatial layout that these paths are as short as possible.

Niwnica | proj.: Grębski Pracownia Projektowa

A building must have a positive impact on the well-being of its users, provide them with comfort. The first criterion is thermal comfort—the building should facilitate the maintenance of an adequate temperature without the tendency to overheat and overcool, it should sufficiently ventilate the interior to ensure a constant supply of fresh air and prevent the development of unwanted microorganisms and fungus. An element that receives too little emphasis is the mental health of users. Architecture should therefore take care of this by providing abundant access to daylight, especially during the winter season, which is scarce in this regard. The accessibility of nature is also important, and it should be visually integrated into the interior to the extent possible.

Niwnica | proj.: Grębski Pracownia Projektowa

Spatiality is very important for well-being—if we have a limited square footage of the building, it is worth reducing the number of rooms to introduce at least one of sufficient size for daily functioning. Acoustic comfort is also important, as well as adequate soundproofing of excessive noise from outside and between rooms.

A key criterion is the cost optimization of both construction and maintenance, which is essential for shaping good architecture. First and foremost, it consists of proper allocation of resources—often in implementation, relatively expensive solutions are practiced, without which a more comfortable living space can be realized in the same budget, for example, very complex roofs, jutting masses, building an area larger than necessary, which does not translate into comfort through poor interior planning. It is worth considering not only the cost of the construction itself, but also the overall cost of use over the life cycle of the building. The use of better quality materials often means greater durability, and thus translates into savings by not having to replace them more quickly.

Niwnica | proj.: Grębski Pracownia Projektowa

Ongoing maintenance costs consist primarily of energy consumption, including heating, and, equally important, cooling costs. It is important to shape the body and openings of the building in such a way as to minimize thermal losses in the cold season and the effect of overheating in the warm season, the use of an appropriate standard of layers in the partitions and the currently widely available technical solutions, such as heat pumps, photovoltaics or a recuperation system.

An additional aspect is urban planning, which affects the comfort of residents as much as the architecture itself, although it depends not only on them, but also on the authorities responsible for urban planning. The location of the building, the layout of the entire neighborhood, its typology affect how much time residents spend getting to and from their places of work, schools, stores, services or green spaces, and thus how often residents will use them.