Combining old and new is not an easy task. It was undertaken by architects from the Insomia studio in Poznan's prominent Jeżyce area. In the package - an added value: a pocket park. If it is built, the investment has a chance to successfully blend into the not-so-easy surroundings.
Jeżyce is now probably the most popular district in Poznan. There are many reasons for this. Art Nouveau townhouses from the beginning of the century, buildings from between the wars, compact street frontage, a market with a marketplace and the still alive commercial backbone of the district - Dąbrowskiego Street. In addition, there is an exceptionally good connection with the city center.
From the downtown side, however, Jeżyce has a "chipped" front along Roosevelt Street. Wartime destruction and subsequent modernization wiped out half of the first line of buildings visible from the railroad tracks. It was replaced first by the successful modernist Merkury Hotel (1964, now under the name Mercure), then by the scaled-down Kaponiera traffic circle (1974), recently fixed in this form, and twenty years ago by the massive Globis office building.
difficult plot
The modern fabric did not even try to spatially "stitch" with the backs of the old tenements. Between them and the hotel and office building there has been a squalid parking lot for years. It would be best to convert it into a strip of high greenery, but - firstly, a local development plan has not been passed for the area, and secondly, it is a patchwork of plots belonging to different owners. Thus, a complex with 62 apartments is to be built on Slowackiego Street by the end of 2022.
View from the east, from under the Globis office building. At the back - villa-like tenements on Mickiewicza Street. On the right - the health center on Slowackiego Street.
© Insomia Szymon Januszewski
The design is the responsibility of Insomia Szymon Januszewski 's studio from Poznań, which has a track record of successful residential houses both from the outside and inside. The office's most original and award-winning realization is Poznań's Nowy Strzeszyn - a dense "carpet" development in a salvaged birch grove combining the advantages of an apartment and a single-family house.
This time the architects attempted to fit a new six-story development into a tight and difficult plot. The new development comes close to the windows of the detached villa buildings from before the First War and evades the shadow cast by the eleven-story office building as far as possible. At the same time, it does not repeat the old spatial solutions, as this particular plot has never been so intensively developed.
pocket added value
The proposed form, broken into three segments, is meant to mediate between the old and the new. The slope of the wall therefore alludes to the old steep roofs, the height holds the gabarit of the neighborhood. Also in harmony with the old buildings is to connect all three blocks, a separate plinth part with arched entrance portals and places for services.
- We acted on the basis of a long-established decision on development conditions, which precisely specified the location of the building, its division into parts and the form of the roof. However, we did not want a flat roof here. The way out of the situation, therefore, was to slope the wall above the third story. Thanks to it, we also increased the access of light to the neighboring houses," explains Szymon Januszewski of Insomia.
Dividing the block into unevenly sized lots corresponds with the detached townhouses. The architects emphasize that they still play a primary role. However, the new development will partly obscure them, and partly - thanks to the division into three blocks - will not take away the views from neighboring windows. The rest is already contemporary means of expression: from the ceramic cladding, to the window openings and box loggias reminiscent of the recently completed building at Wildecki Market by Ultra Architects.
View from the south. On the left - the planned extension of the Sienkiewicza Street axis and the rear of the Mickiewicza Street development. In the middle - the designed square. In the depth - Słowackiego street.
© Insomia Szymon Januszewski
What is important in the project is the added value that compensates to some extent for the density of the new development. The architects proposed creating a pocket park connecting the foreground of the building with neighboring Slowackiego and Zwierzyniecka streets. Within it would be a wooded playground, the preservation of which was called for two years ago by Jzyż citizens and councilors. In this way an interesting and necessary green passage will be created, including an intimate square and, of necessity, parking spaces integrated into the green. The park could alsoimprove the quality of the space next to the hotel restaurant. However, the fate of the green premise is not certain. The land on which it was designed belongs to various owners.
The siting of the new development at 7 Słowackiego Street in Poznań and the design of the pocket park - proj. Insomia Szymon Januszewski
At the top (from the west): the Słowackiego Street development, at the bottom - the Mercure hotel and Globis office building on Roosevelta Street. On the left - Zwierzyniecka Street, on the right - Slowackiego Street. The planned pocket park is to connect Mickiewicza Street, Slowackiego Street (on the axis of Sienkiewicza Street), Zwierzyniecka Street and the area on Roosevelta Street.
© Insomia Szymon Januszewski
- Now much depends on the city, which declared earlier that it would buy up sections of land that would make the park possible. However, the matter has slowed down somewhat, and action is needed. If all the formalities can't be completed now, the idea will be lost, which is a pity, because everyone in the neighborhood will benefit from it: the residents of Jeżyce, the hotel and the office building, which is currently revaluing the space around its building, Januszewski says.
He notes that the proposed greenbelt fits in with the concept from a student competition to develop the nearby MTP grounds. The authors of one of the winning entries proposed a wide green corridor connecting the fair and the city along Roosevelt and Slowackiego Streets. To make this intention more visible, the city should create an above-ground passageway on Zwierzyniecka Street between the Bałtyk office building and the hotel. Unfortunately, so far, despite the appeals of residents and community activists, it has not decided to take such a step. The pocket park, if created, should encourage officials to change their minds.
