Work submitted for the competition
"Best Diploma Architecture"
The guiding idea of the work - how to build a city by redeveloping anti-urban settlements - defines the challenges Polish cities will face in the future. The public debate about large-scale housing estates revolves around two options: demolish or modernize. All the expert data speak in favor of the second solution, yet we still face the lack of any spatial policy for block housing.
axonometry
© Jakub Ławski
The prevailing idea is to preserve the current status quo. We try to change the facades of the blocks so that they remind us as little as possible of their origins, we put a motley mantle of colors and patterns on them, and when we manage to do it with taste, we consider it the maximum possible. Still, we are not solving the fundamental problems of the settlements. Their anti-urbanism lies much deeper, is defined in their pedigree. In this field, Western Europe is far ahead of us - extensive revitalization efforts have been forced by the intense social degeneration of settlements. Such deep problems do not exist in Polish conditions, we have to transform settlements for another reason - they are so common that they often build entire cities. To ask about their welfare is to ask about the welfare of our urban environment.
diagram of the reurbanization of the settlement
© Jakub Ławski
The city is a natural organism, an expression of the needs of its inhabitants. We put the ways of its development into a legal framework, so that it is rational and beautiful. Settlements are a closed structure. Anything that appears within their boundaries becomes an alien entity. Lack of development opportunities is the first reason for their anti-urbanism. Mono-functional units after the period of political transformation have gradually grown with services and commercial facilities, but the density of settlements has only increased the existing spatial chaos. The settlements, despite the hard plan, do not form legible urban structures. Combined with the segregation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic, resulting in a complicated traffic system, they are unattractive to outsiders. This is a lack of development opportunities for businesses inside the settlement, and so at the same time reduces the functional attractiveness of the settlements. Settlements, especially those of the prefabrication rush era, are ultimately overscaled and anonymous megastructures. Not only are the buildings lacking in human scale - any unused spaces between them, spaces with an undefined audience, lack it as well. Too public for residents to express community initiatives, and too private to be seen as full-fledged public spaces of cities.
projections
© Jakub Ławski
The estates, however, have as many opportunities as drawbacks: a significant green resource, developed technical and social infrastructure. It seems that only developers, intensively seizing the space of settlements for new buildings, know about these elements. In the absence of a spatial policy, the situation is only getting worse - and if there is a will to invest in the settlements, why aren't we taking advantage of this to solve their problems?
{Image@url=https://cdn.architekturaibiznes.pl/upload/galerie/75861/images/original/ae9f332031c3a0c73bcfd45ea1601339.jpg,alt=Platforma is modulated vertically - creating volumes of new buildings, or horizontally - creating elevated courtyards,title=The platform is modulated vertically - creating volumes of new buildings, or horizontally - creating elevated courtyards}
The platform is modulated vertically - creating volumes of new objects, or horizontally - creating elevated courtyards
© Jakub Ławski
The project of estate reurbanization on the example of the Wladyslaw Jagiello estate in Lodz is an attempt to find an answer to this question. Reurbanization of a block of flats is not simple - although the goals are familiar, it is impossible to use traditional urban planning means. It is also inadvisable - their urbanism is a witness to the history of the city, and the city is ultimately a layered structure. It was therefore necessary to look for a third way. Its expression is the idea of the Development Platform, which is a way of creating spatial units based on the existing skeleton of public spaces. The base of the Platform is a low canopy bounding the quarter. This is the minimum for spatial development and defining the hierarchy of spaces.
cross-section
© Jakub Ławski
Where possible, Platform was modulated vertically - creating volumes of new buildings, or horizontally - creating elevated courtyards for residents of the blocks, hiding off-road parking under a green canopy. This is how the central space crystallizing the entire neighborhood was created. By reversing modernist thinking, the spatial boundary in the form of a multi-lane street was transformed into a multifunctional spine of the entire establishment. A market square integrated with public transportation was created at the point of intersection with a perpendicular green axis. The new layering helped diversify the image of the estate - the blocks themselves returned to their roots, with the restoration of horizontal window strips and the addition of large terraces, without blurring the period from which they originated. The whole is a multifunctional and vital structure. The old and the new. Just like real cities.
The base of the Platform is a low canopy bounding the quarter
© Jakub Ławski
While the project is a range of possible solutions, many of them are even feasible only through the development of local development plans. Such measures, however, are currently lacking. It remains to be hoped that the debate in the architectural community will go deeper. Deeper than the block itself.
Jakub ŁAWSKI
Illustrations: © Author
