Not only a place for commerce, but also for neighborhood meetings and integration. Patrycja Banaszek of Wydział Architektury Politechniki Warszawskiej proposes to restore the tradition of the bazaar in the Warsaw Służewiec community. With its eco-friendly solutions and open design, this local social and commercial center exemplifies modern solutions for public architecture.
The project presents a Local Social and Commercial Center located on a corner plot at Gotarda and Rzymowskiego Streets in Warsaw's Służewiec district. It is an attempt to respond to the problem of the disappearance of neighborhood integration centers and local places of commerce, which are important places for establishing interpersonal relations and creating community in the city.
Local social and commercial center in Służewiec - visualization
Patrycja Banaszek
The liquidation of local bazaars has been a growing process recently, exacerbating the ever-increasing anonymity and distance among Warsaw residents, especially those of senior age.
"be at home": locally and environmentally friendly
The main idea of the project is to create a healthy and friendly building, continuing the long-standing tradition of a bazaar in the area. The designed building will preserve the advantages of the sprawling bazaar as a place for daily interactions of the local community, giving a sense of "being at home," while providing contemporary, environmentally friendly solutions.
site development project
Patrycja Banaszek
The center's building is designed to work both inwardly and outwardly. Numerous openings, alcoves, arcades or outdoor terraces are intended to encourage the spillover of the functions of the volumes into public space, moving workshops, sales or meetings outside the architecture. The regular structural grid creates a clear and easy-to-remember layout. Both exterior and interior walls were made using the HBE laminated timber system. In shaping the main circulation routes, the needs of people with disabilities have been taken into account, with straightforwardly defined, intuitive routes of movement.
inclusive, open space
The designed building was placed in the central part of the evidentiary plot, so as to evenly interact with the immediate neighborhood. Thanks to the democratic opening of the first floor to all sides, the entire site becomes a shared, fluid public space. The individual arcades of the building have their continuation in further areas of the plot. The whole forms a sequence of successive spaces with different characters:
Town square → inner square → community gardens
first floor plan
Patrycja Banaszek
The functions on the first floor are distributed in a specific order, each arcade flanked by both a commercial volume with service establishments and space related to catering or integration. In this way, during the course of the day, the exhibition space under the arcades, as well as the associated plazas, are arranged by successively functioning services. Openings in the ceiling above the arcades provide light and a visual connection to the upper floor. The extensive covered exhibition space between the volumes is inseparable from the idea of the building; it becomes a natural extension of the function, a place animated by the presence of users in a way that depends on the time of day, week or season.
diagram of the functioning of the arcade on the first floor
Patrycja Banaszek
not only retail and art workshops
The first floor of the building is the key zone of the local center in terms of support, development and organization of time in the facility. A clear division into four volumes housing different activities (physical, social, intellectual and art) allows for simple movement around the facility. A common outdoor terrace connects all segments. Workshop, activity and lecture rooms have direct exits to the terrace thanks to sliding windows, which encourages the transfer of activities to the air. A wooden pergola shades the terrace and intuitively marks the main communication route.
detail and facade materials
Patrycja Banaszek
To emphasize the structure and idea of the project, the same facade material was used on all elevations, varying only its color in the recesses and arcades of the building. Thanks to this procedure, the object invites the viewer to delve into the isolated arcades and first floor clearances. The natural properties of Siberian larch will make the color of the facade more and more strongly differentiated over time.
