Another success for Archigrest and topoScape! The symbolic park beneath the Warsaw Uprising Mound, or "Storm" Action Park, has won an award in the Landezine International Landscape Award (LILA)!
A view of the Warsaw Uprising Mound and the park
Photo: Michal Szlaga | Illustrations provided courtesy of Archigrest studio
Established in 2016, the award aims to recognize the most interesting and progressive practices in landscape architecture. This year's award was presented by a jury that included Catherine Mos bach of the Mosbach Paysagistes studio, landscape architect Joost Emmerik, Lilli Lička who runs the Institute of Landscape Architecture at Vienna University of Life Sciences, prof. Lisa Diedrich, landscape architect and winner of last year's LILA award, and its initiator Zaš Brezar, were won by designers from the Archigrest and topoScape studios for the realization of a park in Warsaw's Mokotow district.
space for relaxation in the park
Photo: Michal Szlaga | Illustrations courtesy of Archigrest studio.
This is not the first award to the credit of the authors of the Storm Action Park — the space was awarded, among other things, the Grand Prix and two awards (in the category of public space design and for pro-environmental solutions) in the 10th edition of the Architectural Award of the President of the City of Warsaw.
spatial palimpsest
What distinguishes this place? Made available on the 79th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, the park refers to the history of the city — walkers can see the exposed ruins, and at the top of the mound once strewn from the rubble of the capital they will find a restored symbol of Fighting Poland. One of the routes leading to the top leads through ravines built of rubble concrete excavated during construction. These walls, according to the designers, are to be taken over by nature over time.
Read more: Rubble landscape — the park below the Warsaw Uprising Mound
exposed ruins
Photo: Michal Szlaga | Illustrations courtesy of Archigrest studio
The jury of this year's LILA competition appreciated:
a sensible uncovering of the palimpsest [...] the use of waste and rubble found on site and the different creative transformations into very distinct and unconventional landscape features that spark thoughts and reflection [...]. The jury appreciates that even with the park’s most monumental features, the designers introduced a sense of playfulness and dynamism that eases the heaviness this memorial could otherwise embody.
One of the routes leading to the mountain leads through ravines built of rubble concrete excavated during construction
Photo: Michal Szlaga | Illustrations courtesy of Archigrest studio
new point of reference
The jury also paid attention to increasing the accessibility of the park spaces for all users and inviting nature to co-create it, thus making, as the justification reads, a ruin taken over by life, fourth nature.
The park continues to grow, this April, at the initiative of the designers and the City, despite the rainy weather, as many as a hundred volunteers from nearby neighborhoods took part in a joint planting of a pocket forest using the Miyawaki method!
Park under the Warsaw Uprising Mound
Photo: Michal Szlaga | Illustrations courtesy of Archigrest studio
This is a successful example, a new benchmark for revitalization in Poland — the rubble heap of post-war Warsaw was adapted in such a way that an interesting park was created, and interference with nature was minimal. The result was a park that was safe, accessible, brilliantly storied, while a path about the rubble and a nature trail were created, which I had the opportunity to design. Much of the succession zone was left without interference, the vegetation that has grown on the mound for several decades will continue to evolve here — Kasper Jakubowski, landscape architect, told A&B.
© Skwer Sportów Miejskich
This year's shortlist of participating projects also included the Cichociemnych Spadochroniarzy AK Park in Warsaw, designed by eM4 . Architecture Studio. Brataniec.
