A lubricating oil wholesaler, a grain base, a do-it-yourself facility, a building materials warehouse... and apartment buildings in between. This is how developers see the development of Kielce. Now, under the lex deweloper law, two towers are to grow between the halls.
The area between the highway-sized Świętokrzyska Street (an exit from the city in the direction of Lublin) and Solidarności Street is a degraded area with a predominantly industrial and warehouse function. Food wholesalers, car services, an oil wholesaler, a post office base and, last but not least, a scrap metal purchase are located here. On the opposite side of the busy thoroughfares, the campus of Jan Kochanowski University is expanding, and the city's largest shopping mall, Echo, operates next door.
Bird's eye view
Source: lex developer application, proj.: Detan © Kielce City Hall
Roughly in the middle of this part of Kielce of dubious beauty, a local developer—Becher—is planning to build two towers with a residential function. The project was designed by Kielce-based Detan studio. Twenty-one floors will house between 120 and 170 apartments. No services are planned—even on the first floors apartments and entrances to staircases are planned. A garage hall and storage rooms will be built under the building. As the investor argues in the application, the building is to be characterized by architecture of high aesthetic value, and its colors are to refer to the „colors of the earth”. This may make it easier to blend into the grayish context, which the architects themselves write about in the description of the concept, pointing out that the buildings will not contrast with the existing neighboring buildings, which they themselves describe as degraded.
visualization
source: lex developer application, proj.: Detan © Kielce City Hall
The massing itself is simple, the architects used the common model of a stack of superimposed cuboids. Their intention is for the modern character to be given by glazing. Above the garage hall, which will also occupy part of the first floor, a leisure area with a playground is planned. Recreation, unfortunately, will therefore not be able to take place in the shade of tall trees, as these are unlikely to grow on the garage roof.
The first floor will be occupied mainly by parking spaces, communications and a few apartments overlooking the parking lots
source: lex developer application, proj.: Detan © Kielce City Hall
This is not the only residential development in the area. In fact, the concept of the two towers itself is a reminder of this—the authors included a suggestive map of new and planned developments in the area of the proposed building and the location of tall buildings along the planned S74 route, which is supposed to justify the height (68 meters) of the planned buildings. In the vicinity, next to the Exbud office center (which is an interesting example of postmodernism), three 17-story skyscrapers are under construction, among others, which were also designed by the Detan studio. Unlike the planned project, the one already under construction envisages functional diversification rather than a residential monoculture. Instead, the architecture will not be differentiated—the buildings are three identical clones lined up in a row.
The city has not developed a local master plan for the industrial area, despite the fact that the zoning study passed in 2014 identified it as one of the main areas where modernization and rehabilitation work must be carried out to improve the overall image of the city. Residential development in this area generally does not violate the provisions of the study. Admittedly, the predominant functions designated here are industry, warehousing and technical services, but housing and city-wide services are also allowed. The question is, are two towers in a sea of barracks at the city's exit a good direction for rehabilitation? That question will have to be answered by councilors, meanwhile, public consultations on the matter are open until July 3.
floor plan
source: lex developer application, proj.: Detan © Kielce City Hall
