Low, medium or high? How many residential buildings, so many ideas about their architecture. What if the most important types of housing were presented within a single housing development? Such a challenge has been taken up in Nysa, which plans to build new municipal blocks. The experimental concept is the fruit of cooperation between two architectural studios - Rewizja Grupa Projektowa and PROLOG. The design for a complex of three communal blocks was created a few years ago, but now comes the time for implementation, as the city has just signed a tender with a contractor for construction.
Polish housing industry is slowly (finally?) trying to take a direction turned towards investments subsidized by public money. This manifests itself on various levels - for example, a law has recently been passed introducing the "Key to Housing" program, which, in addition to co-financing the purchase of apartments on the secondary market, promises large subsidies for municipal housing, social housing, and those being built under SIM and TBS activities. On the other hand, for the time being in the form of experiments, realizations built according to ambitious designs of recognized architectural studios are beginning to appear in Poland. In 2022, a TBS housing estate was erected in Lowicz (Pracownia Architektury i Urbanistyki Rafał Mazur), while last year the whole of Poland marveled at Rybnik's Ajnfart (SLAS Architekci). Now Nysa wants to join the narrow group of cities that can console themselves with high-quality realizations.
Municipal housing in Nysa
©Revision Design Group
architectural abecadło
The design of the municipal housing complex in Nysa is a play on residential development models. The complex, planned along the left bank of the Nysa Klodzka River, will consist of three buildings - "A", "B" and "C", sited on a common block of above-ground parking. In each of them, the designers conducted deliberations on solutions used in residential architecture, which played out on four levels: typology of residential development, modes of vertical and horizontal communication, arrangement of common spaces, as well as detailing and properties of materials used. What are the results of the architectural experiment?
Communal housing in Nysa
©Revision Design Group
apartments with a view of the river
Building "A", sited on the western section of the pedestal, is a variation on the theme of low-rise multifamily housing. The three-story building with a horizontal silhouette is equipped with three staircases with an open structure, brought out in front of the main body of the building and covered with climbing plants. Between the structures of the staircases there will also be greenery, designed in the form of small gardens with small architecture.
Communal housing in Nysa
©Revision Design Group
In building "A", wood plays the first fiddle - not only the details, window frames (not only rectangular, but also round, as the architects used porthole windows in the side elevations) and balcony railings, but also the staircase structures were made of this material. From them residents will first get to the common spaces. Indeed, on each floor there will be a small room, serving as a lobby leading to the apartment, but also as a place for integration - it will be a space with greenery, lounge furniture and a view of the river meandering at the foot of the structure.
Communal housing in Nysa
©Revision Design Group
concrete and steel
On the axis of the composition, adjacent to the body of the parking lot, will grow a seven-story "B" building. In this building, the architects referred to the archetype of a residential high-rise, equipped in this case with two classic internal staircases. The residents of the block will be served by a neighborhood club, for which space has been set aside in the lowest floor of the building. The room facing the river with its large glazing will open onto the common space arranged between the buildings of the estate. The material guiding motif of this building is steel, which, as in the first of the described examples, can be found primarily in the finishes. The facades were also treated differently - in contrast to the smooth facades of the low-rise building, the high-rise has clearly accentuated vertical and horizontal articulation, creating a motif reminiscent of a truss.
Municipal housing in Nysa
©Revision Design Group
like a doughnut in butter
The most distinctive of the entire complex is certainly the "C" building, fondly called "doughnut" by the designers. The five-story building, representing a type of mid-rise development, was concentrated around an inner, covered courtyard, which also serves as a common space. The courtyard included space for a single staircase organized in the form of galleries winding along the building's interior walls. Some of the apartments are equipped with additional French balconies, looking just into the interior of the neighborhood space. The material distinguishing feature of the "donut" is glass, used to cover the inner courtyard. The articulation of the exterior elevations relies on emphasizing horizontal directions.
Municipal housing in Nysa
©Revision Design Group
PUMs Nysa is not afraid of
The architects, followed by the developer, did not compromise on the designed apartments. Their square meters, ranging from 47 to as much as 76 square meters, have been designed without pressure to achieve the highest possible PUM. So you won't find fancy layouts with long, afunctional corridors, and you won't search in vain for bevels. Many of the apartments have access to terraces, and almost all are ventilated on both sides. According to the local government, the apartments are to be turnkey - they will go to people living and working in Nysa, with preference given to those employed in the health service and the military.
Municipal housing in Nysa
©Revision Design Group
municipal blocks on the podium
One of the more distinctive solutions used during the design of the municipal buildings on Szlak Chrobrego Street in Nysa was the foundation of the basic blocks of the buildings on a common platform - a one-story pedestal, in which the infrastructure to serve residents was placed, including a parking lot for 62 cars and 70 tenant cells. As the developer informed, this solution was dictated by the technical difficulties that would be associated with trying to build an underground parking lot in close proximity to the bed of the Nysa Klodzka River.
Municipal housing in Nysa
©Revision Design Group
Elevating the building blocks above ground level, however, may have additional advantages. Thanks to the common platform, the layout of the complex, viewed from the perspective of the right bank of the river, acquires greater legibility, and the mass of the parking lot becomes a point of reference for the residential buildings, which are positioned in relation to it in different ways. The elevation of the buildings on the volume of the parking lot also influenced the way in which the space between the buildings was developed - the common space was lowered towards the river, to be "closed" with the help of a wall growing right at the edge of the garage. This allowed the architects to dispense with the use of barriers. In the square between buildings "A", "B" and "C", in addition to greenery and small architecture, there will be skylights, letting sunlight into the parking space.
Municipal housing in Nysa
©Revision Design Group
Nysa's journey to the past
The new housing development will be built on the site of the former FSD, the factory from which the iconic Nysa delivery vans rolled out en masse between 1959 and 1994. After production of the indigenous vehicles ended, the plant passed into the hands of the South Korean Daewoo concern, which produced its last vehicles, the Polonez delivery models, in 2003. Until 2016, the attractive locational land remained the property of the Żerań-based Motor Vehicles Factory - then, for 22.5 million zlotys, the plots of land left behind by the defunct factory were bought back by the city, which came into possession of new areas of 21 hectares.
The history of the site is reflected in the details of the designed buildings. Although there was no room for maneuver here to adapt post-industrial buildings, as is the case with many 19th-century factories and plants in Polish cities, the architects decided to prepare a visual identity that would refer to the industrial history of the site. Thus, residents will see, among other things, illuminated perforated panels with the motif of the iconic "Nyska," a delivery truck manufactured here since the late 1950s, as well as historical plaques.
Municipal housing in Nysa
©Revision Design Group
municipal lex developer
The history of the site was also recalled by administrative issues related to construction - the long-standing activity of the industrial plant left its mark on the planning documents that were created in the last two decades. After all, the plots of land left behind by the FSD factory were intended mainly for investments of an industrial nature with a small share of services. Since their purchase by the city, however, the local government had other plans involving a change in the area's use. In order to realize the concept of residential development at the site, the mayor submitted an application under the lex developer formula, thanks to which the construction of a new housing development became possible. The cost? Nearly 40 million zlotys. Seemingly a lot, although in the context of breaking the paradigm of low quality and in view of the pioneering nature of the implementation, the price seems justified.
Municipal housing in Nysa
© Revision Design Group
a drop drills the rock
This is not the end of Nysa's intensive development, at least in terms of housing construction supported by public subsidies. As nto.pl reports, in addition to three blocks of apartments right on the banks of the Nysa Klodzka River, the city also plans to build assisted housing on Orląt Lwowskich Street and, through SIM Nysa's activities, dozens of apartments on Slavianska Street. And while this is a good direction when it comes to expanding the local government's housing stock, as with many other SIMs and TBSs, the designs of the planned buildings may fall a bit short of the concept presented by PROLOG and Revision studios. However, it's worth remembering that it's a drop that drills the rock, and to hope that the old adages may also apply to the reality of modern construction.
