An unusual educational and cultural center - Odra Centrum- has recently been operating in the very center of Wroclaw, the city of a hundred bridges. What sets it apart? It is housed in a low-emission, floating building moored on the bank of the Oder River at Wybrzeze Słowackiego, right at the mouth of the Oława River and Grunwald Bridge.
bird's eye view
© OnWater.pl Foundation
Floating buildings and cities are increasingly being proclaimed a panacea for climate change. In Poland, however, it is not the rising level of the oceans, but the dynamic development of tourism and the attractiveness of being by the water that makes floating architecture an increasingly considered form of investment in the coastal zone, Lukasz Piątek explained in an article on Polish amphibious architecture [cf. A&B 10/2019].
Although Poland is still learning to create a relationship between the city and the river, more and more interesting objects are being built - floating buildings (hotels, houses, restaurants) that attract residents and tourists, allowing us to look at the familiar landscape from a different perspective. In Wroclaw, Kamil Zaremba's house on the water (designed by Pawel Barczyk, Kamil Zaremba) has so far attracted great interest, and it was its owner and founder of the OnWater.pl Foundation who came up with the initiative to create a floating Odra Center. The project was created in cooperation between the foundation and the PORT studio in Wroclaw.
Odra Centrum in Wroclaw, visualization
© OnWater.pl Foundation
The cuboidal body with an area of eight hundred square meters and a weight of five hundred tons is energy-optimized, the building is equipped with devices that reduce the consumption of electricity, which is obtained from solar energy (photovoltaics) and thermal energy of the river (water heat pumps). The idea behind the initiative is, as its creators write, to activate the public for sustainable development, to introduce modern technologies that affect the protection of the atmosphere and climate, and to inform about rational management of resources, especially water. The OnWater.pl Foundation itself has been implementing both educational and cultural projects for years, organizing, among other things, river cleanups, environmental workshops and educational rafting.
Past experience shows that effective education requires the use of more engaging and modern activities. Hence the idea to prepare and implement a professional educational program, which will be carried out within the Odra Center," explain the founders of the center on the water.
view of Odra Centrum and Grunwaldzki Bridge, with Jadwiga Grabowska-Hawrylak's design spotlights in the background on the right
© OnWater.pl Foundation
Odra Centrum is to be a place that will allow the organization of a variety of events - workshops, conferences, trainings, environmental education projects. The center will have a School on the Water, a place where children will have a chance to gain knowledge about the river, an iOdra tourist information point, the Odra Cafe, a library where all materials about the Odra River will be available - the Odrateka and theLittle boat house - a place where, as the center's creators assure, everyone will be able to build their first boat, learn the secrets of boatbuilding, the rich history of inland navigation and fall in love with the Oder.
See what the Odra Center looks like inside:
© Visit Wroclaw
According to our information, there is no facility of a similar nature in Poland, combining in its program the theoretical and practical aspects of the operation of modern sustainable development technologies, write the founders of Odra Centrum.
Thus, this initiative has a chance to blazed water trails for other such projects, showing that it is worth caring for rivers, taking care of their quality and actively integrating them into the structure of our cities.
