On October 9, we announced the results of the 56th edition of the competition for the SARP Annual Zbyszek Zawistowski Award "Diploma of the Year". The main prize went toPaweł Lisiak for his master's thesis entitled. "Laudato si': the monastery of the O.Franciscans" defended at the Wrocław University of Technology.
The jury also awarded two 1st degree honorable mentions and three 2nd degree honorable mentions.
Theaward for the best master's diploma produced at the Faculties of Architecture of Polish universities has been granted since 1964. For the past twenty years it has been called the SARP Annual Zbyszek Zawistowski "Diploma of the Year" Award. In this year's edition, which was held under the honorary patronage of the Swiss Embassy, the winner, in addition to a financial award, received an invitation to a six-week internship in the studio of Chasper Schmidlin in Switzerland.
The evaluation of the 25 theses presented by the finalists was carried out by a jury consisting of:
- Biś Lisowski - chairman of the competition court, president of SARP,
- Juraj Hermann - president (Association of Slovak Architects),
- Agnieszka Kalinowska-Sołtys - APA Wojciechowski,
- Marta Sękulska-Wrońska - WXCA,
- Robert Konieczny - KWK Promes,
- Przemo Łukasik - medusa group,
- Przemysław Powalacz - Geberit Polska,
- Piotr Śmierzewski -Analog,
- Paweł Wierzbicki - Schindler Polska,
best master's degree
After voting, the jury decided to award the main prize to Pawel Lisiak, author of the thesis titled. "Laudato si': the monastery of the Franciscan Friars" prepared at the Faculty of Architecture of the Wrocław University of Technology under the supervision of the supervisor Dr. Tomasz Głowacki.
The main prize in the 56th edition of the competition and the SARP Annual Zbyszek Zawistowski "Diploma of the Year" Award.
© Paweł Lisiak
As we read in the justification of the competition court:
When the sacred is measured against the profane, and an abandoned, drifting torpedo house is to be transformed into a pious space for prayer and work, the result of such actions and reflections always seems interesting. "Laudato si': the Monastery of the Franciscan Fathers", is a decisive and courageous project, in which the author's great maturity and sensitivity are revealed. The modern rehabilitation of an abandoned military site into a monastery relates directly to the medieval monastic formula, in which monks transformed an abandoned place, giving it a new form and bringing new life to it. The author responsibly "dresses up" a brutal and technically degraded site into a new life. Monastic life, modest and austere, but not without sensitivity and sensitivity, giving respite, but also focus, so necessary during meditation. The transformed space is not just an architectural intervention. The author's transformation also includes the history of the place, but also the surroundings, the landscape. The waste brought ashore, collected by the monks, is to be transformed into prefabricated building materials. This is also a kind of transformation of medieval monastic work. New circumstances, new challenges, and constantly the original monastic formula. The responsibility for the home, for the world, for the environment that Pope Francis writes about in his encyclical "Laudato si" is a call not only to the church, but in this case it was a call received by the architect, who has rehabilitated not only the architecture, and his project is to change not only the building, but the landscape, the environment and our social sensitivity.
Pawel Lisiak received PLN 10,000 and an invitation to an internship at the Swiss architectural office of Chasper Schmidlin.
ecological Franciscan monastery
The design of the monastery uses the structure of a former German torpedo house
© Pawel Lisiak
As the author says about the work:
The project is an attempt to find a material answer to the problems of civilization in the 21st century. The work concerns the design of a monastery that uses the construction of a former German torpedo house in Gdynia, Babie Doły district. The choice of the plot is a reference to the early years of the Franciscans in the 13th century, when they occupied abandoned places and slowly restored them to life. The form of the monks' activity is dictated by the location of the monastery on the Polish coast. The monastery was designed for Conventual Franciscan monks, whose daily activities are dedicated to God and organic work to improve the cleanliness of the Baltic Sea by fishing, collecting and reusing plastic waste. The brothers are using the collected trash to produce building blocks to supplement the deteriorating torpedo house structure with new [...]. The project is a vision of transforming dystopia (a place of production of tools of death) into an almost utopian place. The symbol of the victory of life over death is to be a cross towering over the establishment. The proposed concept could also be applied in the future in other locations with different characteristics.
The monastery's foundation is planned around a viridarium
© Pawel Lisiak
The foundation of the building was planned by the architect around a viridarium, preserving the characteristic projection of a Christian monastery, and due to the location of the project on the water, the viridarium differs from traditional solutions. Instead of a garden, its interior is occupied by a section of the sea enclosed in the walls of the monastery with a Marian column. The northern wing with a dominant tower is intended for a church. In the western part Pavel Lisiak designed the Franciscan monastery house, and in the eastern wing the guest house. The newly built part enclosing the establishment from the south serves as a place of work for the monks - the fraternity. In its cubicle,ecological plastic blocks are made for the construction of the monastery, subsequent sale and assistance to the needy. The author relied on the technology used to produce RPL (recycled plastic lumber) and Byfusion Bricks plastic bricks. An important aspect of the project was to make the monastery self-sufficient using renewable energy sources. The monks grow subsistence crops in greenhouses on the roof.
Read about the awards on the following page
