So far, the title of the tallest residential building in Lodz has belonged ex aequo to two high-rise buildings that are part of the Downtown Residential District, a modernist complex completed in 1982. Located at 182 Piotrkowska Street and 7 Pilsudskiego Street, the skyscrapers rise to a height of 78 meters. In the coming years, the high-rise duo will be joined by a new residential building, located at 15 Mickiewicza Avenue. The {tag:Pracownia} studio from Lodz is responsible for its design.
Adam Mickiewicz Avenue is one of the main arteries of Lodz. The hottest point of the avenue, hailed in 2020 as the loudest street in Poland, is located at the intersection with Tadeusz Kosciuszko Avenue. It is there that the characteristic streetcar stop, baptized by Lodz residents as the "stable of unicorns," is located, and where the tallest office building in Lodz stands - the 84-meter-high Hi Piotrkowska, designed by the Warsaw studio PRC Architects. In the future, on the opposite side of the colorful Piotrkowska Tram Station will stand a second building tall by Lodz standards. It will be a residential skyscraper designed by the Design Lab Group studio in Łódź. A&A company is responsible for the investment.
Skyscraper at al. Adama Mickiewicza 15 in Łódź
© Design Lab Group | A&A
difficult neighborhood
The planned building on Mickiewicza Avenue is already being called "the new city gate" in the media, by commentators and the authors themselves. This term is not exaggerated, as the discussed skyscraper will stand on the opposite side of the alley in relation to the already mentioned Hi Piotrkowska office building, providing a counterpoint in height, long needed in this area for the lonely in its dimensions building from PRC Architects. The presence of Hi Piotrkowska was not the only context for the proposed building - the design team faced the task of reconciling the new development with the Enders' tenement located on the same plot, serving for years as the Lodz House of Writers. Designed by Pawel Levy, the tenement house is an important point on the map of Lodz modernism, which is why it is listed in the municipal register of monuments. Right next to the representative tenement house was a degraded area, forgotten by the City for years, and on the plot where A&A is located is a four-story office building. The Design Lab Group design team also had to deal with cleaning up the area. How did it cope?
A high-rise building at 15 Adam Mickiewicz Avenue in Lodz.
© Design Lab Group | A&A
green skyscraper
On Monday, July 22 this year. Design Lab Group presented the concept of the skyscraper located at 15a Mickiewicza Avenue, rising to 78 meters in height, on which 23 above-ground floors were laid out, offering a total of 7,500 square meters of residential space and 1,500 square meters of space for commercial activities. The skyscraper's dark green facades will be divided into large rectangular fields, which are intended to relate to the traditional buildings of Lodz.
Skyscraper at 15 Adam Mickiewicz Avenue in Lodz.
© Design Lab Group | A&A
The vertical body of the new building will be divided into three zones. The lowest of them, encompassing the height of the first five floors in the façade, will be integrated on the north side with the height of the Writers' House adjacent to the new high-rise. Similarly, the heights of the ground floor will be correlated, which will be significantly higher than the floors above it. References will also appear in the shape of the corner elevation, which has rounded forms, similar to those of the Ender building. As a result, the new building will be not so much a counterpoint, but rather a modern complement to the existing historic buildings.
A high-rise building at 15 Adam Mickiewicz Avenue in Lodz.
© Design Lab Group | A&A
Above will be a one-story "buffer zone" that will optically separate the lower, historicizing part of the building from its high-rise part. Rising stepwise towards the south, the zone will be solved by massive pillars, on which successive floors will be supported. In the middle zone there will be common spaces intended for use by the residents of the skyscraper - their exact functions, however, will be determined only after the issuance of a building permit. Above the described zone is the upper section of the building, which at its highest point will include 14 floors. This section, in turn, will descend in a southerly direction - integrating the tops of Hi Piotrkowska and the WYD building at 185 Piotrkowska St. At the top of the building will be a stepped terrace, where tall plantings will appear.
Thanks to the ingenious solution of the body of the new skyscraper, the chaotic area of the intersection of Adam Mickiewicz Avenue and Tadeusz Kosciuszko Avenue will gain a new accent, integrating the buildings of extremely diverse architectural forms located there.
Skyscraper at 15 Adama Mickiewicza Avenue in Lodz - Diagram of height grading
© Design Lab Group | A&A
lex developer in the center of Lodz
The new development is to be built under the housing speculative law, also known as lex developer. In addition to erecting a residential and commercial building, the investor will clean up the chaotic surroundings of the former Writers' House on Mickiewicza Avenue.
The designed building fills in the chaotic space of a parking lot, package stores, a kiosk and patches of green space. It closes the foreground created by withdrawing from the frontage of the "Central" service building, creating an attractive public space with services, orderly greenery and small architecture. In addition, it increases the attractiveness of the existing passage between Mickiewicza Avenue and the buildings located on the south side," explains the author's team.
The fate and final shape of the new development are not yet determined. We should find out whether and in what form the new high-rise at 15 Mickiewicza Avenue in Lodz will be built in the coming months, when the project will be reviewed by the Lodz City Council and the preservation office. The project cleverly refers to the urban surroundings, but the unusual color of the facade and the lack of formal references to the Hi Piotrkowska office building, which is the architectural dominant, may raise some doubts.
