A closed competition for the development project of a plot of land at Wladyslaw IV Street in Gdynia has been settled. A building containing a total of 86 apartments and ground-floor commercial premises is to be erected at the site. The building will be adjacent to the new city park.
Proposal by Maćków Pracownia Projektowa studio; view from Armii Krajowej and Władysława IV streets
© Maćków Pracownia Projektowa
result of the closed competition
The plot of land covered by the competition, with a shape close to a trapezoid, is located in Downtown Gdynia. The new development is to complement the frontage of Władysława IV Street (between Armii Krajowej and Obrońców Wybrzeża Streets), and the space between the newly constructed building and the existing block is to be filled with a publicly accessible green area - a new city park of nearly 3,700 square meters.
The developer, Invest Komfort, invited four studios from different parts of the country to participate in the competition - JEMS Architekci from Warsaw, Maćków Pracownia Projektowa from Wroclaw, WWAA from Warsaw and KWK Promes from Katowice. The works were evaluated by a jury that included Invest Komfort experts.
Proposal by KWK Promes studio; view of the building from Wladyslaw IV and Armii Krajowej Streets
© KWK Promes
city-creating visions
The space on Władysława IV Street inspired us with its potential to go beyond the accepted status quo. Therefore, we were looking for unconventional and architecturally daring solutions," says Michal Ciomek, architect and vice president of the board of Invest Komfort. - We opted for a modern, city-creating design that will serve not only the future residents of the investment, but also all Gdynia residents, he adds.
Proposal by WWAA studio; view from Wladyslaw IV and Armii Krajowej streets
© WWAA
The authors of the winning design are architects from the Warsaw office of JEMS. According to the investor, their proposal best fit the character of this part of the city and the competition organizers' vision of creating an aesthetically pleasing, harmonious, bold and balanced development.
The architects proposed a block on a plan close to an acute triangle, which made it possible to introduce in the corner of Wladyslaw IV and Armii Krajowej streets a square with a fountain and a descent to level -1, where the garage was placed. The bifurcated facade is formed by stepped modules of loggias and bay windows.
Bright facades, expressive forms, large horizontal glazing and a columnar structure combined with an arcade and a retracted entrance to the building are characteristic features of the Gdynia development. They guided us in formulating the main assumptions of the design of the building on Wladyslaw IV," explains Paweł Majkusiak of JEMS Architekci studio. - The building will have four fronts. From the west, we planned glazed acoustic enclosures of loggias, forming the frontage of Władysława IV Street. From the east and north, the sculpted form of the facade will be built with structurally arranged bay windows and loggias. A new public park will also be realized on this side, which will be shielded from the noise of the street and will become an urban square, he adds.
Site development plan, proj.: JEMS Architekci
© JEMS Architekci
The designers also took into account what is architecturally most associated with Gdynia, namely the local modernism.
Designing an investment that will stand in such an important place as Wladyslaw IV Street is an unusual challenge for any architect, says Maciej Olczak of JEMS Architekci. - Let's remember that the multicolored nature of Gdynia's modernism captivates successive generations. So we asked ourselves: what kind of house should stand in the vicinity of the pearls of Gdynia functionalism? We decided that the features of the buildings completed nearly 100 years ago should guide our work today as well. We wanted to create a building that is functional, but at the same time resident-friendly and harmoniously integrated into the existing structure of the city," adds the architect.
According to the Tricity.pl portal, the project has received a building permit.
