Work submitted for the competition
"Best Diploma Architecture".
"The city of the future will be an endless series of landscapes: psychological and physical, urban and rural, seamlessly zooming in and out of each other "*.
Tom Turner
The river, which has been a major factor of location in the past, is present in almost every city. The city owes its unique landscape and development on many levels to the river, and has formed relationships with it from the very beginning. However, these relationships have undergone multiple transformations over time, which have left lasting traces in the form of various barriers, such as busy thoroughfares, transportation hubs, effectively cutting off cities from their rivers. The challenges of restoring rivers to residents are accompanied by extreme hydrological risks, such as drought and flooding. They render riverine areas inaccessible, becoming transitional territory - a vulnerable area between water and land. The characteristic landscape of each season that we observe along the river, as well as the sculpting - erosion processes taking place in the river, have become the impetus for the formation of landscape infrastructure that will create the opportunity to admire the changing series of landscapes - new horizons.
riverbed narrowing process and design strategy
© Wojciech Szkarłat
The project involves the widening of the riverbed and the diversification of the right bank line, creating conditions for the restoration of the process of island formation in the Vistula current, which translates into a return to the stream character of the river. The adopted solutions will significantly improve the capacity of the riverbed for medium and high waters, and the created islands will provide conditions for the protection of valuable bird species. The slowed current of the coastal river will promote waterfront recreation. The danger of flooding will be minimized with a flood wall - a green structure over a busy artery. The green mantle structure introduces a network of paths, footbridges, diverse vegetation, and retention basins to collect rainwater and excess water from the riverbank. The accessibility of the riverside area is improved by a series of pedestrian and bicycle routes, bridges, marinas, footbridges and observation towers connecting to the other bank - the city, adjusting to extreme water levels.
land development
© Wojciech Szkarłat
The summation of the design interventions is the Natural History Museum building located on the grounds of the Sliwice (Jasinski) Fort, giving the forgotten site and fort buildings new life. It is a monumental volume manipulating the form and material of the natural riverside landscape, being a kind of monument dedicated to nature. The museum surrenders to the processes of nature, the façade covers itself with green, blooms, erodes, darkens, blooms. The museum sends a signal like a lighthouse, not about the right course, but about the dynamics of the changes taking place in the landscape.
the idea of the museum
© Wojciech Szkarłat
The form of the building was shaped by inscribing a podium with an auxiliary function into the escarpment, making it possible to preserve the view of the historic fortress buildings and to make the roof of the MHN accessible from the level of the embankment. The main program of the Museum was located in a cuboid form forming towers. The tower's numerous perforations - hollows, grottoes, voids - are filled with greenery, regulate the building's temperature, protect it from the sun, and are both outdoor terraces and a bird-friendly place. The inner void, around which the Museum's program is arranged, is filled with a network of communications that allows continuous interaction with the outside.
design elements
© Wojciech Szkarłat
Adopted solutions in the form of point interventions bring the river closer to the city while respecting its character, and all components of the project can be created in stages, each element will introduce a new connection. The entire premise adapts to the water level, and uses its extreme levels as a landscape element, with the possibility of continuous observation. The intention of the project was the author's view of how to reinterpret the relationship between the city and the river, to discover new urban landscapes. How to develop riverside spaces, making the river important in the structure of the city, not through dense development to its borders, but landscape interventions.
Wojciech SZKARŁAT
Illustrations: © Author.
* Turner T., City as landscape. A postmodern view of design and planning, Taylor & Francis Publishers, Milton Park 1996, p. 248.
