• Don’t talk, build!

  • Don’t talk, build!

  • Don’t talk, build!

About us

Our ar­chi­tec­ture stems from di­ver­sity. A place like Wro­claw, with its com­pli­cated his­tory, lack of cul­tural con­ti­nu­ity and the unique sit­u­a­tion of im­plant­ing a new iden­tity in a for­eign city of Bres­lau – teaches re­spect for the cul­tural, aes­thetic and spa­tial con­text, which is al­ways our start­ing point in the de­sign process. The re­sult is also a spa­tial and for­mal di­ver­sity, which iron­i­cally can be called a ‘lack of style’. Shap­ing the form is in this sit­u­a­tion sec­ondary and de­riv­a­tive of other pur­suits. Para­dox­i­cally, the most dif­fi­cult is to de­sign in a place with­out a strong con­text.

Most of our im­por­tant pro­jects are cre­ated in Wro­claw, which through its rich ar­chi­tec­tural tra­di­tion cre­ates a con­text and shapes our con­scious­ness. The prob­lem of our gen­er­a­tion was the lack of con­ti­nu­ity in the trans­mis­sion of pro­fes­sional ex­pe­ri­ence, so the city is our school. Ar­chi­tec­ture of Wrocław, also the newest one, has some unique fea­tures which are a ref­er­ence point for our ac­tions. A large part of it is a ‘stitch­ing to­gether’ of spaces de­signed by our pre­de­ces­sors, and the rich past of these places is a source of in­spi­ra­tion for us while search­ing for proper so­lu­tions.

The di­ver­sity at the core of the de­sign process re­sults in a di­ver­sity of ar­chi­tec­tural form, grow­ing out of a spe­cific con­text rather than ini­tial as­sump­tions. In the ab­sence of a char­ac­ter­is­tic ‘cat­a­log’ of ar­chi­tec­tural forms, the im­por­tance of build­ing de­tail in­creases – de­vel­oped in­di­vid­u­ally for each pro­ject. It be­comes a medium of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the re­cip­i­ents of ar­chi­tec­ture.

Grad­u­ally it be­comes sub­ject to evo­lu­tion – in sub­se­quent ob­jects de­tails are more and more re­fined, con­scious and so­phis­ti­cated. The as­so­ci­ated de­sign work con­tin­ues un­til the com­ple­tion of the ob­ject and some­times takes the form of a con­fronta­tion be­tween all the ac­tors in­volved, forc­ing them to make a cre­ative ef­fort based on knowl­edge, ex­pe­ri­ence and skills and to ver­ify ini­tial de­sign as­sump­tions. As a re­sult, the con­trac­tor be­comes a co-au­thor of the fi­nal shape of the ob­ject.

De­sign­ing is a process of solv­ing func­tional, for­mal, le­gal, ur­ban and so­cial prob­lems, and not just a for­mal search. To prop­erly solve the prob­lem, it is im­por­tant to ad­e­quately de­fine it. In such a sit­u­a­tion, con­tact with the re­cip­i­ent of ar­chi­tec­ture and di­rect client who some­times be­comes an equal part­ner in the de­sign process can­not be over­es­ti­mated. Com­pro­mises re­sult­ing from such an agree­ment some­times lead to re­sults that dif­fer from our ini­tial ex­pec­ta­tions, but bring the con­fi­dence of the cus­tomer, who re­mains with us in his/her fu­ture in­vest­ments. Abil­ity to com­pro­mise, di­a­logue and dis­cus­sion are among the most im­por­tant fea­tures of ar­chi­tects, in­her­ent in this pro­fes­sion. The lack of un­der­stand­ing with the client, in­vestor/user, in our opin­ion, makes it im­pos­si­ble to de­sign good ar­chi­tec­ture – there is no good ar­chi­tec­ture where is a bad com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion in the whole process is a test of ar­chi­tect’s skills and gives a guar­an­tee of keep­ing ideas fresh and the fi­nal “prod­uct” out­stand­ing.

Con­struc­tion site is the place where all spa­tial con­cepts are truly ver­i­fied – there is no ar­chi­tec­ture with­out con­struc­tion. Pro­fes­sion of an ar­chi­tect can be a vo­ca­tion, with­out com­ple­tion it only re­mains merely ed­u­ca­tion. The con­struc­tion site with its at­trib­utes: mud, dust, fresh con­crete in the pit, the smell of anti-cor­ro­sive paints and weld­ing, is an un­usual and fas­ci­nat­ing world. In our work we try to avoid pure the­o­ret­i­cal top­ics and fo­cus on pro­jects that give us the pos­si­bil­ity of im­ple­men­ta­tion.