MŁYN MARIA

/ 31-12-2021

The char­ac­ter­is­tic post-war ap­pear­ance of the Mills, with the link­ing sec­tion just above the wa­ter and the logo, has cre­ated a spa­tial mem­ory of the place which we de­cided to pre­serve. We added a cosy green square in the form of an em­bank­ment hid­ing the garage and serv­ing as an open pub­lic space. The ex­ist­ing win­dow open­ings have been en­larged, mak­ing the orig­i­nal out­line vis­i­ble while vary­ing the de­gree of trans­parency of the new glaz­ing. The dif­fer­ence be­tween the new and the his­toric is still clear. The build­ing takes on a dif­fer­ent form de­pend­ing on the amount of light and tem­per­a­ture, which may seem more dy­namic be­cause of the mo­bile façades.

 

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WITOLDA 3840

/ 30-12-2020

Witolda 3840 is an ex­am­ple of how to re­claim a place for the city and en­ter into a di­a­logue with its pre-war, post-Ger­man fab­ric. Be­cause of the in­creas­ingly vi­brant ur­ban life along the Oder, we de­cided to cre­ate a met­ro­pol­i­tan boule­vard in keep­ing with the ex­ist­ing de­vel­op­ment in the area, thus re­vi­tal­is­ing and ac­ti­vat­ing the wa­ter­front. The new pavil­ion with flats and restau­rants in­creases the func­tional at­trac­tive­ness of the area while for­mally re­duc­ing the height of the sec­ond line of de­vel­op­ment, mak­ing the front more ac­ces­si­ble from the side of the river. The styl­is­tic sim­plic­ity of the build­ing re­flects our in­ten­tion to be un­ob­tru­sively pre­sent in this his­toric site.

 

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GRAU’S GARDENS

/ 29-12-2019

 

The re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of the neo-Gothic build­ing was an­other at­tempt to re­store the old fab­ric of the city. The dom­i­nant char­ac­ter of the his­toric palace is em­pha­sised by the aus­tere style of the new res­i­den­tial part and the lim­ited, mod­er­ate land­scap­ing. Old trees in the re­ha­bil­i­tated park have been given pri­or­ity and thor­oughly cared for, while the muted colours high­light the his­tor­i­cal con­text. The build­ings si­mul­ta­ne­ously con­sti­tute a frame for the park com­plex and pro­vide a set­ting for Gdańska Street, thus strik­ing a bal­ance be­tween the open char­ac­ter of the plot and the scale of the sur­round­ing quar­ter de­vel­op­ment.

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HISTORY CENTER ZAJEZDNIA

/ 16-12-2005

 

The en­tire func­tional struc­ture of the adapted de­pot was sub­or­di­nated to the tar­get model, in which the two free-stand­ing build­ings func­tion as a sin­gle com­plex and the main en­trance is lo­cated along the axis of the mul­ti­func­tional square gen­tly de­scend­ing be­low ground level. Thanks to this model it was pos­si­ble to pre­serve the spa­tial au­ton­omy of the de­pot and re­store its ar­chi­tec­tural shell back to its glory, with only dis­creet sig­nals of a change of use. The mu­seum is an op­por­tu­nity for the en­tire dis­trict, cre­at­ing a new pub­lic space and build­ing the iden­tity of this pre­vi­ously in­dus­trial part of the city.

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PODWALE 61

/ 15-12-2004

An es­sen­tial com­po­nent of our work in ar­chi­tec­ture is ex­pe­ri­ence. It pro­vides us with in­valu­able knowl­edge needed to dis­cuss the con­tem­po­rary ur­ban biotope. In­stead of re­sort­ing to fash­ion­able newspeak, we pre­fer to ob­serve real processes of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of places and com­mu­ni­ties. To re­joice when our court­yard, re­stored through joint work and equipped with new ur­ban fur­ni­ture, in­te­grates peo­ple, and to grieve and doubt when we find the ter­race in dis­ar­ray on a Mon­day morn­ing. We be­lieve, how­ever, that this co­ex­is­tence brings us closer to un­der­stand­ing the phe­nom­e­non of the mod­ern city.

 

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KINDERGARTEN RECONSTRUCTION

/ 14-12-2003

It hap­pened fast: the city’s far-sighted de­ci­sion to hand the site over to the Cham­ber of Ar­chi­tects, EU grants, a quick re­con­struc­tion pro­ject and con­struc­tion within five months. There were more ques­tions than an­swers: about the pre­cise lo­ca­tion, de­tails, colour. La­bo­ri­ous work with a con­ser­va­tion of­fi­cer brought a re­ward – the dis­cov­ery of an orig­i­nal pad­dling pool.

And thus a new home of ar­chi­tec­ture was cre­ated – a per­ma­nent ad­dress that is an in­te­gral part of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment’s rai­son d’être. And with it, ac­tiv­i­ties: meet­ings, lec­tures, work­shops and youth ex­hi­bi­tions. But that’s an­other story al­to­gether.

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RENOMA

/ 04-12-1993

The main task was to con­tinue Dern­burg’s de­sign us­ing a con­tem­po­rary lan­guage of sym­bols and the char­ac­ter­is­tic dy­nam­ics of the era to bal­ance the scale of the build­ing. The co­her­ence of the old and new parts was achieved through the right pro­por­tions, mass re­duc­tion, hor­i­zon­tal di­vi­sions and the prop­er­ties of the ma­te­ri­als. The dy­namism of the un­am­bigu­ously hor­i­zon­tal façade of the new part was in­ten­si­fied by the fan-like de­flec­tion of the cor­nices. The back­ground, made up of glass and fi­bre ce­ment pan­els, cor­re­sponds to the ce­ram­ics of the his­toric ed­i­fice. The two parts of the build­ing are con­nected through an en­trance atrium.

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Neighbourhood terrace, Podwale Street, Wrocław

/ 11-12-1986

We made this small pro­ject with in­ten­tion to or­ga­nize and re­vi­tal­ize the space of a typ­i­cal court­yard be­tween 19th cen­tury town­houses. We also wanted, per­haps man­i­fest­ing a bit, to de­con­t­a­m­i­nate a piece of the city. Sum­mer in the city with­out green­ery is grad­u­ally more and more dif­fi­cult to en­dure. Hence the idea to cre­ate a com­fort­able space, giv­ing shel­ter from the sun, be­ing both an ex­ten­sion of our of­fice and a meet­ing place for res­i­dents of the ten­e­ment. The form of the ter­race was de­signed for easy ac­ces­si­bil­ity for all users – a low plat­form, equipped with fixed fur­ni­ture, arranges the space us­ing sim­ple forms.
This is one of our small­est pro­jects ever done. To re­al­ize it we re­moved from soil 30m2 of con­crete. First of all we arrangeded an ar­boris­tic care for mag­nif­i­cent glan­du­lar ay­lan­thus (aka ‘Mi­etek’), which was placed in the cen­tral part of our ter­race. Among oth­ers, san­i­tary and care cuts of the crown as well as loos­en­ing and aer­a­tion of the soil struc­ture were car­ried out. The ex­ist­ing tree pro­vides nat­ural pro­tec­tion from the sun on hot sum­mer days.
The ter­race is made of nar­row 5.5 cm x 2.65 cm boards, spaced at 1 cm in­ter­vals, which cre­ates an open­work struc­ture that does not block the nat­ural ab­sorp­tion of rain­wa­ter by the soil. To make a ter­race, we used cer­ti­fied soft­wood, which came from forests where sus­tain­able for­est man­age­ment is car­ried out. We con­sciously de­cided not to use chem­i­cal wood preser­v­a­tives – thanks to that we did not in­tro­duce about 10 liters of oils, which are based on sol­vent, into the en­vi­ron­ment. The wood species we have cho­sen (Siber­ian larch) has nat­ural re­sis­tance to weather con­di­tions and even with­out any chem­i­cal main­te­nance it will serve us for at least 10-15 years. Over time, its nat­ural color will be cov­ered with a gray patina.
Af­ter free­ing an­other 40m2, we de­signed a gar­den. Fill­ing this small area with nu­mer­ous shrubs and peren­ni­als will en­sure lush, dense, un­der­story green­ery in the fu­ture. We also planted two beech trees, which will cre­ate a nat­ural pro­tec­tion from the sun for the south­ern, strongly sunny el­e­va­tion of the build­ing. The en­tire 70m2 has be­come a bi­o­log­i­cally ac­tive area and helps us to bet­ter man­age rain­wa­ter within the court­yard.
We in­vited all res­i­dents of the ten­e­ment house to the first phase of the pro­ject (clean­ing the court­yard). We did some­thing like a neigh­bour­hood co-op, bought tools, plants and or­dered trans­port. The ter­race it­self was made by a pro­fes­sional com­pany. Af­ter all of this we had a bar­be­cue, which lasted un­til the early morn­ing hours.

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BALLESTREMS’ PALACE 4 WŁODKOWICA STREET WROCŁAW

/ 28-12-1977

The ur­ban palace lo­cated at ul. Włod­kow­ica 4 was built for Franz Karl von Ballestrem, a politi­cian of the Catholic Party and Pres­i­dent of the Re­ich­stag. The build­ing was de­signed in 1898 by Al­bert Grau, a well-known ar­chi­tect from Wrocław, who used the re­mains of ear­lier con­struc­tions, in­clud­ing 18th-cen­tury for­ti­fi­ca­tions. Dur­ing WWI, the palace in­te­ri­ors were partly con­verted into flats made avail­able to peo­ple in a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion. Af­ter WWII, the build­ing first housed the Se­cu­rity Of­fice, and then coun­cil flats, which re­sulted in par­tial de­struc­tion of the orig­i­nal arrange­ment of rooms and dev­as­ta­tion of the in­te­rior de­sign. In 1997 the ed­i­fice was in­scribed in the Reg­is­ter of His­toric Mon­u­ments. In 2014, the cur­rent owner of the palace be­gan its ren­o­va­tion and ex­pan­sion, which re­stored the build­ing’s for­mer splen­dour. The richly-or­na­mented façades from the side of ul. Włod­kow­ica and the gar­den, in­clud­ing the his­toric sculp­ture of St. Hed­wig and the stone coat of arms of the Ballestrems, were ren­o­vated. In­side, the orig­i­nal door frames and part of the floors were kept while the mould­ing and pe­riod tiles in the bath­rooms were re­con­structed. In the mag­nif­i­cent stair­well, the wrought iron stair balustrade and red ter­razzo steps were re­stored to their orig­i­nal state. The charm and pres­tige of the his­toric ar­chi­tec­ture of the for­mer Ballestrems’ palace com­bined with mod­ern fur­nish­ings make the build­ing an ideal place for the seat of a club and a restau­rant. The orig­i­nal ceil­ing in the base­ment and the old brick walls cre­ate a unique at­mos­phere in the in­te­ri­ors of the club, while the space on the ground floor, full of light and open­ing up to the ter­race and gar­den, is the per­fect spot for a gourmet restau­rant. These spaces are ac­com­pa­nied by high-stan­dard of­fices lo­cated on the higher floors. Cou­pled with over 110-year long his­tory of the metic­u­lously re­stored for­mer Ballestrems’ Palace, the re­sult­ing venue be­comes an ex­cep­tional place where tra­di­tion over­laps moder­nity. Its ad­di­tional as­set is the lo­ca­tion near the Old Town Prom­e­nade – a green belt near the moat around the Old Town. It is one of the favourite walk­ing ar­eas of Wrocław dwellers. The restau­rant with its 19th-cen­tury ceil­ing boasts a ter­race with a view of the gar­den. The club with aux­il­iary spaces in the base­ment has a sep­a­rate en­trance and in­de­pen­dent ac­cess to the gar­den. Its ceil­ing, just like the restau­rant’s, is also orig­i­nal.
In 2014, the cur­rent owner of the palace be­gan its ren­o­va­tion and ex­pan­sion, which re­stored the build­ing’s for­mer splen­dour. The richly-or­na­mented façades from the side of ul. Włod­kow­ica and the gar­den, in­clud­ing the his­toric sculp­ture of St. Hed­wig and the stone coat of arms of the Ballestrems, were ren­o­vated. In­side, the orig­i­nal door frames and part of the floors were kept while the mould­ing and pe­riod tiles in the bath­rooms were re­con­structed. In the mag­nif­i­cent stair­well, the wrought iron stair balustrade and red ter­razzo steps were re­stored to their orig­i­nal state.

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SECONDARY SCHOOL SIECHNICE

/ 05-01-1965

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