This is a major investment in a very attractive location. The former Polfa plant in Wola, Warsaw, will be occupied by new buildings. The showpiece will be the cascade buildings, whose upper floors will be distinguished by greenery. The masterplan for the new development was prepared by architects from the BBGK Architekci studio. The first phase of the project has received planning permission.
The NOHO ONE investment is a mixture of buildings with different functions. In addition to flats, there will be space for retail and services. Planned on a post-industrial site, it will create a new section of the city with public spaces.
Warsaw is a polycentric city and its successive centres coincide with successive layers of the city’s history. The historic, representative Old Town and the Royal Route, the 19th-century City Centre and the later, post-war functional centre centred around the Palace of Culture and Science – in this centuries-long process, the ‘centre’ of the city has gradually moved westwards. Currently, the centre of contemporary, post-transformation, 21st-century Warsaw is Wola, which in recent years has become the site of large-scale investments,” states architect Wojciech Kotecki, co-owner and partner at BBGK Architekci.
In the last decade, the space near the Daszyńskiego roundabout has changed its face. Radically! A forest of skyscrapers, a second metro line, new residential buildings… This is a part of Wola that has begun to throb with life. Architects from BBGK have carefully analysed the urban structure of this part of Warsaw. They found that the areas of intensification of modern development are forming a kind of metropolitan ‘ring’, crossed by the transit routes of Prosta and Towarowa Streets. The new development is intended to complement this ‘ring’ and knit the urban fabric of the centre of Wola into a single whole. Thanks to the new pedestrian passageways, it will be possible to travel easily from, for example, the 19th District area to Browary Warszawskie or the Warsaw Uprising Museum.
The former Polfa factory:
Urbanism begins when we stop thinking about a building only within the boundaries of a plot of land and consider the relationship it has with other buildings. With the experience of the twentieth century and modernism in planning, we now know the immense value hidden in a traditional urban structure, in cities designed with human perception in mind, in cities with a system of public spaces interconnected by pedestrian routes, with the grammar of the language of classical urbanism with its elements such as the street, the square and the park,” emphasises architect Bartosz Świniarski of BBGK Architekci.
As Świniarski adds, the task that the architects set themselves in this case was to create an urban space that is user-friendly from the perspective of the user, while at the same time reflecting the experience of metropolitanity that is characteristic of this place and unparalleled in Warsaw. The architects therefore separated three layers.
The first is at the level of the street itself. The 5 hectare site will be distinguished by a frontage street system that will be a natural extension of the axis of the surrounding streets. They have designed the new streets as metropolitan passageways with tree-lined avenues, squares and retail and service outlets. The high entrance portals of the main buildings and the elegant shop fronts, which at the same time stimulate urban life, give the streets a big-city feel. Above the ground floor level, the interiors of the contemporary urban townhouses will house residential units. The uppermost layer of the buildings will comprise penthouses with green cascading terraces that will form a spectacular composition of multi-level sky gardens.
Along Prosta Street, BBGK architects have planned three buildings whose height increases gradually towards the city centre. They are intended to give the street a representative status appropriate to it. The buildings will have a contemporary, dynamic architectural form, whose details refer to the language of classical architecture (round columns and horizontal cornices). The elegant expression of the overall design will be emphasised by finishes in noble materials, including high-end precast concrete and natural stone. Above the high ground floors of the buildings with shops and restaurants, there will be flats ranging from 50 to 400 m2.
This programme demonstrates that positive changes in urban space do not have to be the result of a revolution, but of thoughtful, evolutionary actions that establish connections between points on the map. We have no doubt that the next step in these changes could be the area around Daszyńskiego roundabout,” conclude BBGK architects.
project: BBGK Architekci(https://bbgk.pl)
source: press materials
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