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Architects: Pole Architekci
- Area: 2000 m²
- Year: 2017
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Photographs:Jakub Certowicz
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Manufacturers: Fin- Pro, IDS, Urzędowski
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Architecture Design: Bartłomiej Popiela, Łukasz Gniewek, Wojciech Gajewski
Text description provided by the architects. The structure is situated on a relatively small rectangular building plot located on Potocka Street in Warsaw’s Żoliborz district. An important factor that impacted the building’s form was the existing surroundings. The plot contained two free-standing buildings designated for demolition due to their poor technical condition. Following a historical survey arranged with the relevant Conservation officer, the two existing apartment buildings were demolished. The block on which the parcel is located is a holdover from the old urban and geodesic layout on which the Marymont-Potok housing estate was built. Compared to the high-rise Communist-era housing estate buildings and the large Marymont sports and recreation complex across Potocka Street, the parcel appears rather small.
To preserve the original historical character of the immediate area, the block is split into several small parcels. Due to continuing difficulties in settling legal ownership claims, the adjacent parcels are overgrown with trees and will not be developed in the near future. Given this reality, the building’s design does not implement the local zoning plan’s suggestion of developing continuous street-side frontage along Potocka Street and has open spaces on all four sides. It is a free-standing building that benefits from the surrounding environment of trees and plants.
The building has an irregular rhombus floor plan and its sides are based on staggered stacked modules. This design optimizes the building’s exposure to sunlight from the west. Running the northern elevation parallel to the street would have not only restricted the view onto neighbors but would have also limited sunlight exposure for the apartments facing the garden. By using irregular elevation configuration the building is appealing from all directions. The implementation of a frontage configuration with two window-less end walls would have harmed the surroundings and the building’s residents.
The building’s relatively small dimensions allow it to maintain a ‘human scale’. It has five levels and glass vertical extensions in the larger apartments which provide easier access to the roof. The building’s 0 level is raised above the immediate surroundings and matches the level of Potocka Street, which had risen by 1 meter as a result of a process of layering throughout the years. This elevation difference was helpful in the construction of the underground garage. The additional space was used to house two levels of automated parking platforms.
Inside the building, an open staircase with a wide stairwell and an atrium lets in sunlight down to the ground floor. This design decision was a conscious reference to the architecture of early 20th-century residential buildings. The floor plan is divided into 8-meter square structural modules. The removal or addition of these modules allowed for a variety of apartment sizes. The structural reinforced concrete modules are the building’s signature motif, and shifting their position also created spaces for terraces and glassed-in oriels.
The staggered elevations also create natural separations between neighboring apartments which provides residents with privacy. The building’s elevations are clad in plaster. The building’s dynamic form made the use of expensive cladding materials unnecessary. The building’s design is wholly focused on the large windows which perforate its unique form.
