BUDCUD

europan . pierwsza nagroda

source: courtesy of BUDCUD. design team: Mateusz Adamczyk . Michal Palej . Patrycja Okuljar-Sowa . Artur Michalak

The city structure throughout the ages started with the XIVth century medieval village,
consisting of the main administrative and residential centre and surrounded by greenery.
The city’s growth was determined by natural and historical determinants, developing
into an irregular five tipped star, to which we will be referring later on as the
“warszawa star”. The main centre remained in the heart of the star while the particular
arms developed into semi-independent districts with their own infrastructure, administration,
habitants and atmosphere. In today’s plan of the city the diagram of this
structure is still clearly visible. Reflecting the current tendency of blending in the positive
aspects both of rural and urban life, these areas are far more attractive in many
aspects than the strict nucleus of the agglomeration. While the main centre of Warsaw
lacks the human factor, with it’s large scale monolithic development, overloaded communication
arteries and lack of local inhabitants who fled to further parts of the city.
The more peripheral areas, which still are the essential parts of the main structure
manage to achieve their own identity while having much to offer. A very important criterion
is the scale of these districts, more human friendly with greater amounts of public
spaces of high quality and greenery, such as parks, walkways and recreational areas.
At the same time the differentiated typology of the buildings does not limit in any way
various directions of development. These factors release the pedestrian potential of the
districts and create a favourable urban environment, which is most recognisable by the
amounts of inhabitants and users who are willing to occupy the area.

The main concept of the city’s growth is to increase the density of the urban tissue and
bring out the quality of the post-industrial and obsolete areas which lie between the
more developed parts of the municipality, and consolidate them with the main urban
structure. These incorporated parts would later become a transitional space for the development
of the further peripheries of the agglomeration. Located near the centre of
Warsaw, often with a sufficient communication network which can easily be developed,
the urban infills poses all the qualities of highly urbanized areas and at the same time
benefit from the suburban lifestyle quality. The challenge to be met is to profit from the
great potential these areas have, and further reinvent them in the way that they can
create new centres, not only administrative but also cultural and educational which have
a more than purely local function. In this concept this can be achieved in several stages.
Beginning with increasing the density and investing in the existing south-eastern part
of the site where the hospital and gasworks are located. The next stage is reinventing
the territory of the museum of the gas industry. Opening it to a wider public and adding
additional residential and commercial space. Continuing this process across to the
western boundaries of the site where multiple artistic and cultural venues will be set.