1st Prize. Europan 12, Warsaw. By Adrià Guardiet

Ideas and description project by Adria Guardiet

Before World War II, Za Żelazna Brama was a dense neighbourhood full of life. During the conflict, German occupants placed the Jewish ghetto there. In 1945 practically all of the original city was torn down. In the '60s there has been built 19 identical residential blocs with 16 stories and 87 meters in length, which defines the character of the place. The poor quality of the housing, excessive uniformity of public space and lack of services have isolated this zone, putting it in a semi-marginal condition. A residential neighbourhood with a very unattractive, despite its proximity to the city centre.

The competition plot contains 3 of the 19 blocks of the quarter. Europan proposes participants' transformation, in the first place, of the public space in between the buildings, second, of the facilities that complete the set and eventually of the housing. We focus on solving the first two issues, those which affect the public sphere of the city, as we believe, the first essential operation is to transform the place, to recentralize it in terms of use and reconfigure its system of free spaces.

The project works on different scales…

On the city scale, various interventions are proposed in order to strengthen the relationship between the main centres of activity in Warsaw and the Za Żelazna Brama district, currently isolated from the civic and cultural dynamism of the city.

There are various reasons for this isolation. Some are physical in nature: traffic infrastructure which interrupts the continuity with the city centre, large parking areas dividing public space, etc. Others are political or strategic: residential mono function, lack of services and centres of activity in the neighbourhood, etc.

Interventions in this scale are organized into three areas.

Cultural and memorial facilities
We propose to create a cultural route, that reinforces the relationship between principal nodes of the Jewish memory in Warsaw.

System of open spaces
We propose to connect the existing system of parks with green pathways for pedestrians and cyclists to improve the relationship between the green areas and the city, and the Za Żelazna Brama district in particular.

Mobility
A large part of the surface parking area is eliminated and a system of superblocks with variable dimensions is defined, with only pedestrian areas and limited car access, multiplying the surface without traffic in this part of the city.

The urban structure of pre-Nazi Warsaw was defined by a series of clearly identifiable elements: streets, patios, plazas,… A very different conception of a large, empty space, homogenous and without well-developed transitions between private and public, is to be found in the environment of the site today.

The project aims for a radical transformation of this model, without destroying the district identity, which is already part of the collective memory of the city.

Therefore, on the plot scale, we suggest an operation conceptually simple, but that unleashes an interesting series of consequences: occupy the plot perimeter with a low-rise construction, which connects existing residential blocks.

An operation, which, on the one hand, gives the order to public space and a leading role to the street, offers a much wider range of situations and transitions between private and public space, with more human spaces and more diverse environments; on the other hand, absorbs in its basement floors parking places currently dispersed all around the neighbourhood, and finally accommodates various uses (commercial spaces, small facilities, etc) that contribute to reactivating the environment, bringing Za Żelazna Brama closer to the city model opened 24/7.

The intervention tries to organize public space by introducing a diversity of characters.

The street is the main element of urban structure and the absolute protagonist of public space.

The inner courtyard has mainly local character but, however, during the day, remains open and accessible to other citizens.

The perimeter area is the transition between these two worlds: services and activities oriented to both sides. They also provide space on their roofs for gardens for the local community.

The project also takes into account its capacity to adapt in time…

Defining a program that maintains activity 24 hours a day and 7 days a week: day care centres and night pubs, social housing and cultural facilities, offices and gyms for the neighbourhood.

Resolving new buildings with long-span structures that allow a high degree of versatility and transformability, admitting all kinds of more or less temporary internal configurations.

Leaving some areas of the project intentionally indeterminate to underline its mutable condition in time.

In conclusion, creating a base structure, a meta-project which allows all kinds of physical and programmatic transformations, arising from needs at every moment, can evolve with society without being stuck in obsolete models.