self-summaryago. style has been displaced by the problem of the approaching deficit of energy, space...
TRANSCRIPT
SELF-SUMMARY
1. Name and surname
Mariusz Twardowski
2. Diplomas, academic/artistic degrees - including name, place and year of obtainment
and the title of doctoral dissertation
2.1 The degree of magister inżynier architekt
Blok zabudowy miejskiej: ul. Łobzowska - Aleje Słowackiego w Krakowie
supervisor: dr hab. inż. arch. Dariusz Kozłowski, prof. PK
reviewer: dr hab. inż. arch. Zofia Nowakowska, prof. PK
Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology, 8th of November
1994
graduated with honours
2.2 The degree of doktor nauk technicznych
Kwartał zabudowy mieszkaniowej jako model współczesnej przestrzeni miejskiej
prof. dr hab. inż. arch. Dariusz Kozłowski
reviewer: dr hab. inż. arch. Jacek Gyurkovich, prof. PK
reviewer: dr hab. inż. arch. Jacek Kenz
Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology, 4th of December
2002
3. Information regarding previous employment with academic/artistic facilities
3.1 Employment with academic facilities
3.11 didactic and academic assistant: March 2003 - March 2005
Chair of Architectural Composition,
Institute of Architectural Design,
Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology
3.12 adjunct: April 2005 - December 2014
Chair of Architectural Composition,
Institute of Architectural Design,
Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology
3.13 adjunct: September 2013-September 2015
Independent Chair of Residential Architecture and Architectural Composition
Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology
3.14 adjunct since 2015
Chair of Urban Composition
Institute of Urban Composition,
Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology
3.2 Employment with artistic/professional entities
3.21 designer, co-owner 1996-2007
Twardowski Wokan Studio Projektowe s.c.
3.22 designer, co-owner since 2007
MTWW Architekci sp. z o.o. sp. k.
4. Identification of the achievement listed in art. 16 section 2 of the Act of the 14th of
March 2003 on Academic Degrees and Scientific Titles, as well as on Degrees and Titles in
the Arts (Dz. U. 2016 pos. 882 with changes in Dz. U. 2016 pos. 1311.):
4.1 title of academic/artistic achievement,
Wieże mieszkalne monograph
b) (author/authors, publication title/titles, publication year, publisher name,
publishing reviewers),
author: Mariusz Twardowski
publication title: Wieże mieszkalne
year of publication: 2017
publisher name: Wydawnictwo Politechniki Krakowskiej
publishing reviewers: prof. dr hab. inż. arch. Andrzej Wyżykowski
dr hab. inż. arch. Anna Januchta-Szostak, prof. nadzw.
c) Presentation of the scientific/artistic goal of the abovementioned work and the
results that have been achieved, along with a description of their potential
implementation
The "Wieże mieszkalne" monograph constitutes a conclusion of many years of research
on the architectural form and shaping of the residential environment. It is a record of
a formal and social phenomenon that are modern residential towers.
The pace and scale of environmental, social and spatial changes in modern cities is
without precedent. Research on this complex phenomenon has exceeded the framework
to which the history of architecture and urban planning has made us accustomed to long
ago. Style has been displaced by the problem of the approaching deficit of energy, space
and natural resources, the degradation of the environment, overpopulation and the
accompanying social tensions.
Towers, including residential towers, are also an important element of the global
economy. The curves of global fiscal policy, the rise and fall of the largest stock indices are
correlated with curves that illustrate data associated with investment in real estate and
infrastructure. David Harvey, in his critique of capitalism stemming from reading Lefebvre,
Marx and Engels constituted solemnly that so far no major attempt has been made to
introduce concepts regarding the process of urbanisation and the shaping of the built
environment to the general theory of the principles and flow of capital. How should we
interpret the city in such a context? "We do not know', answers Harvey with disarming
frankness. People want homes with a garden, but there are already 7,5 billion of us.
The main scientific goal of the study was to prove that a residential tower - with its
originality, individuality of form, fine-tuned indicators of built-up area intensity, its
pluralism of formal solutions, the drive towards uniqueness and the borders of
technological capabilities - is one of the model materialisations of the phenomenon of the
modern city. An analysis of the development of historical forms and a study of modern
cases made it possible to outline tendencies that the buildings of the towers of tomorrow
are either currently following or will be following in the future.
In the multitude of formal means used by designers we can find a number of patterns
and paradigms that allow us to speculate about what the new architecture of tall
residential buildings is and what it should be. The work took on the subject of residential
towers in the context form, function, environment and society against a background of the
history of the development of this architectural form. The most representative examples
of designs and built projects that have been built in the last fifteen years in the largest and
most emblematic of today's metropolises, as well as in cities with a medium and low built-
up area intensity, or in the historical compact cities, in which residential towers
constituted singular urban landmarks, built deliberately and not out of a necessity dictated
by the requirements of the financial market - were selected for the performance of
a detailed critical comparative analysis.
Most of the towers in the cities under analysis feature offices and services. Cairo is an
interesting exception, as service buildings are of low height and the dominating typology
of residential buildings is a skyscraper with over a dozen floors, and the highest buildings
are hotels. On the other hand, in the cities that are developing the fastest in the belt of the
highest increase of built-up area intensity and population density, living in a tower is
a necessity. Hybrid buildings that feature multiple forms of use are not the sole domain of
cities with the highest intensity, like Beijing, Hong Kong or Dubai - the hybrid is the
dominant form in Las Vegas. The most often encountered cases of the dominance of
a residential tower in the skyline of a city are still European cities, mainly those with
a medium or low built-up area intensity, such as Copenhagen, Malmö or Maastricht.
Tall buildings, among them residential towers, regardless of concentration level and
maximum height, exert considerable influence on the skyline of a city. Hand-drawn
panoramas of the cities analysed in the work, viewed from the most representative
viewpoints, constitute a significant supplement of the iconographic material used in the
work. Due to the large differences in the expansiveness of the cities being discussed it was
not possible to adopt a common scale for all the drawings and it was decided to show the
outline of the Eiffel Tower as a reference scale for height, as is often the case with
illustrations showing building height records.
The atlas of modern residential towers that constitutes a part of the work is a study of
cases that illustrate the diversity of forms and design strategies, tendencies, structural and
material solutions, finally - of the context in which a given building had been built. It
includes both qualitative and quantitative data, and every example was presented in
a systemic frame, referring to its surroundings, the history of a city and the context of the
place. An image of a residential tower, in which it is not only a materialisation of the
general idea of the modern city, but also an individualised form, in which the aspects of
a given period and place are focused, emerges from it. The atlas is supplemented by tables
containing lists of qualitative and quantitative indicators.
Modern residential towers are largely mixed-use buildings. The study group was
narrowed down to structures in which residential use had a dominant character. The
temporal scope of the study for the analytical part was limited to the years 2000-2015. In
the case of cities with a larger number of known or interesting projects, those that were
the most representative or original were chosen so that the set of analysed cases would
reflect the spectrum of modern capabilities in shaping the residential environment using
the archetypical form of the tower as much as possible.
The analysis of the selected cases was carried out on multiple levels of scale: from the
detail, through the scale of the structure and its immediate surroundings, to the scale of
the landscape and the scale of the creation of a city. The method of field research that had
been adopted required gaining an in-depth familiarity with the context of the place. When
analysing residential towers in the space of modern cities featuring high, medium and low
intensity, the author decided to focus on the role and meaning of tall and very tall
residential structures that have the archetypical form of a tower - which is determined by
the proportion of the width of the sides to the height - in the shaping of the skyline of a
city: their - not necessarily positive - influence on the socio-creative character of public
and semi-public spaces in a city - the connection between a tower and its surroundings
and the strategies of organising public and semi-public spaces within a building; aesthetic,
technological and functional solutions that have an impact on the quality of life of the
residents, and the limits regarding individual capabilities, the creative statements of the
designers in the context of such demanding projects.
A critical and comparative analysis of cities in combination with an interpretation of the
data shown in tables confirmed that the deciding factor regarding the number, height and
function of towers within the skyline of a city is built-up area intensity and population
density. We can also observe a wavelike character of the dynamic of changes within each
city - from the conservative strategy of European historical cities that avoid changes in the
skylines of cities or New York that readily replaces old towers with new ones through the
building of new structures in place of old ones (Las Vegas and Tokyo), to aggressive
urbanisation in the most populated areas (Hong Kong).
Although the overarching tendency is the construction of mixed-use residential towers,
single-use towers are still being built. The dominant structural system is a concrete
structure, while in areas with seismic activity it is replaced with steel. Modern towers are
mostly freestanding structures as well as towers or complexes of towers that stand on
a common base (for instance that of a parking garage). In some cities, the towers that are
being described are located in entire districts of tall buildings - the towers of Hong Kong
that were described in the work are a part of probably the highest residential city block in
the world. It is surprising that many towers that are built in areas that feature historical
buildings have a tendency to extend beyond the frontage line (e.g. examples from New
York with the exception of 8 Spruce St.).
By comparing the price of a square metre of floor area in the analysed towers it can be
observed that although the design form an quality of construction have some influence on
prices, the price of the plot, location and the average cost of life in a city remain the
deciding factors. This is why - due to the fact that the criterion of form was one of the
criteria of case selection - the work discusses cases of solutions that are spectacular in
terms of form, but not necessarily the most luxurious if we assume that the price of an
apartment is a measure of luxury (e.g. the price of 1 square metre at the Met building in
Bangkok is lower than the average price per square metre in Warsaw).
Public and semi-public spaces that are established inside towers and tower complexes
are an area with much room for opportunity, combining the issues of form, space and
function, including social and socio-creative functions. Meeting places are often being
placed on the higher floors and the roofs of the lower ones are converted into gardens or
even small parks at times. Their functions are can sometimes be taken over by SPA,
wellness and fitness complexes. One important element of the strategy of shaping the
connection between an introvert tower and public space is the careful planning of
entrances and driveways, both in the context of the accessibility of services and spaces
(streets, squares, parks, etc.), as well as transport (subway stations, public transport stops,
driveways, driving routes, etc.). In the cases that were discussed, practically all of the co-
factors: built-up area intensity, plot price, care for the quality of public spaces, etc. - force
the elimination of above-ground parking lots. As far as most towers - provided that
conditions related to the foundation do not rule this out - offer its residents parking places
in underground parking garages, their placement and connection with the public
transportation network, pedestrian walkways and bicycle routes make it possible to
eschew the car in everyday life. A similar flexibility can be seen in residential interiors that
can be shaped in accordance to individual needs.
The final chapter of the work, titled Residential towers of tomorrow, inspired both by
the results of the research, as well as the images provided by mass culture, is the author's
reflection on the directions in which the architecture of modern cities appears to be going
and regarding one of its most expressive elements - residential towers.
As it was underlined in the conclusion of the work, "today, when the cost of a city
sprawling beyond the limits of the capacity of municipal infrastructure is known, it would
be good to look at residential towers not only as a necessity dictated by economic and
demographic conditions, but also as an interesting and rich typology that can offer a high
comfort of living in a time of dwindling resources. And this is not about endeavours that
are as brutal and total as Plan Voisin or the construction of luxurious ghettos on the
outskirts of cities, but to entertaining the possibility that a single tower in the centre can
cause less damage to a compact European city than hectares of gated condominiums that
are not connected to a municipal heating grid, and to which one can only get to with one's
own car".
No Polish-language works devoted to the subject of residential towers in the proposed
perspective were found during the study. The author hopes that the work that explains
the mechanisms that decide about how residential towers take on their final shape and
how this influences the comfort of living of the residents, what spaces are shaped at their
connection to their surroundings and how they change the skyline of a city will be
a significant contribution to research on the phenomenon of modern cities that is being
carried out not only by architects and urbanists, but also by practitioners of similar
disciplines.
5. Description of the remaining academic and research achievements
The fields of academic work strictly correlated with didactic and popularisation work
are concentrated around the following, mutually supplementary subjects:
the shaping of the modern residential environment
architectural composition;
architecture through a lens.
5.1 The shaping of the modern residential environment
The field of the shaping the modern residential environment, within which the
abovementioned monograph is placed, is very familiar to the author in the context of his
academic, design and didactic work. Undertaken already during the author's Masters
studies and continued in his doctoral dissertation about the city block as a model of the
modern city (Krakow, 2002, supervisor: prof. dr hab. inż. arch. Dariusz Kozłowski), it then
found its reflection in scientific publications and conference presentations. Among these
one can mention, among others, Urban Towers. Residence, Work, Joy of Life (in: Hybrid
Urban Structures, Krakow 2016), Stracone szanse: Niezrealizowane założenia
mieszkaniowe w Krakowie (in: Kraków: Wybrane problemy ewolucji struktury miejskiej,
Krakow 2016), Bottom-up: Design na czasy kryzysu (w: Przyszłość miast – miasta
przyszłości, Krakow 2014), Kwartał jutra (in: Dom jutra - osiedle jutra, Krakow 2013),
Linked Hybrid - kwartał miejskie w Pekinie (in: Definiowanie przestrzeni architektonicznej,
Krakow 2009) and Przestrzeń w kształtowaniu obszarów architektonicznych - kwartał
zabudowy mieszkaniowej (in: Definiowanie przestrzeni architektonicznej, Krakow 2003).
In the abovementioned texts that were written over the course of over a decade, we
can see a reflection of not only an evolution of the author's scientific interests, but also
changes that have taken place in the discourse and design tendencies in terms of the
forms of residential buildings. In older publications the echo of the postmodern discourse -
firmly placed in the historical context, focused on the search for a role of the traditional
typology of the built environment in the realities of the second half of the XX century - can
still be felt. The latest ones are focused on problems associated with aggressive
urbanisation, overpopulation, the deepening social inequality and the simultaneous lack of
the ability to establish a common strategy and direction of development, which could
adapt itself to the rapidly changing environment as the architecture of the past did.
In the case of the author, his own design work is a creative research field devoted to
modern residential architecture. It includes both multi-family and single-family buildings.
The phenomena that have taken place in the Polish built environment in terms of
single-family buildings, including the connection between architecture and the open
landscape, can - from the perspective of a quarter-century - hardly be called positive. The
lack of spatial development plans, the uncontrolled or, at any rate, not fully controlled
process of changing the form of use of vast areas of land all over the country from
agricultural and recreational areas to buildable land and the dominant, as statistical data
has shown, share of single-family residential buildings in the entirety of the residential
built environment has irreversibly changed this landscape. The dominance of gable roofs
dictated either by sentiment or a flight from the "Polish cube" does not appear to be the
factor that could ease this situation.
An administrative decision regarding site development conditions issued for a site near
Krakow included the requirement to introduce a gable roof. The site was not covered by
a local spatial development plan, and landscape park regulations did not apply to it. As the
author's studies and analyses proved, the form of the gable roof was not even the
dominant form in the area and did not facilitate a better blending in with the surrounding
buildings than in the case of a different roof shape. One could have gotten the impression
that the regulation regarding the shape of the roof appeared in the decision as if by
default.
The analytical material that had been gathered made it possible to convince not only
the administration to change the decision, but also the developer. The client, who had
initially been very attached to the "classical" vision, had one more condition: building one
more house on the site. The possibility of operating using simple forms with flat roofs
created a much wider field for compositional activity and simultaneously allowed for a less
stereotypical interpretation of the functional programme of a single-family house. All of
the spaces, which are largely the cause of the low intensity of single-family residential
built-up areas: driveways, garages, paths, halls, entry zones - which are effectively
amortised in multi-family buildings - have been grouped within a covered patio. Thus,
instead of only two single-family buildings with individual driveways, enough space was
left on the site for four residential units featuring a full functional programme typical of
single-family houses, with the exclusion of a part of the inconveniences associated with
such prosaic matters like shovelling the snow off the driveway, as well as the intangible
ones like the feeling of safety and supported by the possibility of forming and maintaining
neighbourly relations facilitated by the existence of a common area and its manner of
organisation. Such a solution, although non-standard, appears to be an interesting formal
solution and a sort of micro social experiment that an architect can sometimes propose in
their work - involving changing the way of thinking about how we can live.
The much larger footprint than in the case of a typical single-family residential building
proved to be sufficient to create a common underground parking garage. At the same
time, the broken up and complex form of the above-ground parts, with the simultaneous
rigour of the cuboid form, made it possible to create a form that would not dominate the
neighbourhood and that would not stand out in terms of its size.
The centrally located patio and the attempt at preserving the similarity between each
house made it necessary to introduce some modifications in terms of the orientation of
some rooms in relation to the cardinal directions, however, it never forced making
a mistake in their placement. The cuboid form, within which appropriately sized openings
were featured, made it possible to ensure full comfort of use regardless of layout and to
go beyond the type, or rather even the stereotype of thinking about the residential
environment and single-family buildings.
One of the basic problems in the field of design is making a building blend in with the
surroundings. In the case of a residential city block in Rzeszów (design and construction
2006-2009) there was a complete lack of any reference points, traces and spatial pretexts
apart from a filleted corner of the site forced by the outline of a road, the construction of
which was abandoned in the end. The complicated situation in terms of the land
ownership of the area that was reserved for the construction of the road made it
impossible to merge it with the buildable plot - the city block needed to fill in the filleted
corner. As a consequence, the only guideline was to be the line that outlined an area with
an uncertain status and future.
The first conceptual design featured the construction of two separate buildings: one
that was inscribed into a rectangle and another based on a section of a circle. The officers
who were approving the design forced both forms to be connected, which resulted in
a city block that was much more enclosed and in which the built-up area suddenly went up
by 25%. Breaking up the form into smaller segments was the result of a division in terms of
staircases. The large "box" of the city block was composed of smaller, empty boxes: rooms
which together formed apartments, apartments that combined into floors and floors that
combined into a single segment and of segments that combined to form a city block. This
seemingly simple task was complicated by difficulties associated with providing
appropriate insolation to each apartment. In the end, the living rooms were placed to the
east, west and south and each of them was adjoined by a loggia. In the part inscribed into
a section of a circle, the loggias remained straight lines. Thus the arch of the wall was
visible from the outside but was lost on the inside. The slight deviation from the right
angle in combination with the rectangular balconies elicits the appearance of an
"ordinary" room and does not make it difficult to use.
The great construction skill and quality of the materials that were used made it possible
to achieve the feeling of unity and clarity of each of the cuboid forms that made up the
form of the complexly shaped city block that had been intended in the design. The full
loggias broken up by drainpipes, parapets and railings would become nothing else but an
extended vanguard of the building, so well known to us from the wider residential
landscape, but not a necessary integral - at least not from a compositional point of view -
part of the architectural form. The Rzeszów project is also a voice in the debate on the
subject of colour in multi-family residential architecture. Assuming that apartment
buildings do not need to be neither gray nor pastel-coloured, the composition of the
facade was rounded out by colour. The striking red breaks the strong rhythms established
in three dimensions, at the same time allowing both vertical and horizontal layouts to co-
exist. Two of the author's research fields meet in this design - the shaping of the
residential environment and architectural composition.
5.2 Architectural composition;
The problems of architectural composition and the sources of architectural forms -
found within the scope of interest of every professionally active architect - have, in the
case of the author, found a particular expression in academic publications and
presentations at international scientific conferences, in which he searched for the role of
extra-architectural pretexts for architectural form. Publications that deal with this subject
include: Park Ibirapuera w São Paulo Oscara Niemeyera zbudowany jedną kreską (in:
Czasopismo Techniczne, Krakow 2017), Kobiece kształty architektury: Architektura oczami
Oskara Niemeyera (in: Architektura i nowoczesność, Krakow 2016), Dziedziniec dusz (in:
Definiowanie przestrzeni architektonicznej, Krakow 2010), Smutek i radość w architekturze
(in: Definiowanie przestrzeni architektonicznej, Krakow 2005). An image of the multitude
of sources of inspiration that gave rise to architectural form emerges from them.
Simultaneously to this perspective on the subject, the author performed research on
the cuboid form as a building block of architectural form, strictly correlated with academic
and didactic activity carried out at the Chair of Architectural Composition of the FoA CUT
(2003-2013) as well as at the Chair of Residential Architecture and Architectural
Composition of the FoA CUT (2013-2015), first at the post of assistant and then as an
adjunct. These interests have found their reflection in numerous architectural designs by
the author, including the built "Lamusownia" Collective Refuse Gathering Site (2008-2011).
The design of the "Lamusownia" in Krakow, due to its form of use and its location in the
vicinity from the city centre, was faced with certain stereotypes in terms of thinking. Due
to functional reasons, the unloading ramp and the refuse containers needed to be an
integral part of the design, yet the entire complex could not be associated with waste,
otherwise the social experiment that was to encourage residents to a more
environmentally friendly and deliberate approach to the problem of recycling and waste in
general, was at risk of failing. In other words, as strangely as it may sound, a visit to
a refuse dump was to be pleasant and provide the best possible aesthetic experiences
while at the same time preserving its full technical effectiveness.
For both practical and compositional reasons, the driveway onto the site was placed
from the north, from the side of the base of the then-Municipal Cleaning Company. The
area borders Nowohucka street from the west, while from the northeast a belt of greenery
separates it from residential buildings.
Because the residents are meant to bring the refuse that they cannot otherwise deposit
at their local refuse containers to "Lamusownia" themselves, the solution of the manner of
the circulation of vehicles on the site was of key importance. The slightly irregular
character of the site and the existing tall greenery, the most valuable specimens of which
were preserved, made it easier to introduce a sort of symbolic and narrative element: the
driveway onto the site first leads onto the unloading ramp, on which the visitors leave the
refuse, while the exit driveway leads first near the buildings and then along a slightly
winding road that quite picturesquely meanders between the trees. Thus, taking the
refuse to the place of their segregation is immediately "rewarded", giving a positive effect
that is not limited to the longer term.
The height of the ramp was determined on the basis of guidelines that were to ensure
safety in the event of a flood. The space beneath the ramp thus has the necessary height
to optionally serve as an additional covered area that can make it easier to receive the
refuse that has already been segregated by companies that deal with recycling and refuse
processing.
The remaining elements of the functional programme were gathered into two boxes –
a concrete and a copper one. The first version of the design featured the sole use of these
two materials and their two colours, however, a mistake during construction forced the
introduction of a third texture during the design's implementation. The necessity of
covering a part of the retaining wall of the ramp with plaster did not disrupt the
composition. The smooth wall, that was painted black, underlines the character of both of
these noble materials - concrete and copper - even more.
The upper, more visible parts of both buildings house, respectively, the social facilities
and the administrative section. In the lower, connected section, an area was assigned for
the technical facilities of the refuse sorting facility and the temporary, short-term storage
of sorted refuse.
The technology of this type of structure was the deciding factor in the selection of
design solutions, however, at least theoretically - buildings like these can be designed
using any form whatsoever. The outline of the manoeuvring belt was formed be economic
factors. The site was densely overgrown and a part of the tree stand needed to be cut
down. The most valuable specimens were preserved, delineating the road between them.
In turn, the cube turned out to be the perfect solution to combine all the various
functional programmes, as well as the straight and soft lines. The rationality of the
proposed layout was probably not without influence on the possibility of using high quality
materials in place of complicated forms.
The Perfect forms from Plato's cosmogony - with few exceptions - remained out of
architecture's reach for centuries. The change that has taken place in architectural
aesthetics and in the art of construction due to the industrial revolution made it possible
for architecture to operate with perfectly flat-surfaced forms and it does not shy away
from the simplest ones that make up the set of basic shapes: cuboids, cylinders, spheres.
The floor plan, cross-section and view - two-dimensional orthogonal layouts that make
up - first by implication, and then in the process of construction - a three-dimensional
shape, a module expressed in the metric system and, first and foremost, such concepts
like the square and cubic metre, which meant nothing to the builders of cathedrals, have
changed our thinking about architecture overall, and about architectural design in
particular.
New built-up areas, the grid of straight streets or perfectly rectangular blocks and plots
outlined in virgin territory without the necessity of modification forced by earlier forms
and layouts along with large-scale prefabs have somewhat drained the cuboid of its magic.
No wonder, then, that new technical possibilities, both in terms of design and structural
engineering, which make it possible to create architecture free of the dictum of the right
angle, with a form generated beyond the rules of Euclidean geometry, have become so
popular. However, even such forms are measured with square metres in the end, and their
volume is listed in cubic metres.
Individual design work can be an eternal search for new forms, a chase after novelty. It
can also be a consequent materialisation of the simplest forms and solutions, of faith in
the endless potential of the cuboid. Combining, cutting and multiplying a cuboid, although
not being a complicated process of composition in and of itself, provides an infinite
amount of combinations that can meet the requirements of every functional programme
and adapt to every context. However, sometimes an atypical project makes one lean
towards slightly less typical solutions. Another built project that can be treated as
a creative synthesis of research work devoted to architectural composition with particular
emphasis on the role of basic solids in the shaping of a synthetic form is the design of
Studio F. The complex is composed of three halls of similar size, each of which is a studio
with a different specialisation. Each of them has a different finish: concrete, Cor-Ten steel
and milky white glass. They are connected by a common section, which, apart from a
spacious hall and conference hall, also houses changing rooms and social facilities, as well
as equipment storage. Each of the halls also has its own driveway and walkway, which
gives the individual parts of the complex full functional independence.
The three cubes: the concrete one - coarse, with a greyscale colouration, the metal one
- smooth, partially porous, with an ochre and vermillion tone, as well as the milky white
one are, however, not standing straight. Each of them is slanted a little, they differ in the
angle of their deviation from the surface of the foundation. They are cuboid in their
nature, as they preserve right angles between their walls, however, from the point of view
of the ground floor they give off an appearance of a dynamic, stacked composition.
The context of the special economic zone in Krakow, filled with structures with an
exceptional diversity of forms, sizes and materials did not offer any clear design guidelines.
The new form that housed within it an atypical form of use was devised as a compact
element, which was to stand out from its surrounding, but in a positive and unobtrusive
manner. The simplest of all the possible architectural forms: a full, uniform cuboid, took on
a new, modern expression thanks to one equally simple operation - rotating it not in two,
but in three dimensions. It is the number of dimensions that an architectural form has, if
not more.
5.3 Architecture through a lens.
All of the author's research work has been initiated with on-site field research. Despite
the accessibility of a vast amount of information and iconographic materials, the subjects
that were undertaken demanded personal participation within a space. The photographic
documentation that was gathered on both structures that constituted the direct subject of
interest, as well as neighbouring ones, along with the everyday life that was caught on
camera, has evolved over time into a separate research subject about the fluid boundaries
between the fidelity and the completeness of the photographic record that separate the
tool of research work from an original form of the interpretation of reality. The
fleetingness and highly individualised character of the creative act that is the selection and
recording of a frame was best reflected by the experimental group exhibition "La Tourette
- jeden widok / różne spojrzenia" organised by the author at the gallery of the Krakow
branch of SARP.
At the current state of research, achievements regarding work on this subject are
materialised chiefly in the author's photography exhibitions and the accompanying
lectures, as well as popular scientific publications in professional magazines, including the
ARCH magazine. The photography cycles devoted to locations that are so geographically