Campus of the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency

Phase: competition design, 2017

Design team: Mateusz Gierszon, Ewelina Siestrzewitowska, Antoni Surowiak

energy standard: energy-efficient

BASIC PREMISES OF THE CONCEPT

The new PAŻP campus should be a highly functional, well-organised workplace for a large team of specialists, providing logical and legible communication between the individual functions, while offering attractive space inside and outside the buildings, encouraging its use during breaks.

The broad and varied functional programme of the campus, the need for communication connections between the individual zones and parts of the buildings, and the extensive programme of the recreation-and-leisure part, providing infrastructure for activity both inside the buildings and outdoors, can only be successfully realised in the concept of an 'open' urban complex, in which external and internal spaces complement each other and the leisure parts 'open' towards the recreational areas, creating varied and attractive urban spaces inside the campus.

At the same time, ensuring the campus's high functionality requires a clear separation of work and leisure zones and the creation of a logical and intuitive layout, connected by convenient circulation and the correct location of the office and operational groups.

The proposed functional-spatial layout of the campus assumes creating a set of intersecting and interpenetrating linear building wings – lags – containing the individual campus functions.

The building wings, by intersecting, create a system of connected and interpenetrating urban interiors inside the campus. At the same time, the consistent and undisturbed division of the campus functions among the individual strips creates an office complex well ordered in terms of circulation and function.

The building strips were arranged so as to fulfil the following basic functional-spatial premises:

creating a system of spaces with an urban character on the Graniczna Street and Powstańców Warszawy Avenue side, and spaces with a natural and recreational character deeper into the plot,

creating a set of buildings that simultaneously separates and connects spaces of an urban/representative character with spaces of a recreational/natural character, as well as with spaces fulfilling various functions; creating an attractive frontage on the Graniczna Street and Powstańców Warszawy Avenue side while locating the complex's most important functions away from the plot boundaries,

locating the most important COSP operational halls 'hidden' in the central zone between the other buildings deep in the plot,

creating a functional complex with a legible circulation layout, allowing communication between all buildings without going outside, while clearly separating the individual functions,

ensuring good circulation within the plot both for employees/guests arriving at the PAŻP site by car and by bus/rail,

designing surface car parks in strategic places, providing close access to the buildings' entrance zones while not disturbing, with car traffic, the operation of the complex's most important representative and leisure spaces,

meeting the conditions of the Local Spatial Development Plan (MPZP).

FUNCTIONAL-SPATIAL LAYOUT

The location and immediate surroundings of the plot, the provisions of the MPZP, and the special security requirements for the Operations Centre buildings led to the decision to locate:

the complex's office part (HQ) on the corner of Powstańców Warszawy Avenue and Graniczna Street,

the Operations Centre set back from the streets, with the most important operational halls located deep in the plot between the other buildings,

the complex's leisure part – on the boundary between the other buildings and the recreational areas

The aesthetic inspiration, considered the most suited to the above premises and spatial-functional guidelines, is

the image of the sky criss-crossed by aircraft trails

. The final architectural-urban concept is the result of coordinating the location-spatial decisions (obtained from the above analyses) with the assumptions and aesthetic associations arising from the adopted inspiration.

The building strips, seemingly randomly crossing the plot, were in fact located and oriented in a way corresponding to the above location-spatial decisions.

The 'infinitely' extending building strips were 'cut' so as to create frontages on the street side and urban interiors on the recreation-and-sports side, and freely 'trimmed' on the park side. The forms of the building ground floors were defined by the campus's main circulation routes – their fragments were cut out or trimmed so as to allow the interpenetration and connection of the campus spaces and logical, functional communication of the complex.

At the points where the building strips cross, circulation and entrance halls were created. These are the complex's nodal points, allowing convenient communication between the individual functions. In this way the wings of the office building and the COSP segments connect functionally with the COSP common part. Entrances to the buildings were provided in each case from two sides of the hall, which facilitates communication within the complex.

All the functional PAŻP buildings: the HQ office building, the COSP operations centre and the recreation-and-leisure building, were connected in terms of circulation by a central hall.

The hall is the circulation and functional central point of the building complex, and a place where the campus's urban zone interpenetrates with the recreation-and-leisure zone. Glazed on both sides and 3 storeys high, the hall is a transition zone from the complex's main square to the leisure areas, crossed by a watercourse leading from Graniczna Street across the whole width of the plot, emphasising the connection of these zones. Directly by the central hall, a restaurant and the conference halls of the COSP common part were located, which allows the central hall with the main square to be treated as the complex's representative entrance.

ENERGY-EFFICIENT SOLUTIONS

The project provides for the following energy-efficiency and sustainable-development solutions:

building strips well daylit by south-eastern light,

an energy-efficient standard of thermal insulation and glazing, while ensuring a high standard of building airtightness

a double facade on part of the elevation, with external blinds mounted outside the heated volume, protecting rooms against overheating,

mechanical ventilation with heat recovery

green roofs on the recreation-and-leisure building and over the ACC hall

solar panels on the roofs, pre-heating domestic hot water,

part of the plot allocated to a photovoltaic-cell farm,

boreholes for a ground heat exchanger in the leisure-and-sports part, connected to the heating system

a reserve for flood areas on the squares and in the park, as protection against flooding of public spaces during heavy rainfall

varied vegetation of the park areas to ensure biodiversity,

large areas allocated to covered motorcycle-and-bicycle parking