Socio-Economic Innovation Cluster in Kraków

2ND PRIZE IN THE SARP ARCHITECTURE COMPETITION, 2017

(no 1st prize awarded)

Design team: ARCHIGREST + EMA STUDIO

Maciej Kaufman, Marcin Maraszek, Ewelina Siestrzewitowska

energy standard: compliant with Technical Conditions (WT)

additional: conversion and extension of existing development

Main project premises:

1. Creating an urban space (not a single building) that will integrate the Cluster's users and serve as a local activity platform for neighbouring residents / employees / students in the revitalised district;

2. Creating open, shared spaces that integrate interior with exterior, building interiors with public space, Cluster users with users of neighbouring areas

3. Recycling of space – modifiable spaces giving freedom of rearrangement and any modes of use depending on the place's changing needs – both urban planning and building interiors – with particular emphasis on building A

4. Shaping the architecture aesthetically so as to emphasise the place's identity and the post-industrial character of the buildings

The aim of the design proposal is to create a publicly accessible, shared public space as an activity platform for the users of the designed cluster buildings, as well as students, residents and employees of nearby areas.

The basic design decision arising from the above premises was to create an open public space – an Integration Zone between the buildings – and to shape the urban planning so as to allow its most diverse use by many user groups. And the Cluster itself as a campus – i.e. a set of buildings.

The campus area remains unfenced and accessible from many sides. Openings between the buildings encourage entry from the street, the housing estate or the university. The main entrance, however, is punched through the ground floor of building A: from the main street that is currently an unfriendly traffic corridor. This unblocks the view into the quarter's interior and opens it to the main public-transport routes.

The lost volume is recovered as single-storey pavilions complementing the development and balancing the campus's urban composition.

Given a certain 'temporariness' of the space, arising from the competition premises and the assumption of users' active participation in its creation, an urban layout 'opening' the buildings onto the campus squares was proposed. The designed service and workshop pavilions, with functions accessible directly from the square, simultaneously form the walls of the urban interiors.

Integration Zone – Forum

The heart of the layout is the Integration Zone – Forum, a space created between the buildings, functionally connecting all the Cluster's zones. It is the campus's main circulation space, the main relaxation zone for its users and a place for organising various events, exhibitions or concerts.

The campus's public space was divided into two parts – the lower square (Passage) and the upper square (Forum). The Forum is the central, open, democratic square offering access to all the ensemble's diverse functions and services. The Passage – where the Integration and Creation Zones interpenetrate – a lowered part of the area, accessible both from the Forum and from the building interiors, serves work and creation and also occasionally: production, workshops, exhibitions, leisure, and if needed can act as an open conference-and-exhibition hall.

Core

The building's existing structure allows the creation of a modifiable, multifunctional space with great rearrangement potential, answering contemporary needs and the character of work. The building's substance is divided into permanent elements – the building's main Core (about 20% of usable area) – and the remaining modifiable free office space (the other 80%). The Core, passing through Building A diagonally from west to east and from top to bottom, connects all the Cluster's Zones, allowing free flow of people between them and stimulating chance meetings and the exchange of ideas. It contains all the programme elements on the margin of typical office work which play an increasing role in it, such as:

Temporary, incidental 'touchdown' workplaces,

Co-working,

Informal workstations,

Places to regenerate and relax,

Places to eat and vending machines with drinks and snacks.

The Core is a literal response to the postulate of breaking the hierarchy of a typical office building with the 'best' rental spaces on the upper floors and 'worse' ones on the lower. It can also be seen as a kind of reversal of the typical office bay, with daylit work spaces around the perimeter and dark auxiliary rooms in the building's internal bay.

Work environment

A contemporary office space must be extremely flexible. This results from a number of phenomena in the office-space market:

short office-lease contracts: 3-5 years,

development and changes in mobile technologies, detaching work from place,

pressure from the office-furniture and equipment manufacturers' market; stimulating fashions and trends;

keeping up with the company's marketing strategy (the office as an important PR element, e.g. Google Campus);

the development of co-working resulting from the growth of micro-entrepreneurship, the grant-based/ephemeral character of many ventures, and fashion.

The free plan and modularity of the Cluster halls' structure allow a positive response to such requirements. Starting from the standard module of the existing structural grid, a catalogue – a 'Matrix' – of example office-space arrangements can be developed. The Matrix captures the whole spectrum of contemporary office work: from formal to informal and from individual to collective. It allows a diverse and stimulating work environment to be arranged easily.