Aleksander Nowak +45 5024 0449 +48 603063611 nowak.aleksander3@gmail.com contact@dinnergroup.dk
2018
station public 10 Train square in Opole urban
3rd Prize (own + team)
design competition
2017
2016
Plan Maria Hilf 07 Urban Mönchengladbach
with urbanization.dk
City Gdansk 11 Young Shipyard Masterplan
1st Prize HLA
Post-war recon06 Aleppo struction strategies
Master Thesis
Art 08 Chart Fair Architecture SkyLense Pavilion
07 Earthhouse Ghana 2015
2014
11
Kopernika public square Competition, Opole, Poland
06
Europan 13 Stavanger & Warsaw Regeneration
03
Liget Budapest, New National Gallery and Ludwig Museum Competition
1st Prize (own+team)
Natural construction community project Spetial Mention
1st prize (Snøhetta)
Psychiatric Hospital 12 New Bispebjerg Competition, Copenhagen (Snøhetta) Monde 12 Le Headquarters, Paris
1st prize (Snøhetta)
2014
visitor center, 10 Lascaux Montignac, France (Snøhetta) zero 09 Ådland energy district, Bergen, Norway (Snøhetta)
08 Guggenheim Helsinki Museum (Snøhetta) old town 05 Tønsberg refurbishment
1st prize, HLA
workshop, Tønsberg, Norway (HLA)
03 Løkkeveien office building,
1st prize, HLA
Stavanger
2013
Com09 Jåttåvågen petition, Master
1st prize, HLA
plan, Stavanger, Norway (HLA),
Ulf 08 Sandnes Stadium
1st prize, HLA
Room 04 Project & Coworking
winning proposal for a city social project financing,
Space Kolektyw 1a in PoznanSus01 Cambodian tainable Housing Competition, Building Trust International, shortlisted,
shortlisted
SOFTWARE
WORK EXPERIENCE
Rhino Grasshopper Adobe Archicad Revit qGIS & ArchGIS Autocad 3dsMax Vray Sketchup Rendering for VR
08 2014-07.2015 1-year internship www.snohetta.com
08 -11.2013 & 03-06.2014 Internship www.henninglarsen.com
08 -11.2011 & 03-04.2012 Insomia Architects Intenrship
www.insomia.com.pl
Visualising complex data: Copenhagen municipality
EDUCATION
2015-06.2017 08 Urbanism and Societal Change Master Programme Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen Deane Alan Simson & Charles Bessard
www.kadk.dk
2010-02.2014 10 University of Arts in Poznan, Architecture and Urban Planning, Bachelor Degree, Engineer in Architecture
www.uap.edu.pl
LANGUAGES
English German Polish Norwegian - basic Danish - basic
200 year strategy for Copenhagen flooding - floodplain +4 2150 / Urbanism and Societal Change
S
kyLense is the winning pavilion created for CHART Art Fair Architecture Competition, 2016.
SkyLense is conceived as a machine for cooking whose mechanics are so simply perceived as to be apprehended in a single glance. The pavilion demonstrates the concept that sustainability is not just about being “less bad�, but instead may be used as a creative stimulator for life-activities that positively affect the environment. From sunbaking, to art performance, to cooking, each act is sponsored by two elements: water and sunlight. An experiment in optics and illusion, the design focussed on the elements that would intrigue those who interacted with it. In their assessment, the Judges noted the effectiveness of the illusion created by the water and mirrored surface, whereby Jury member Bjarke Ingles admitted that he did not realise there was a bar counter until he physically touched it. The pavilion’s elemental tectonic evokes two circular planes containing water separated by slender columns. Water suspended by a clear film hangs overhead, forming a lenticular object that acts to focus and distort light. The lense works in two directions - it concentrates light beams one way and simultaneously distorts the surroundings for the ones looking through it.
At ground-level, the pavilion used optical illusion to a functional advantage, where a semi-circular pool of reflective water is completed by a mirrored bar surface. In the Charlottenburg Kunsthall where the pavilion made its first appearance, the normally benign Northern sun baked food against it’s mirrored surfaces and set alight sheets of stray paper. At night, a focussed beam shone through the lens of water creating spectacular rainbow caustics that would bounce off the reflective pool at ground level and decorate the surroundings in colour. The pavilion operated as a restaurant during the CHART - Copenhagen Art Fair at the Kunsthal Charlottenburg. Attendees were required to walk through the water to be able to order champagne and oysters selected by restaurateurs L’Esprit du Vin. Initially hesitant people removed their shoes and played in the shallow pool all night. Winning Proposal Team: Enlai Hooi, Tamara Kalantajevska, Nicole Strelcheva, Trine Thy 2016
Post-war reconstruction strategies for Aleppo.
2011
Protests, civil uprising, and defection Initial armed insurgency 2012
Ceasefire attempt (April–May 2012)
Rubble recycling as a tool of urban and societal revival. Multiscalar dialogic approach.
Renewed fighting ( June–October 2012) Rebel offensives (November 2012 – April 2013
The project is a multiscalar set of interweaving strategies on Aleppo’s reconstruction, where debris of war and its recycling deals as a tool for societal and urban revival rough analysis of the islamic historical spatial conditions, recent cultural changes, urban policies and current politico-economical environment around Syrian post-war reconstruction, the project aims to recognize key challenges of the future process. It puts its focus on past, present and potential future of most heavily damaged informal settlements. The research aims to consider the nature of societal change, which Syria had undergone in the decades preceding the Syrian Civil War and its potential impact on the future of Aleppo’s informal neighbourhood units formation. These units are beeing recognized here as basic sociospatial mechanisms of reconstruction and future participation in governance of the country or, in times of disruption, its potential resilience. The design aims to challenge past examples of post-war reconstruction processes and current
means of development in con ict-torn and emerging countries. The analysis of both spontaneous aggregation processes, thanks to which the historical core of Aleppo emerged and prevailing policy approaches towards informal settlements in Syria, and globally, gives a possibility of contextualizing ideas of building on and learning from the past. What is more, the project by looking at cities which had undergone post-war reconstructions aims to provide comparable cases, examples of hope and vision to the Aleppese community. Ultimately, the complexity has a chance to evolve into a proactive, more wholistic and dynamic rather than prescriptive strategy for reconstructing the city, the society and its communities. The project aims to be a basis for further research and dialog with scholars and practitioners.
Escalation
2013) Government offensives (April–June 2013) Continued fighting ( July–October 2013) Government
offensives
(October–December
2013) Fighting between ISIS and other rebel groups 2014
( Jan–March 2014) Government offensives and Presidential election (March–June 2014) ISIL offensives and U.S. airstrikes ( June 2014 – January 2015) The Southern Front (October 2014 – February
2015
2015) Northern Al-Nusra Front and Islamist takeover (October 2014 – March 2015) Army of Conquest advances in Idlib (April President Al-Assad in Moscow for Talks with Russia’s Putin on Sria reconstruction and SEZ
2016
Russian intervention and government offensive
SDF advances and Turkish military intervention 2017
22.12.2016 Syrian Army announces the capture of Eastern Aleppo and the complete withdrawal of rebels and civilians.The Red Cross confirms that the evacuation of all civilians and rebels was complete. 07.01.2017 The Syrian cabinet adopts a package of measures to restore the northern city of Aleppo. 12.01.2017 A video released on Wednesday shows tractors and forklifts in the Saif al-Dawla district clearing the streets of sandbags and rubble.
Aleppo with its rich, long history, level of resilience to wars and multicultural in uences is a perfect evidence of how urban structure represents a physical, three-dimensional projection of human beliefs tand socio-political conditions. The city is often referred to as one of the oldest cities in the world, which continuously inhabited, has been always a site of urban transformation and renewal. Historical development of the city shows how societal, political and recent climatic changes, evolve together and in uence the urban form; lead to its expansion but also destruction.
Catalogue of details based on post-war rubble recycling is beeing developed. How does alteration of the construction chain modifiy the whole city? The details and new construction methods have a chance to contribute to more cost effective and efficient post-war city shaping. In the case of Aleppo and Syrian civil war it might appear naive to bring notions of ‘sustainability’ and ‘urban mining’ into discussion of post-war reconstruction. However examples from the past show us that practice of rubble reusal is not new. The rubble women, from post-war Berlin, sorting debris and bringing it to spetial Zwischenlagestellen (initial collection points to which the rubble would be taken further by heavier machinery). The presented set of details constitute an exemplary catalogue of systems which multiplied thorughout the whole city not only reuse the ‘local ressource’ but also bring back, not obvious, public domain to the city. Here, a flexible scheme of mixed reinforced concrete frame and the rammed rubble wall is proposed. The prototype is strong enough to withstand structural loads of a 6 to 7 high floor apartament block. Inner rubble core does not contribute to structural strength of the wall. Its production might be more time consuming than of a new reinforced concrete frame structure, however costs and use of concrete might be significantly reduced.
Y
oung City project in Gdansk is a unique opportunity to create a one-of-a-kind waterfront development.
Thee development of the shipyard area and its surroundings not only has the potential to transform into a vibrant livable district, but also to once and for all bind the historically divided city infrastructure together. It has the prospect to be a flourishing waterfront district in close vicinity to the City Centre. In order to unfold and conceptualize these possibilities, our proposal begins with the following three strategies: Remember- to reinforce social and historical qualities of existing buildings, Reconnect- to integrate the Young City with Gdansk, and Reimagine - to activate heritage is a catalyst for urban life. Year:2017/2018 Winning proposal Architect MAA Worked on: the strategic concept, script for adaptable area calculation, facade design, public space design, building arrangement, final area calculation, parking strategy, final visualisations.
KADK Research
IBBL, 2018 / 2019... Research supervisor: Deane Alan Simpson
Methodologies in spatial research
Reconsidering the cartographic canon of the ‘smart city’ paradigm. Mapping and data visualisation as rhetorical tools for space-knowledge production.
Paper intro This paper posits smart cities as constructs which treat citizenship as “instrumental, commonsensical, pragmatic and neoliberal”. (see: Kitchin, 2019) It recognizes that even the citizen-centric visions under the paradigm rarely consider citizens as co-creators or leaders but reduce them to “data points, consumers, users, players, testers or people to be corralled, nudged, disciplined and controlled” (see also: Cardullo and Kitchin, 2018a). The paper identifies mappings or “smart maps”, (and other forms of graphic representation) as one of the main enablers of these smart city logics as it locates visual practices not only as forms of space and knowledge representation but also production (Drucker, 2014). Furthermore, methods with which spatial researchers engage are not just neutral tools to execute a scientific vivisection of the ready-made reality but are performative (see Latour & Woolgar, 1979) and inscriptive, enacting the social realities and bringing them to life (Law, Urry, 2004:391; Law 2004: 3738). Therefore, the key argument is that if we engage critically with our methods, we are able to engage critically with the world, the social and the urban. By presenting some of the issues within the contested intellectual landscape around the theory of seeing, development of cartographic theory as well as the aesthetics and visual rhetorics, I try to expand understanding about, and build arguments
for reconsidering the methodological and rhetorical function of mappings within the ‘smart city’ paradigm. There are many ways to look at the world and the discourse on the meaning and significance within the visual culture is highly contested (see Sturken and Cartwright, 2007). In Derrida’s interpretation of reality the world is an endless writing (Derrida, 1978) of pictorial traces, sketches, inscriptions, engravings and mappings (Schoonderbeek, 2015) and as images are used to decode the world, encode knowledge, as well as geocode our cities (Pickles, 2006) therefore, I argue that the expansion of what counts as a ‘smart map’ might eventually result in a ‘genuinely humanizing smart urbanism’ (Kitchin, 2019). Only recently has it been advocated for an inclusion of other forms of representation as being legitimate. Pickles argued for “reopening of the cartographic canon to the cognitive, performative, semantic and symbolic richness of mapping, as well as the diversity of material products that embody those mappings”. (Pickles, 2006, p. 15). It is therefore time to engage multiplicity of actors involved in multiplicity of multisensorial mapping techniques, which have a chance to enrich our urban environments through multivocal space production. [....]
BIAS 1: DEVELOPMENT OF PHILOSOPHICAL PREMISES THINKING vs SENSING vs FEELING DISTANCED vs EMBEDDED
REPRESENTING vs SHAPING BIAS 2: METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES MAPS and MAPPING REPRESENTATIONAL CARTOGRAPHY OBJECTIVITY vs REPRESENTATION DESCRIBING vs INVENTORING
OLIGOPTICON GAZE vs PANOPTICON GAZE CRITICAL CARTOGRAPHY SPATIAL PRODUCT vs SOCIAL PRODUCT CENTER vs PERIPHERY UNIFORM vs COGNITIVE
POST REPRESENTATIONAL CARTOGRAPHY ARE vs BECOME REPRESENTING vs SHAPING CONTENT vs CONTEXT BIAS 3: AESTHETICS DATA VISUALISATION EXPLORATORY vs REPRESENTATIONAL BEAUTIFUL vs FUNCTIONAL “OBJECTIVE” vs “PERSUASIVE” BIAS 4: CONSISTENCY BIAS 5: FORMAT
IMAGE vs LANGUAGE NARRATIVE vs EXPLORATORY ANALOGUE vs DIGITAL
https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/
Neurath, M. (1974). Isotype. Amsterdam: Elsevier Scientific Publ.
Bureau, D. T. U. D. E. S. (2019). Atlas of Agendas . S.l.: Onomatopee.
Kahn, F. (1931). Das Leben des Menschen: : eine volkstümliche Anatomie, Biologie, Physiologie und Entwicklungsgeschichte des Menschen. Stuttgart: Kosmos.
Latour, B., Hermant, E., & Shannon, S. (1998). Paris: Ville invisible. Paris: La Découverte. English version available online: http://bruno.latour.name.
The Surveyor: Robert Harvey (Nebraska State Historical Society Photograph Colections, Lincoln)
Guy Debord, 1955 (?) “Psychogeographic guide of Paris: edited by the Bauhaus Imaginiste Printed in Dermark by Permild & Rosengreen - Discourse on the passions of love: psychogeographic descents of drifting and localisation of ambient unities”
Holmes, N., infographic, Medical Care Expenditure (oryg: The Time Magazine, First published in Eye no. 82 vol. 20 2012 Retrieved from
Newton (1795–1805) 460 x 600 mm. Collection Tate Britain , William Blake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_(Blake)#/media/File:Newton-WilliamBlake.jpg
Tufte, E. R. (2015). The visual display of quantitative information. Cheshire Conn. : Graphics Press
Whyte, W. H., Municipal Art Society of New York., Street Life Project., Direct Cinema Ltd., & Bainbridge Brass Quintet. (2005). The social life of small urban spaces. Santa Monica, CA: Direct Cinema Ltd.
Lonely Metropolitan,1932 Herbert Bayer
Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis (2007), Skitter Graph, Retrieved April 4, 2019, from: https://www.caida.org/research/topology/as_core_network/2007/
Cantz, H. (2004) Mapping a City, Galerie für Landschaftskunst Mission Control Center, Houston, 1965. [NASA], Retrieved from https:// placesjournal.org/article/mission-control-a-history-of-the-urban-dashboard/?cn-reloaded=1
Posavec, S. (n/a). Writing Without Words. Retrieved April 4, 2019, http:// www.stefanieposavec.com/writing-without-words
from “People in Cities”, Arkitekten no. 20, 1968:
The Plumb-pudding in danger, or, State Epicures taking un Petit Souper,, James Gillray, 1805, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plumb-pudding_in_ danger#/media/File:Caricature_gillray_plumpudding.jpg
9. Haut von Hellersdorf, Berlin 2017. Color-Coded Mapping Installation and Mapping Performance for Haut von Hellersdorf, KunTst im Untergrund-ngbk, 2017, Photos © Matthias Neumann, Diana Lucas-Drogan
Simpson, D. (2015), Young-old: Urban Utopias of an Aging Society, Lars Müller Publishers,
Swords, Jon/Jeffries, Mike (2018). Tyneside’s Skateworlds and Their Transformation- Production and Consumption of Participatory Post-Representational Cartographies. In: kollektiv orangotango+ (Eds.), This Is Not an Atlas (276-281). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839445198036
Rio Operations Center, 2012. [IBM], Retrieved from https://placesjournal. org/article/mission-control-a-history-of-the-urban-dashboard/?cn-reloaded=1
Degrowth, 2019, Collaboration with
Mood for Wood
Workshop Tutor, 2019
Mood for Wood are international workshops aimed for students of design degrees interested in actual project realisation. So far 4 editions of the project have taken place, with participation of the joint number of 210 students from Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. During the workshops, students, with the help of recognised architects and designers from all over Europe and experienced carpenters, will independently create urban furniture for selected locations in Poznań.
The challenge of the new degrowth economy is how to provide a set of strategies on various scales, which sneak in between or hack nodes of socio-political regimes’ influence. The proposed shift in the future urban fabric pattern may sponsor the ongoing reconditioning or revolutionizing of a spatio-political climate, as well as, break up monopolies and prevailing dichotomies such as private vs public, individual vs common, wild vs urban, industrial vs cultural.
Current technological advancements have a real, physical impact on how people navigate, feel and socialize within the urban environment. The technological advancements, which make it to the urban mainstream become ubiquitous creating one continous layer of online connectivity, data gathering and surveillance. We took it for granted that the ‘hot spot’ needs to be uninterrupted and omnipresent. The singals or the “eyes of the city” were never treated in the same way as the physical - ready to be shaped or regulated as e.g. urban density. The project tries to question the ubiquity of this non-tangible digital city layer by proposing a BLIND SPOT - a place or a set of urban spaces - stripped of access to the global network and invisible for the “Eyes of The City”. It treats this impalpable layer as an environmental condition, fullfilling the architecture’s main basic task to provide shelter and separation from the forces of the ‘new nature’.
Forest as infrastructure space Post-soviet Microrayon. Riga as a shrinking city.
F
orest as infrastructure space. This 200+ year speculative strategy treats the forest - Latvia’s greatest asset, as flexible infrastructure for future.
The city of Riga is an example of a shrinking city. In this context, the project reimagines how future urban population fluctuations could be approached. Together with the shrinking population - and economy as its potential consequence - the patches of forest appear in the city, Every patch of this flexible, reconfigurative membrane should be read as a stack of various layers of value. Forest in this case becomes more than a space-filler for the emptying urban tissue. It gradually creates a new type of re-countrysized urban scenario, embodies an economical asset, raw ressource and insurance for future generations. The forest, when curated, constitutes an integral part of the city economy- when “left behind”, starts to expand on its own, overgrowing the dying city. The forest infrastructure by encasing Riga, limits the urban sprawl and compresses the moribund society.
Size: 79,500 m² Location: Mönchengladbach, Germany Collaborators: Urban Agency, Karres+Brands, Urbanization.dk (Sonja Stockmarr & Aleksander Nowak - further dev.) Type: Invited Competition Status: Competition 1st Prize The Maria Hilf site is located at the edge of the historical center of Mönchengladbach and in the coming two years the city plans to establish a new dense neighbourhood. The hospital functions will be abandoned and the site will begin its transformation into a new urban neighborhood with strong connections to the surrounding urban fabric. Our proposal is defined by a robust urban framework, with terraces of building blocks and new barrier-free path meandering through the site. It bridges the gap between the lowest and highest point to create level-free access for all. The path exemplifies our primary vision for Maria Hilf Terraces; to create a new urban neighborhood for all.
Kleineschholz Freiburg Stühlinger West Competition Collaboration: Urban Agency, urbanization.dk (Sonja Stockmarr & Aleksander Nowak) Creating new connections is the main goal of the new urban development “Stühlinger West”. Both in terms of the structure of the development and the open space new spatial connections are necessary: The area is currently z. characterized by large building complexes and traffic arteries. In the interstices are the allotments, which are a green space, but at the same time also a huge barrier. In addition, Kleineschholz marks the transition from the closed city structure with block-edge development in the Stühlinger to an open structure. Under these conditions, the connections and connections to the surrounding city and green structure are particularly important. At the same time, there is the opportunity to create attractive living space with a direct connection to greenery in a central location and to make the district accessible to all.
anish ghettos. The project aims to tackle socio-spatial phenomenas in vulnerable neighbourhoods in Denmark, bringing as an example Vollsmose in Odense. Danish vulnerable neighbourhoods got a lot of attention and funds since government released the first ‘Ghetto List’ in 2010. The areas are generally those with high levels of unemployment, high numbers of immigrants with a non-Western background, and citizens with a low level of education. How can we adress and discuss potential set of spatial interventions restructuring and rehabilitating the stigmatized areas?
D
The multiscalar projects aims to refurbish existing housing stock bringing additional common, third spaces for the inhabitants. Transition from vast open areas and hyper-privitized isolated units is beeing created through provision of semi-private and semi public space for common dining, sharing of knowledge and urban gardening. Second proposal adresses potential new expansion of the area providing this time new horizontal experimental urban fabric. Academic Project, KADK Copenhagen Team: Zi-Jin Wang, Aleksander Nowak 2016
THE DECK
in Tähtitorninvuoren puisto forms the starting point for the flyover towards the Guggenheim Museum and is subtly integrated in the existing network of pathways and small squares.
uggenheim Foundation has, since the very beginning, challenged and cultivated contemporary society by consistently being one step ahead when projecting signs of human cultural evolution into the future: “…the Guggenheim Foundation continues to forge international collaborations that take contemporary art, architecture, and design beyond the walls of the museum”, is part of the foundations mission statement. Thus, architecture is not only influencing our immediate experience, but architecture also defines spaces for unlived futures. Every visitor, artist, designer, employee or user lives the future into architectural spaces.
G
THE FLYOVER
+12,1m
THE ROOF +11,0m
shelters the public `Third Space` and offers views of the bay and the horizon. The moveable roof flaps for solar harvesting can be adjusted for ideal positioning towards the sun.
THE RAMP
continues the public pedestrian flow from the park and the roof down to the public `Third Space from where pedestrians can continue in the Museum or towards the seaside promenade.
+6,1m
THE THIRD SPACE
The museum suggests the creation of a transpositional art platform to clearly express the “sisu” of this institution. It suggests how the building may physically move beyond its own walls to strengthen the collaborative approach of the museum and make itself completely accessible. In addition to very functional and horizontally connected public-, staff- and exhibition areas in coherence with the program, the museum reveals a new and interstitial space created by the disconnection between skin and structure Guggenheim Helsinki Entry Team: Snøhetta 2015
creates a new urban link from the park over Laivasillankatu towards the Guggenheim Museum. On the roof the ramp is continued in a gangway parallel to the waters edge.
is a new sheltered public space for outdoor exhibitions and various urban activities. From here passers-by can have glimpses into the exhibitions through glazed atria.
THE MUSEUM LEVEL +3,1m
+1,1m
is accessed from the north via a large, slightly inclined surface. All exhibitions as well as the performance hall are grouped arround the central foyer/multi-purpose-zone.
THE PUBLIC ART SQUARE +1,1m
THE PLINTH
protects the museum and its content with its double-layer watertight structure.
DIAGRAM OF ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS
ALEKSANDER NOWAK
is an outdoor exhibition space that connects the public realm with the `Third Space` of the Guggenheim Museum.
L
e Monde Group is an icon in the media world and its long standing reputation of integrity and quality is a measure for media houses woroldwide. The Le Monde Group has chosen a generous, open and accessible model. In this context, Snøhetta shall continue to strive for an architecture providing the public with the notion of ownership, emphasizing intimate relationships between the public and Le Monde. Structurally, the site is divided in two parts. However, we believe it is important that Le Monde occupies one building. Our approach has been one of subtraction, taking first a block filling the entire site and subtracting volumes to create entrance areas and public spaces. The subtracted volumes also relate to the existing site planning restrictions and the capacities of the structural grid. The result is that the building becomes a bridge, literally spanning across the site, but also
representing the bridge between Le Monde and its readers. The occupied bridge allows for direct contact between the different departments in the company. Symbolically the bridge connects the two parts of the city along the Avenue De France. Instead of water passing under the bridge, we have created a public open space; a plaza in two connected halves. One half faces the street and the Seine. It is open, inviting, and activated by a visitor center, auditorium entrance, and staff entrance. The second half faces the railway. It receives more direct sunlight, has a cafÊ and more intimate landscaping with seating and green areas. Winning Proposal Team: Snøhetta 2015 Role: Concept development, visualisation, facade & script
Part of initial concept design facade script
This visualisation: LUXIGON
Aleksander Nowak +45 5024 0449 +48 603063611 nowak.aleksander3@gmail.com contact@dinnergroup.dk Thank you!