Truth about Failure

By Oliwia Jackowska

Accusation: Six multi-family blocks are to be built in a remote village area, where locals lead peaceful lives, nearby a lake and forests. The region is assigned for one-family houses, where the city can no longer disturb their peace. The new buildings are not only out of place, they are also ugly and not functional.

Evidence No. 1: External arrangement

All one can see, when looking at the site view of the project is six copied and pasted, randomly arranged blocks. Having no idea, what does the thing in the right corner represent, I do not understand why the investor did not decide to use that space to provide decent amount of light reaching each flat. In addition to that, all blocks are exactly the same and there is no relationship between them. The ‘design’ does not take any context, light or orientation into account, which not only gives the space less value both inside and outside, but also does not provide positive space for children to socialise outside, together with parents.

Evidence No. 2: Internal flat plan

The form of each block suggests that the design was not driven by the idea of providing positive space and functional internal plan of each flat. It was the other way round - the plan had to be adapted to the set form of a building. The flats are arranged, so that 3 consecutive ones fit within a square, where one dimension is the width of the whole block. Type B flat is rectangular and two A type flats are L-shaped. It is truely impressive how the designer managed to arrange space, in order to produce as many flats as possible in limited space. But why? There is so much lost space in this project.

The plans of each flat are very closed - imagine how much space and air the residents could gain if we got rid of some doors. Even though the type B flat is very compact, it is very tight and closedit is difficult to move around there. However, what I find even more surprising is type A flat - it’s not only the fact that you can fit only single bed in this flat, but the living room is separated from the rest of the flat (imagine taking there two cups of coffee from the kitchen).

Who is responisble for this?

We cannot put guilt on one particular person or role. It is a very multifaceted problem, and unfortunately this means that it is more difficult to fight it. It starts with the mentality, and what people find important - how much money can they gain with the lowest costs. In this case, everything started with the local government, as weirdly assigned the site for multi-family housing, instead, as it should happen, one-family houses. Additionally, the conditions and standards that the new buildings were supposed to fulfill, were very basic. It means that the district council’s idea was to gain as many new inhabitants (and taxes) as possible without spending too much.

Then, the investor showes up on the stage and with the lowest standards, quality and costs provides an awful proposition, which very quickly fulfills the basic conditions and becomes a fact. The fact that apart from designing a physically separated block the role of architect is reduced to minimum is truley frightening. Sadly, Poland is not the only country, where money and system wins over the space.

Punishment:

The punishment for that kind of crime should be very high, since it undermines the chance to create infrastructure conciously. The only punishment is that we, as inhabitants of the world, like prisoners, need to deal with this kind of crime everyday.