Atlas of Common Pathologies
Introduction We live in a residential environment that has been shaped by nearly thirty years of political transition, and we often complain about the lack of spatial order. Criticism of our surroundings is mostly aesthetic in character – it is associated with searching for answers to the question of why Poland can be so ugly. This phenomenon is often described as a result of our immaturity, of poor aesthetic education; in conclusion, hope is expressed that perhaps one day we might reach a state that would satisfy us. We fear that the aesthetic discourse effectively obscures far more important questions, which should be posed in the context of the state of our housing environment. The first and foremost issue is the logic of money and profit, governing the creation of new housing developments and homes built in the suburbs, as well as the densification of the estates of apartment blocks and residential areas within the city. If this axiology, and not the welfare of the residents, will remain the most important consideration, then we will continue to inhabit places that do not meet the basic
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requirements in terms of quality of life. Most of the problems we face are social in nature, and do not concern trashy plaster or roof tiles, but the lack of schools, sidewalks, and green spaces in bedroom districts with several thousand inhabitants. The situations shown in the Atlas are dayto-day circumstances that many of us experience. The title of this comic book report is meant to imply that the issues we describe are not accidental; instead, they are the logical consequence of the paradigm which governs residential architecture, namely the subordination of the good of the residents to “higher” values – the interests of both private investors and local and central government. Let us see these issues in their entirety, on the scale of the whole city, and let us be aware of the reasons for the state of affairs that plagues us.
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GENTRIFICATION
Tenement houses undergo reprivatization, and the new owners, often without any qualms, deprive the previous tenants of their homes – by increasing rent, lowering the standard of the building, deliberate vandalism, or intimidation. After “cleaning out,” the house is turned into expensive flats, an apart-hotel or yet another office building. The signs of local shops and artisans are replaced with the shop fronts of beauty salons, banks, financial advisors, and pharmacies – an evocative of luxury. The residents also change. You often come across a person with a cup of coffee in their hand, returning from the nearby shopping mall – the latter, a juggernaut, out of sync with the scale of its historic surroundings. Housing estate
Downtown
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DENSIFICATION
The courtyard of a gentrified building is no longer a green back garden of yesterday. The air-conditioned space under a glass roof enhances the parameters of the offices behind the mock-up of the historic faรงade. The courtyards, if they still exist, increasingly turn into dark wells, overshadowed as a consequence of the superstructures built onto the neighbouring tenements. The only place in the area, which could serve as a substitute for a park, has been sold by the city to a real-estate developer. They justified the decision by saying they were acting to prevent spatial chaos and to provide compositional closure to the street. Everywhere
PARKED CARS
In order to get to the park with a pram, parents who live in the center have to push their way through a sidewalk crammed with parked cars. The meagre number of trees, shrubs and lawns, still surviving in town centers, are also falling victim to parked cars. Everywhere
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TRANSPORTATION CONFLICT
A more or less obvious battle goes on between different groups of inhabitants. In the absence of bike lanes, cyclists ride on the sidewalk, endangering pedestrians. When riding on the road, they are faced with aggressive drivers who honk at them or overtake them, failing to maintain the proper distance. Everywhere
EXCLUSION OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES
Getting around the town center is a real challenge for a person in a wheelchair – in order to access many municipal offices, for example, it is necessary to use the stairs. Even if there is a wheelchair lift, it is often closed or badly designed. Raised curbs block the passage, and the use of public transport is hampered by the height of vehicles and sidewalks. Everywhere
Downtown
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IMPERMEABLE SURFACES
Impermeable surfaces of pavements and courtyards are lined with materials (such as the ubiquitous Baum-style paving bricks), which create large areas impermeable to water. In the event of heavy rain, torrents and surging puddles form, ensuring the water does not drain. Due to its unevenness, the surface of paving brick is also difficult to navigate in a wheelchair or on a bicycle. Everywhere
THE FUNGUS OF ADVERTISING
Large-format advertising is a problem, and not just in urban centers. Downtown, it is found mainly on building faรงades, obscuring the view of residents and excluding the buildings from the city landscape, often under the false pretence of making repairs. Accompanied by aggressive LED signs, advertising increases light pollution in the city. Everywhere
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DENSIFICATION
Again and again, plots within existing housing estates or on their outskirts fill with new blocks of flats that interfere with the urban layout, the spatial order and the functioning of the estate. In pursuit of meeting all standards and providing the highest profit, these new buildings, pressed between the existing developments, receive convoluted shapes and match the height of the tallest buildings in their vicinity, even if much lower structures prevail in the area. New residents often emphasize their superiority by putting fences around their property, and introducing car barriers to guarantee their parking spaces. Downtown
Housing estate
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FILLING GREEN SPACES WITH BUILDINGS
New developments on land recovered by a former owner, plots sold off by town authorities or belonging to housing cooperatives – land unsecured with relevant provisions of the zoning plans – are pushing into green areas. When describing a “park estate” in their prospectus, what real estate developers really mean is that a housing estate is replacing the park, which was either destroyed in the course of the construction, or its creation was thereby prevented. The felling of trees and the obstruction of aeration corridors with buildings are among the most severe consequences of such investment projects. Downtown
ROAD ACOUSTIC SCREENS
New road development is meant primarily to facilitate car transport, which causes even more traffic and noise. Exacting standards and the desire – on the part of municipalities and designers – to pick the easiest solution to the problem of noise has led to a situation where buildings and whole settlements are surrounded by acoustic screens several meters high of steel, concrete, and plastic. Sometimes, in order to mask their overpowering effect, ivy is planted next to the screens. However, this does not solve the problem of creating dangerous places, mounting barriers for pedestrians, risk of arson and illegal graffiti.
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UNOFFICIAL PARKING LOTS
The number of cars in Poland is still growing, although it has already exceeded the per-capita index of many West European cities. Older residential districts, built in a different time, follow the logic wherein public transport and walking are supreme; today this design is not capable of accepting such a large number of vehicles. Lawns, squares, and sidewalks are converted into unofficial parking lots. Car-trampled meadows and dirt or gravel deserts surround apartment blocks, which were designed to be swimming in the surrounding green. Instead, they are crowded with cars, scattered chaotically all over the place. Furthermore, new residents of the houses developed in the previous green areas also park their cars around the estate, and there is not enough space to accommodate them – the real estate developers often deliberately understate the index of parking spaces.
Housing estate
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PASTELOSIS
Each block of flats on the estate is not only of a different color, but it also has a different arrangement of colors and lines on the façade. Sometimes, in a total departure from the style of the buildings, sun and trees, rainbows and pyramids, decorate the walls. Destruction of valuable examples of architecture, changing the urban panorama, and problematic spatial orientation are some of the most obvious problems generated by the “thermal upgrading,” hastily done. Everywhere
FUNGI AND DRY ROT
The walls of the recently renovated blocks of flats, particularly those facing north, often grow a greenish coating, which becomes increasingly noticeable over time. Commonly used technologies of insulation and plasters facilitate the development of fungi and dry rot, turning the elevations into caricatures of vertical gardens, although not necessarily pretty and rather undesirable. Everywhere
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FENCES
Today’s housing estate is more like a fortress than a proper urban space. Navigating the maze of fences and internal roads, residents and visitors alike must pass multiple inspections, enter the codes to the gates, answer the questions of the guards and – whether they like it or not – consent to being recorded on security cameras. Fences, however, not only do not increase security, but in some cases even pose a threat to the health of the inhabitants, being a significant barrier to a fire truck or an ambulance. Suburbs
Real-estate development
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PEEKING INTO WINDOWS
New housing estates, mainly the product of the desire to achieve the greatest possible usable floor area or residential usable space (PUM), which translates into a real-estate developer’s profit, are becoming more and more cramped. Neighbors of two different buildings, peek into each other’s windows, and visual contact is practically inevitable. The residents cover the glass railings with bamboo mats and they install blinds in the windows, to ensure at least a small amount of privacy. Suburbs
CONSTRUCTION ON FLOODPLAINS
The absence of local zoning plans or the drafting of such documents under pressure from landowners, often results in building on floodplains – areas that formerly used to serve as polders to absorb water from nearby rivers in case of overflow. Today, it happens more and more frequently that new housing estates are affected not only during heavy floods, but also in every major downpour, when there is run-off from local streams. Suburbs
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LACK OF INFRASTRUCTURE
Investors are primarily interested in their own profit, and their area of operation is determined by the boundary of the plot. Roads, sidewalks, and lawns, ruined by heavy construction equipment, remain so for many years after residents move into the new buildings. Dirt roads lined with makeshift concrete slabs or gravel become the main access roads to the newly created housing estates. When it rains, residents wade though the mud; on dry days, they have to deal with dust. Suburbs
LACK OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT
An absence of road, rail, or tram infrastructure in the rapidly expanding neighborhoods, and the lack of coordination between the construction of new housing and the development of the communication grid lead to insufficient public transport services for new settlements. As a result, even the few bus lines, which were launched to connect the new housing estates, remain overcrowded and often stuck in traffic jams. Suburbs
Real-estate development
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PROBLEMS WITH PARKING SPACES
Parking policies in Polish cities are either non-existent or are partially executed, from one spot to another, and do not include the new residential neighborhoods. Often the prescribed number of parking spaces is too low – it is already implicit that not all residents will be able to park their cars within the estate. It also happens that even if parking facilities are created, the underground parking lots remain half-empty because of the cost of buying a spot, which is not included in the price of the flat. This is the reason why, just behind the fence, all the roads and sidewalks in the neighbourhood are lined with cars. Drive-in gates become congested, and every free plot in the area is turned into a temporary, unofficial parking lot, lined with gravel. Suburbs
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LACK OF INVESTMENT IN EDUCATION
In exponentially growing neighbourhoods, inhabited by many young families, there are no schools, kindergartens, or nurseries. Local authorities not only fail to keep apace with real-estate developers for whom speed is their forte, but they often lose the land to investors who build even more apartment blocks upon a location that had been designated for a school. This causes overcrowding at the existing local schools, which are forced to work in shifts, while the area is rife with ads for private kindergartens. Suburbs
VISUALS CHEATING REALITY
Tall trees and warm sunshine piercing through the leaves, lush, but orderly greenery, the place for fun and relaxation. Against the background of blue sky, sometimes a colorful balloon passes. Expensive stone faรงades and shimmering reflections in the glass seem to multiply the spacious courtyard of the estate. On the balcony, someone is drinking coffee, and in the living room behind the sliding doors, we can glimpse a glistening piano. This is what the visuals of housing estates usually look like. Evocative names and pretty pictures that often have nothing to do with the subsequent implementation. Suburbs
Real-estate development
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PRIVATE PLAYGROUNDS
In contrast to the older housing estates, where the playground was an open space of integration for many children from different blocks of flats in the neighborhood, in new housing estates, each fenced enclave has its own miniature playground. Often limited to a single attraction, wedged between the parking lot and the enclosure; surrounded with thujas, the playground is only available to a chosen few. Housing estate, Downtown
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SUBURBANIZATION
City centers are becoming deserted. In search of a new home, their inhabitants often decide to get a house or an apartment at the outskirts of the city. Apart from the arguments of greenery, peace and quiet, the decision is also affected by a significant difference in price per square meter. It soon becomes clear, however, that living in the suburbs generates extra costs associated with commuting and with home maintenance. Smog is as much of a nuisance as in the city centre, while the greenery outside the window turns out to be a field of cabbage, where more houses will soon be built. Basic infrastructure is missing; there are no recreational areas, no schools, kindergartens or shops, not to mention a fruit and vegetable market. Downtown
Suburbs
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URBANISM BY TENDER
THE POSSIBILITY OF BUILDING HOUSES ANYWHERE
Just like many other domains, urbanism also often happens as a result of the tender procedure, in which price is the only criterion. Therefore, local zoning plans may often be developed by a team from another, distant city, who are not familiar with the local conditions. Records are formed casually, and the remarks and requests from the residents are neglected or ignored. The plan, pushed through in this way, usually the line of least resistance, sanctions the status quo and allows housing development to happen just about anywhere. Real-estate development
Local zoning plans in Poland are not a magic formula, as it might seem. Especially in rural communities where planning documents are adopted under effective pressure from the owners of land, allowing housing development on almost every available inch of ground, they exacerbate and sanction the spatial chaos and degradation of the landscape. Houses are built at generous distances from one other, without the basic utilities. Access difficulties affect the residents and municipal services staff, while the community has to bear the costs of maintaining unnecessarily extensive infrastructure, often by reducing spending on educational facilities such as schools.. 29
THE MINIBUS AS THE BASIC MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION
Those who either cannot afford another car, or do not (yet) have a driver’s license, are forced to use minibuses, which have become the main means of transport in many municipalities surrounding large cities throughout Poland. Overcrowded vehicles, which arouse objections as to their technical condition and capacity (expensive and inefficient), get stuck in traffic jams every day, carrying residents of suburban neighbourhoods to work and school..
Suburbs
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NO SIDEWALKS
On narrow country roads, which are slowly changing into main access roads to the housing estates and blocks of flats cropping up in the fields, there is no room for hard shoulders, bicycle paths, or sidewalks. Pedestrians are at risk, as they wade through the mud. The state of suburban streets, dimly lit and usually in bad repair, is the reason why the car becomes the primary means of transportation, even when it comes to daily shopping at a nearby store. Downtown
ROWS OF TERRACED DEVELOPMENTS
The Polish suburbs are not designed by urban planners. Their spatial arrangement has been defined many years previously through the division of farmland. And thus, housing estates in rows stretch far from the road, each separated by a wall along its longer edge, and each unnecessarily duplicating the same communication system every few dozen meters, with access from the main road. Such settlements are interspersed with strips of cabbage and potato patches, the only “oases� of greenery around. Real-estate development
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NO GREEN SPACES OR PARKS
Estates of single-family homes and terraced houses in the suburbs are usually created on former farmland, most of which is private. The old dirt tracks turn into access roads; municipalities, however, typically do not have any extra space to organize a park or other public spaces. Therefore the tiny gardens next to the houses and the farming fields remain the only green areas – that is, until further housing developments encroach upon this space as well. .
Suburbs
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LACK OF BIODIVERSITY
Most of the gardens next to the new homes look the same – the mown lawn, the rockery, the shrubs along the fence and the mandatory thujas, which separate the garden from the street and the neighbors. The absence of meadows, large trees or shrubs not only adversely affects the appearance of the estate, but also impoverishes biodiversity of flora and fauna, failing to provide shelter to birds, smaller animals, and insects (such as bees). Real-estate development
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ECO-PEA COAL
Smog is a problem not only in large cities, but also in the suburbs with their extensive, low buildings. With chimneys burning wood, coal or eco-peas, thick smoke raises from the houses, and air pollution limits are exceeded. Everywhere
CONCRETE FENCES
The fence has become an extension of the walls of the house, reflecting the status of its owner as much as the elevation does. See-through netting and fences have given way to precast or reinforced concrete spans and walls, lined with decorative imitations of stone and fitted with electric security gates. Downtown
Suburbs
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Mechanisms of a pathologies
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MECHANISMS OF A PATHOLOGIES
LOGIC OF THE GREATEST POSSIBLE PROFIT – squeezing the maximum profits from the land – real-estate developers – lack of norms concerning the number of parking spaces – insufficient, and manipulated green index (the measure of green spaces) – re-consumption and construction on green areas, previously excluded from the project
DOMINANT AXIOLOGY – absolutization of property – profit as the strongest argument in public debate – lack of the concept or the awareness of the common good – privatization of education – lack of a clear definition of a quality living environment
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PARADIGM OF DEVELOPMENT – promoting the model of individual housing construction – withdrawal from public transport – car as a tool of freedom – deregulation and privatization as systemic objectives
DEFECTIVE DEMOCRACY – spatial planning is often dictated by real-estate developers – lengthy planning processes (allowing construction based on individual planning permissions) – lobbying and exerting pressure on the planners – changing the status of farmland by municipalities – thereby raising the value of the land, often resulting from the logic of election campaigns (a plot with a changed status equals a vote in the future elections) – administrative corruption – lack of competent urban planners among civil servants
GLOBAL FINANCIAL SYSTEM – flats and houses as mechanisms in the banking system – mortgage credits (including those denominated in Swiss francs) – taking the profits out of the local community – the global movement of capital
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Atlas of Common Pathologies Conceived by: Kacper Kępiński, Dorota Leśniak-Rychlak / Instytut Architektury (Institute of Architecture) Texts: Kacper Kępiński, Dorota Leśniak-Rychlak Proof-reading: Ewa Ślusarczyk Illustrations: Table of content, Downtown, Housing estate, Real-estate development, Suburbs: Daniel Gutowski Other illustrations: Kacper Kępiński Layout, typesetting: Grzegorz Laszczyk Publisher: Instytut Architektury www.instytutarchitektury.org
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ATLAS OFÂ COMMON PATHOLOGIES