my
works
Kacper Kuczyński
Table of contents
Janus IJ Burg, Amsterdam
Modernisation of the existing silos at ŝerański Channel into a diving and indoor skydiving centre - BS25 Warsaw
High-Rise Hybrid Building The Warsaw Jewish Theater
Officina Farmaceutica. Hortus Conclusus Monastery Concept Lodi, Italy
Trent House Nottingham
The Station Museum Warsaw
Index My works 7
Janus IJ Burg, Amsterdam
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Modernisation of the existing silos at ŝerański Channel into a diving and indoor skydiving centre - BS25 Warsaw
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Master of Architecture Degree Thesis High-Rise Hybrid Building. The Warsaw Jewish Theater
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Officina Farmaceutica. Hortus Conclusus Monastery Concept Lodi, Italy
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Trent House Isover Multi-Comfort House Students Contest 2012, Nottingham
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The Station Museum Warsaw
Janus nature and urbanity Politecnico di Milano, Architectural Design Studio 1, 2017 professors: Mikel van Gelderen, TU Delft (visiting professor) Elisa Cristiana Cattaneo, Politecnico di Milano, MIT design team: Laura Fiamenghi, Beril Maria Kubin, Kacper Kuczyński, Camilla Malinverni, Gian Luca Mazza site location: IJ Burg, Amsterdam *30 cum laude, KoozArch
website publication
European cities, over the Golden Age of economic growth in postwar Europe appear as frail cities and their weaknesses reveal themselves in space where there was once the strength and the power of each individual society. The rapid growth of population and the need of more space within the boundaries of the urban cities became the current issue. Architecture, as seen in Amsterdam, started seeking ways of highering the capacity of the cities, but preserving the identity and boundary of each place. IJ Burg area is a rigid example of the so called crisis: the period of the big urban transformation is over and what is it that remains from its vigour? The plot located in the heart of the island is a space of provocation, to the highly dense urban environment surrounding it. It resists to stay natural on an artificial land. Just like the attempts of Van Eyck to turn the cities into playgrounds in the 1950s, the plot persists to remain as a natural playground, where the users are so called ‘Homo Ludens’ who conquer the freedom of the space without rules or duties, contradicting with the neoliberalist densification of the island, and even with the city as a whole. Our aim is to help the site bring out its characteristics and transform it into a kind of ‘playscape’, by creating a positive impact on the island in a wider scale. The idea is based on two different systems: the spatial apparatus that contributes to the built environment and the playground; space of forced/artificial nature and freedom, which works as a paradox to the free space in order to strengthen its qualities by creating a contradiction.
facades. two different systems
Nature facade The facade facing the natural space is conceived as a totally transparent skin, which shows the society living inside the building, which turns itself into the decorative element of the facade.
Urban facade The facade which faces the marina shows the core part of the building in its relation to the city. It is a manifesto of the urbanity, contradicting to the nature facade.
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Janus. Amsterdam
role of the groundfloor
The groundfloor The groundfloor is conceived as an unfinished structure that can be conquered or released. It is designed as a long sequence of pillars and beams that shows the structural grid of the building. The steel network might be eventually used to build the architecture or as a space to be exploited by new independent structures.
Janus. Amsterdam
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groundfloor scenario
nature
retail
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Janus. Amsterdam
groundfloor scenario
playground
grocery
Janus. Amsterdam
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nature and urbanity
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Janus. Amsterdam
nature and urbanity
Janus. Amsterdam
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Modernisation of the existing silos at Żerański Channel into a diving and indoor skydiving centre, BS25 Moko Architects / MFRMGR internship, 2012 design team: Marta Frejda, Michał Grutkowski, Kacper Kuczyński site location: Żerań, Warsaw *online publications: MARK magazine, Dezeen, ArchDaily websites
The area for the investment is located ca. 12 km away from the centre of Warsaw. Main facilities include wholesale warehouses of construction materials and other products. It is a part of a house factory in Żerań which was operating in the past and now is becoming a popular place for amateurs of extreme sports and artists - abandoned halls, warehouses and non-developed area. The Żerański Channel flows through the entire area, which creates a unique municipal landscape. Our design assumes development of a Diving and Indoor Skydiving Centre in the old silos where bulk cement used to be stored in the past. People willing to learn the skills of diving will have the opportunity to safety train at the depth of 25m under control. The well located in one of the silos is connected to the “cave” of the other cylinder. This is an ideal place to train wreck diving. Apart from the cave, the second silo will feature a technical area as well as an Indoor Skydiving Centre. This place will make dreams about flying come true. In the “tube” where air will flow at high speeds, you will be able to safely train skydiving. The modules forming the space for additional functions are applied onto the existing structure of the silo walls looking as if they were growing on them. Polycarbonate plates will be the covering steel cubes through which the structure will be visible.
adaptation, working with the forms
top, transculent part division (restaurant, pool entrace zone) vertical wind tunnel (indoor skydiving) tunnel’s technical service pool’s technical service pool with the ‘cave’ (indoor diving)
exisiting form
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designed interior section
BS25. Warsaw
programme
BS25. Warsaw
Âą 0 entrance
+ 3 hostel
+ 1 shops
+ 4 indoor skydiving
+ 2 offices for rent
+ 5 hostel
+ 7 diving
+ 8 restaurant
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High-Rise Hybrid Building The Warsaw Jewish Theater Politecnico di Milano, Master of Architecture Degree Thesis, July 2019 professor: Giancarlo Floridi team: Kacper Kuczynski Veronica Lazzaro site location: Grzybowski Square, Warsaw
On April, 2017 the building that hosted the State Jewish Theatre in Warsaw was demolished. The land owner planned to replace the cultural building with an office skyscraper. The current scenario of the city of Warsaw is characterized by a discontinuous urban fabric and the neglect of the public space in favour of an unregulated development. The disappearance of the Jewish Theater creates the occasion for the proposal of a hybrid tower as an urban strategy resisting against the idea of a modern city made of tall buildings in which the formal and dimensional competition of vertical elements is more relevant than the intensification of the relations between individual buildings. The new character of the building is the result of the hybridization of a tower and a basement piece which establish a system of relations at different scales with the surrounding urban situation. The program related to the cultural production is represented by the Jewish Theater; it is located in the basement of the building. The generic condition of office spaces is instead organized through the overlapping of floors generating the vertical element. The project takes its meaning from the assumption of its unique character, being part of the urban definition of Grzybowski Square, and a cultural building representing the local identity. Considering the specific changeable conditions in which it is located, the building achieves a calm solidity providing a sense of permanence.
urban morphology of Warsaw
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High-Rise Hybrid Building. Warsaw
urban morphology of Warsaw
High-Rise Hybrid Building. Warsaw
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urban setting of the previous venue
boundaries of Jewish ghetto, July 22, 1942 Social and Cultural Association of Jews in Poland
Grzybowski Square It is an active urban space, full of greenery and pedestrian areas. Its surroundings is very chaotic and heterogeneous in terms of both typology and programme.This is the result of an unregulated process of the urban development which has been happening in Warsaw for the last decades. The city center is still very discontinued and full of voids after II World War. The private market takes over the urban pattern because of the lack of the spatial regulations (some of the masterplans have been under process for around ten years). The areas are systematically privatized and most of the attempts of any public interventions fail or are too weak comparing to the process of the land speculation. Private buildings or business enterprises - instead of the cultural and public buildings - become the visible landmarks of the city. The construction of the generic skyscrapers negates the chance to enhance the city’s character including qualities related to its specific atmosphere and identity.
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High-Rise Hybrid Building. Warsaw
revived elements
Urban setting The theater was located in a modernist building, together with the Jewish Association. Some commercial spaces were facing Grzybowski Square, while the entrance to the Theater was on the south side of the building, creating an intimate passage towards the Synagogue and the park located behind.
Theater’s typology The main stage of the modernist building, designed by Bohdan Pniewski presented a typical typology of the proscenium configuration. We decided to use the same one, due to the absence of any characteristic typology of the Jewish theatre plan, probably because of its nomadic role and spatially unstable past. The theatre could host 350 people.
Theater as a machine Revloving stage was also an element of the previous theater’s machinery, that enriched its technological potentiality. Treating the theater as a machine, we decided to arrange the stage as a mechanical system, composed with a revolving stage, which can speed up the changing of the scenography during the performance and hydraulic, lifting platforms, which enable the scene to place it at the proper level during the open-air shows.
High-Rise Hybrid Building. Warsaw
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American high-rise hybrid buidlings
Joseph Fenton, Hybrid Buildings, 1985, Pamphlet Acrhitecture No. 11 Even if is true that the high-rise building, as an architectural object of huge dimension has a natural tendency to isolate itself from its surroundings, quite often attempts have been made to integrate the tall building into its urban context. Considering the concerns about how high-rise architecture can establish a relationship with the surrounding public spaces, we analyzed some cases of ‘high-rise hybrid buildings’ with particular attention to the way they relates with the existing urban setting, and combine different programs, public and private. From the study of the American examples we identify some main themes that regard the hybrid type interesting for our research: (1) the ground floor configuration and the use of the basement of the building as an element to establish a system of relations at the street level, with the closer surroundings, (2) the program combination that allows the mutual independent existence of different functions.
Schiller Building/ Garrick Theater Adler & Sullivan Chicago, 1891-1961
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High-Rise Hybrid Building. Warsaw
American high-rise hybrid buidlings
program combination
belvedere
club
offices
theater
longitudinal section
urban setting
public theater’s spaces
private offices’ spaces
High-Rise Hybrid Building. Warsaw
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role of the facades
II
I
presence of the synagogue The main attempt was to establish a visual connection between Grzybowski Square and Nozykow Synagogue, which is the last one, existing in Warsaw now.
III
II
I
role of the facades definition of Grzybowski Square definition of the backyard definition of the courtyard passage passage, continuation of the public space
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High-Rise Hybrid Building. Warsaw
abacus of the public spaces
I Urban piazza - Grzybowski Square The east façade defines the square and hosts the entrance to the offices and apartments’ lobby and the bar, which is formally independent and which activates the urban piazza.
II Backyard An intimate space, which is casually activated by the open-air performances, due to the presence of the lower stage and its big opening towards the outside.
III Courtyard Semi-public courtyard garden.
High-Rise Hybrid Building. Warsaw
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Nozykow Synagogue year: 1898-1902 material: plaster, sand colour
Iron Gate year: 1965-1972 material: concrete
Brenkin Tenament house year: 1821-1882 material: plaster
All Saints Church year: 1861-1883 material: sandstone
Próżna 14 ten. house year: 1898-1899 material: red brick
Prudential Tower year: 1931-1933 material: sandstone
Palace of Culture year: 1952-1955 material: sandstone
relation with the city
Volumetric and material relation with the city The setbacks render a sculptured effect and articulate the volume according with the context heights. They emphasize the volumetric tension of the tower towards the square. The building aims to achieve a sense of material weight and physical permanence recalling the city’s atmosphere and contrasting the tendency of the generic, glassy skyscrapers.
Prudential Tower (Hotel Warszawa at ul. Świętokrzyska), 1955-56 fot. Zbyszko Siemaszko, National Digital Archives, Poland
High-Rise Hybrid Building. Warsaw
The atmosphere we refer to is the one, which appears in Zbyszko Siemaszko pictures - Polish photographer that pictured the city reconstructed during and after the 50s.
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programmatic relation with the city
program combination
multipurpose space
housing
offices
theater, bar
longitudinal section
urban setting
public theater’s spaces
private offices’ spaces
High-Rise Hybrid Building. Warsaw
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Foyer Because of the attempt to verticalize the theatre functions, the foyer is elevated to the first floor of the tower. It is a big, high open-space, extended underneath the audience to the certain point. The main element of this space is a direct, visual connection with the square.
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High-Rise Hybrid Building. Warsaw
Urban setting The passage aims to continue the public space towards the synagogue, throughout the backyard. The backyard is an intimate space, which is casually activated by the open-air performances, due to the presence of the lower stage and its big opening to the outside.
High-Rise Hybrid Building. Warsaw
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Officina Farmaceutica Hortus Conclusus Monastery Concept Politecnico di Milano, Architectural Design Studio 2, 2018 professors: Eleonora Bersani, Jacopo Leveratto design team: Kacper Kuczyński, Valentina Noce, Virgilio Viviani site location: Lodi, Italy *30/30
We were working in the historical centre of Lodi, a little city located around 40 km from Milan, on primarily on the western bank of the River Adda. The number of inhabitants in Lodi is 45.000, but its composition has been deeply modified since early Two Thousands because of the arrival of a huge number of immigrants coming from 99 different foreign countries. The city, attentive to the new needs stated by its community - with other 22 Italian cities - subscribed few years ago an agreement aimed to spread an intercultural dialogue and promote among the citizens the positive value of the cultural multiplicity. This Italian network belongs to a European network of 98 intercultural cities, supported by the Council of Europe. The task was to design the spaces of the intercultural dialogue in the existing buildings of the former convent of San Domenico, in a new building on the area belonging to the cloistered complex along the ex-avenue of San Domenico and in the internal courtyards of the convents. The focus of the new function of the dialogue was also a part of the design. We decided to go back to the roots of the herbal production, reviving the old traditions of the monasteries, enhacing them with the modern methods of the ecological cultivation.
strategy
network and the actors
lombardy
lodi province lodi
monastery
Ad
da
cittas
cosmetic companies
domestic garden
gallery gardens
riv
er
PTP science park
roles of the actors
monastery
cosmetic companies
cooperatives
domestic g. - cittas
herbs
ma nag eme n
domestic gardens
PTP science park
human resources
t iOS application
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Officina farmaceutica. Lodi
strategy
‘home garden’ scenario
monastery
aquaponic kit
herbs
domestic gardens
human resources
monastery and officina farmaceutica abacus of functions
play 1. distribution of the aquaponic kits
play 2. collection of fresh herbs
play 3. herbs drying
play 4. herbs processing - mechanized
play 5. herbs processing - handworked
play 6. workshop - cultivation of the herbs with aquaponic kits
play 7. workshop - production of natural creams/perfumes
play 8. garden
play 9. restaurant - meals with herbs cafe - herbal teas
play 10. aromatheraphy spaces
play 11. herbal / pharmacy / cosmetics shop
play 12. aquaponic tanks with fishes
Officina farmaceutica. Lodi
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hortus conlusus
Lodi monastery The former convent of San Domenico is located on the edge of the hill of Lodi (a boarder of the historical fortfied wall). The site, located on the bottom of the hill was hosting an industrial building, which disturbed the continution of the pitched landscape. Reestablishing it became a litemotif of the design process.
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Officina farmaceutica. Lodi
hortus conlusus
Reconstruction of the landscape morphology We decided to form an artificial instrument, which reconstructs the disturbed hill and well-connects the monastery with the street at its bottom. The factory building consists of two, functionally independent bodies, which form a secret garden in between each other. The main concept to organize the convent urbanistic composition was to create a secret garden experience on the hill facing it.
Officina farmaceutica. Lodi
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abacus of hortus conlusus functions
hortus conclusus 1.,2. herbal trees gardens
viridarium 1. herbs in medicine
viridarium 2. herbs in food and drinks
The garden 1. can be observed from the ramp connecting the plaza with viridarium 1. You can experience garden 2. from the ramp elevated along the convent’s north facades.
The groundfloor of the building and its internal courtyard focus on the medical usage of herbs - elixirs, etc.
The herbal market, where you can buy fresh herbs, spices, etc. uses outernal and internal spaces.
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Officina farmaceutica. Lodi
abacus of hortus conlusus functions
viridarium 3. herbs in food&drinks
viridarium 4. herbs in cosmetics
officina farmacutica herbs in processing
People can try meals with particular herbs or herbal drinks and coctails, sitting either inside or in the courtyard, enjoying the view.
This part of the convent is dedicated for those herbs, which are used in the production of perfumes, essential oils, body care products, etc.
The two, new designed buildings work like a ‘Willy Wonka’ factory of herbs. People can experience both mechanized and handworked processing of herbs.
Officina farmaceutica. Lodi
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Hortus Conclusus
Hortus Conclusus It is an intimate, welcoming space, framed by the facades of the herbal factory buidlings, capturing the perspective to the former San Domenico convent on the top of the hill. .
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Officina farmaceutica. Lodi
Officina Farmaceutica
The Herbal Factory The interior of both of the buildings consists of the common, open space, which is naturally illuminated by the saw-tooth roof openings from the top. The space is a reminiscence of the typical factory interior.
Officina farmaceutica. Lodi
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Trent House Isover Multi-Comfort House Students Contest 2012 Silesian University of Technology, Architectural Design Studio 3, 2012 professors: Michał Tomanek, Magdalena Załęcka-Myszkiewicz team: Kacper Kuczynski site location: Trent Basin, Nottingham *1st stage - national competition - honorable mention
The site of the competition is located in the industrial part of Nottingham, above the Trent River facing it from the south. The river defines a visible boarder between the south, natural landscape and the north - industrialized, representing the lack of public spaces, etc. The task was to design a housing estate, following the passive house principles. I decided to use the water - already present on the site - as the instrument to both establish more human- friendly atmosphere of the surroundings and to use it as an efficient tool for the sustainable technologies.
concept - shape of the section
winter
spring/fall
summer
annual
Trent River water
energetic duplication
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Trent House. Nottingham
concept - shape of the plan
day
winter
night
spring/fall
summer
neighbours insight
final form
Trent House. Nottingham
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new urban setting
2nd - international - phase of the competition existing warehouses - public functions Trent Villa - victorian house
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competition site 1:1500
Trent House. Nottingham
organisation of the plans
groundfloor 1 :100
1st floor 1 :100
Trent House. Nottingham
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Trent Basin
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Trent House. Nottingham
Trent Basin
Trent House. Nottingham
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The Station Museum raliway amusement park concept 307 kilo Architects, Association of Polish Architects (SARP) competition, 2016 team (consortium of 307kilo Architects + PIG Architects + R&D): Jan Sukiennik Marcin Iwaszkiewicz Kacper Kuczyński Barbara Szol Bartosz Tarnaś site location: Odolany, Warsaw
The competition site is the venue of the past railway station ‘Warszawa-Szczęśliwice’, located nearby the city center of Warsaw. Apart from the typical railway infrastructure, many heritage buildings and the richness of the greenery it is characterized by the presence of the revitalized circle-shaped track, which composes a distinctive boarder for the entire terrain. The site has a potential to become an amusement park hosting cultural, scientific and entertainment functions. It can become a part of a very well-developed system of the urban parks of Warsaw, which - even despite its less urban location - could be easily reached by the railway, what becomes an attraction for the visitors per se.
modernist heritage of Warsaw’s railway stations
Warsaw’s Crosstown Rail Line The architecture of Arseniusz Romanowicz and Piotr Szymaniak Warsaw’s Central Railway station and the chain of suburban stations which connect to it – Stadion, Powiśle, Śródmieście and Ochota are “expression of form, plasticity and subtle detail” manifested in buildings created by the team, leaded by Arseniusz Romanowicz and Piotr Szymaniak. With their dramatic cantilevers and alien forms, these Socmodernist structures once seemed to defy gravity and to proclaim the future. They stand out in the grey landscape of the high rise housing and uniform offices, thanks to their virtuoso engineering, abstract artistic schemes, and high quality materials. In recent years, stops on Warsaw’s crosstown rail line – pavilions marked by unique parabolic thin-shell roofs that were extremely modern when they were constructed – have all gone through at least as much as revitalization. All of these structures had been decaying, dirty and degraded – today they have finally retrieved their appeal and the sympathy of Warsaw’s population.
fot. Zbyszko Siemaszko, National Digital Archives, Poland
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The Station Museum. Warsaw
The Main Building
The Main Building The architectural, modernist heritage of railway stations in Warsaw became a direct, formal reference for our design. We decided to use the massive, parabolic, thin-shell roof to generate a specific character of the building. To emphasize its role, we used the mirror-coated columns as the main vertical load-bearing system. The morphology of the plan follows the railway linear configuration. The main exhibtion is arranged in a form of the platforms. The focus point is an internal, roofed piazza, which becomes a welcoming public space and which hosts the station of the excursion train running on the circleshaped, revitalized tracks through the amusement park terrain. The aim was to create the atmosphere of the station both outside and inside the building. Therefore, the pieces are exhibited on the rails, which are extruded to the interior. The polished flooring is a reminiscence of a crushed stone, used frequently as a railroad track balast. The wall separating the main hall from the enclosed exhibition spaces presents a composition of the openings, which provides the visitors with the view to the platfrorms.
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The Station Museum. Warsaw
The Main Building
10
The Station Museum. Warsaw
50 m
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kacper.kuczynski@gmail.com +48 516 096 865