There are almost no parking lots here, and there is more greenery than required by the planning documents. And although only 400 apartments were built here, the construction of this estate, spread over five stages, took as long as nine years. Aroma Park is one of the projects nominated for the 2024 Architectural Award of the President of the Capital City of Warsaw. And for good reason - {tag:pracownie} brought back to life an exceptional monument, creating a worthy architectural setting for it.
The architects were given a plot of land heavily marked by history, including in material terms, to develop. At 10 Klasyków Street, where Aroma Park is now located, Henryk Bienenthal's yeast distillery was built in 1904. It is the only complex of its kind in Warsaw that managed to survive World War II. Before the outbreak of the conflict, the yeast distillery was an important industrial plant in the area of today's Bialoleka, and its importance is evidenced by the fact that the part of the district in which it was located - Henryków - took its name precisely from the founder of the factory.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Yeast Factory
© KAPS Architects
two birds with one stone
Henryk Bienenthal was a mysterious figure about whom little is known today. However, this does not mean that his legacy has been forgotten. When building his factory, which supplied Warsaw with yeast mash and spirit, he erected eight buildings. Four of them - a gatehouse, a warehouse, a villa and - the largest - a yeast mill- have survived to this day. All of them were entered in the register of historical monuments in 2012, both for their architectural, historical and scientific values. Each was built of red brick, and they also share a common detail and its proportions.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Warehouse
© KAPS Architects
yeast house in Białołęka
Despite their consistent character, each of the buildings has features that allow them to stand out from the others. The most representative is certainly the gatehouse building, visible from Klasyków Street; its windows are provided with segmental aediculae, and the gable walls are pierced with openings, crowned by straight arches. Slightly farther away, in the depth of the complex, is located a factory villa, divided into three apartments, which housed executives with their families. This one was characterized by a compact body, enhanced by two verandas and a winter garden, where some of the glazing was done in stained-glass technique.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Portiernia
© KAPS Architects
In the southwestern part of the former factory was the spirit warehouse, a two-story building with an elongated, extended plan, which was shaped by numerous extensions and renovations. Towering over the entire establishment is the most important building, the Yeast House, where - true to its name - yeast and the by-product of its fermentation, spirit, were produced. Originally a five-story building, it has richly detailed facades, with brick friezes between floors and biforias in the middle sections of the top floor.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Villa for the executives of the Yeast Works.
© KAPS Architects
conservation and engineering challenge
The once-valuable buildings could not be overlooked during the construction of the new estate. What's more, they turned out to be the core of its identity, arguably also an important point of reference during the development of the urban planning concept. For this to happen, however, they first had to be restored to their proper condition. Under the guidance of the Mazovian Regional Historic Preservation Officer, KAPS Architects restored and then adapted each of the preserved buildings to their new functions. Bricks regained their intense color and crushed details, glazing returned, including the stained glass windows in the factory villa's winter garden. In this one, the interiors have been painstakingly restored, especially the staircase with its cast-iron balustrades and the polychromes on the walls that refer to them.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Villa interiors.
© KAPS Architects
However, not all elements were able to be preserved in their entirety - deep interference was required for the yeast house building, whose internal structure, due to its poor state of preservation, was unsuitable for adaptation for residential use.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Renovated stained glass windows in the villa for the Yeast House executives.
© KAPS Architects
In consultation with the preservation office, it was decided to spruce up the interiors and fill them with a reinforced concrete structure, while preserving the perimeter walls. These are visible not only from the outside, but also from inside the building, such as in the stairwells, where historic brick meets contemporary concrete slabs:
The new internal structure, made using reinforced concrete, post-and-beam technology, was founded on a foundation slab. This technical solution made it possible to carry out a full thermal-bridge-free insulation of the exterior walls, which eventually became three-layer walls, with mineral wool insulation, an air void and an exterior "cladding" of self-supporting existing facade walls, which underwent a comprehensive renovation.
- write the architects on their realization.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Yeast House Interiors.
© KAPS Architects
The adaptation of the historic production hall did not end with the sprucing up of the interior. The architects also decided to make changes under the building:
After removing the interior walls and ceilings, they proceeded to construct an underground garage under the building, a major engineering challenge that required special attention and care. To this end, the foundation of the exterior walls was shored up (shored up) with a concrete palisade (known as jet grouting), followed by a wide-spaced excavation inside and around the building (the garage is also outside the building's perimeter).
- they explain.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Stage A
© KAPS Architects
giving way to history
In designing the new buildings, the architects opted for minimalism, but strongly alluding to the historic buildings of the 20th-century yeast plant. All of the newly constructed buildings have four floors above ground each, coming close in height to the production building, the tallest in the former Henryk Bienenthal complex. The facades are covered with brick tiles of heterogeneous color, both within each tile and in the context of the entire facades - some of them are lighter, while others bear signs of intense firing. Brick threads also highlighted the window openings, the upper edges of which were walled with vertically aligned clinkers. The first floors and substructures of some of the buildings are covered with elegant graphite plaster. The balcony railings and window woodwork are also dark.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Stage C
© KAPS Architects
to pair with a monument
Although all the buildings are consistent, it would be a great misuse to say that Aroma Park residents have to face architectural monotony. There is no question of "stamp buildings" here. - the body of each building was shaped in a slightly different way, taking into account the best use of available space, but also the historic buildings standing on the plot. For example, building C1 was planned to surround the former warehouse with its wings, creating an arrangement similar to a closed quarter. Building B2 and the southern wing of building B1 were designed as compact blocks, corresponding in shape and volume to the villa for the yeast plant management located next door.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Stage D
© KAPS Architects
rich interior
The way the buildings were arranged within the plot and their multi-winged masses made it possible to create a variety of urban interiors - from wooded nooks between the buildings, through courtyards surrounded by buildings, to spacious squares. A centrally located avenue on the north-south axis leads to the largest of them. At its end, in front of the front of the Yeast Factory building, a spacious area has been arranged, in which smaller functional units have been separated. Residents will find a fenced playground, a toboggan hill, a boules pitch, a brine graduation tower or a picnic table with a fireplace.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Stage D
© KAPS Architects
In the northern part of the common spaces, there was room for hammocks, chess tables, a place to practice yoga and even growing beds. The industrial history of Aroma Park in the common areas will be evidenced by exhibits from the production halls of the former yeast plant.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Stage B
Photo: Tomasz Japa © KAPS Architects
A marriage of brick and greenery
Despite the fact that the residents of the Henryków housing estate can't complain about the proximity of natural areas - after all, it borders Henryków Park - no expense was spared on greenery in this case anyway. Aroma Park is one of the rare cases in which the investor and designers have given up on maximizing the use of the land for development. Although the WZZ decision issued for the project stipulated that for most stages at least 30% of the biologically active area should be preserved, thanks to proper design, within Aroma Park it was possible to achieve a ratio of 43.5%. And that's without green roofs!
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Stage B
© KAPS Architects
However, these are not all the green measures that the architects planned when designing Aroma Park. An important issue was to preserve as many of the trees overgrowing the site of the former yeast plant as possible - to this end, some of the new buildings were designed to minimize the number of specimens to be cut down, organizing them around clusters of existing trees. It was not possible to shape the new volumes in this way everywhere, but the architects found a way to do this as well:
Trees in good shape that interfered with the planned buildings were replanted in new locations on the project site. A total of 19 trees and 3 shrubs were replanted, and as many as 151 deciduous trees and 17 conifers were planted as part of compensatory plantings and the greenery project.
- enumerate KAPS Architects.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Stage D
© KAPS Architects
In addition, there have been plenty of plantings of smaller plants; the architects report that 30,000 shrubs, perennials and grasses have appeared in the complex.
Aroma Park in Warsaw - Stage B
© KAPS Architects
Will this be enough for the estate to be properly appreciated? We'll find out in the near future, but it's already clear that Aroma Park is an example of solid revitalization, in which urban quality in partnership with greenery turned out to be more important than PUM indicators.
