In team strength! MAARTE in the fall edition of FOPA 2022

Ola Kloc

21 of November '22

MAARTE studio will participate in the fall edition of FOPA 2022

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This week marks the start of the fall edition of the Festival of Open Architectural Studios, an event that accompanies the Open Eyes Economy Summit congress (November 22-23). This time we will move virtually (among other places) to Sopot, where MAARTE studio will open its doors for us.

Broadcast of the meeting will be available on our channels

Interior of the studio in Sopot

As part of the autumn edition of the Festival of Open Architecture Studios, we will visit offices in: Poznan - on Thursday(November 24 at 13:00) we will take a look at Ultra Architects, on Friday (November 25 at 13:00) we will move to Tricity and the headquarters of the MAARTE studio, and a few days later, on Monday(November 28 at 15:00) from Sopot we will leave for New York, where we will visit the Only If office.

MAARTE
November 25, 1 pm

Marek Łańcucki, founder of the MAARTE office, this year celebrates twenty-five years in the profession - he took his first steps on the architectural scene in... April Fool's Day! However, he takes architecture very seriously - he gained professional experience in Warsaw studios Atelier 2 Kucza-Kuczyński Miklaszewski and JEMS Architekci, among others, to open his own office years later.

To make it funnier it was in the Tri-City, more precisely in Sopot, where I knew practically no one. I started from scratch by organizing the office, finding architects and the first order-design. The studio's first client was Invest Komfort, and the first project was Seaside Manor in Gdansk. The project became a great success for the studio, in its time it differed strongly in plus from the level of residential architecture that was then being created in the Tri-City, and with the landscape solutions adopted it was simply innovative in Poland," recalls Marek Łańcucki.

Seaside Manor, Gdansk - the first project to be created by the MAARTE studio

Due to various adventures, the office, founded in 2008, started its journey from scratch ten years after its inception. Today, after four years of intensive work, it has a team of twenty-eight architects on board to carry out projects in the Tri-City (including the award-winning Botanica Estate in Gdansk), Poznan, Wroclaw and Lodz.

Botanica Jelitkowo, Gdansk - completed stages 1 and 2, stage 3 under construction; the estate has won numerous awards, including Green Building Awards

MAARTE is a team of exceptional architects from the Tricity, who, as they write themselves - design humanely and for the people. Are you curious about the origin of the studio's name? How to build a design office from scratch? Or would you like to know what graphic programs architects use? You will have the opportunity to ask your questions on November 25 (we will be guided through the studio by architect Adrianna Macieja), and in the meantime we invite you to a short Q&A-style warm-up!

The interior of the studio in Sopot

Ola Kloc: Where did the name of the studio come from ?

Marek Łańcucki: Although I am also an admirer of Depeche Mode (I have been listening to them since 1982) [the inspiration for one of Depeche Mode's albums was written about by Ultra Architects: link - editor's note]. and Ayn Rand 's books ("The Source" and "Atlas Rebellious" are my favorite Objectivist novels), I did not take the name of the studio from the title of a song or the name of a character in a novel. I feel that I am an engineer, primarily a craftsman-architect, but I try to make sure that there is also a note of artistry in my designs. Hence the second part of the studio's name. In turn, the studio is an author's studio, hence the first two letters of my name at the beginning of its name. This is how MAARTE was created.

Tower Jeżyce, Poznań - a project corresponding to the assumptions of the fifteen-minute city

Ola: Pracownia is for us....

Marek: A great place to spend time together. I think we all enjoy being here together, working, arguing and talking. The strength of the studio is its team. Our team of architects.

The interior of the studio in Sopot

Ola: What was your first project about?

Marek: The first project was the Nadmorski Dwór estate in Gdansk. The project was developed on a sizable site with an assumed fairly low-intensity development, located literally in the forest, very close to the beach in Gdańsk's Brzeźno. It was a white, or rather "green" card, encouraging me to face the idea of a "garden city", which had fascinated me since my studies at the Warsaw WAPW. This is what happened - in the project we paid a great deal of attention to the design of the terrain and the surroundings of the buildings, which became as important to us as the architecture itself. The buildings are "submerged" in greenery, the facades are covered with support nets for climbing plants. Similar forms appear as independent tubes or openwork canopies for garage exit ramps. The Tricity climate is conducive to lush plant growth, and practically a few years after completion, the buildings are completely covered with greenery, which integrated the architecture with the newly designed landscape and with the existing landscape of the seaside forest.

Seaside Manor, Gdansk - the first project to be developed by the MAARTE studio.

Ola: The dream project is....

Marek: Own house project with own studio.

Ola: Our favorite design tool is...

Marek: My favorite tools are a black fine point pen and a white sheet of paper. On the other hand, fellow architects work digitally in Revit or Autocad using programs like SketchUp. We are starting to work on three-dimensional design in virtual space.

Ola: Does the team have any regular habits / rituals?

Marek: One of them is cake. You come to work - you bring a (delicious) cake. You leave - you also bring a (equally delicious) cake. You have a birthday-you bring a cake. And so on;) Besides, we like to spend time with each other also after work. Sopot is the perfect place for going out together, casual conversation and great music. The sea gives us a breather.

And such a personal custom is the annual publication of a calendar: desktop and wall-mounted, illustrated with my photos from my travels in a given year. We come up with a layout for printing, and the calendar is printed every year at a local Sopot print shop. Then we fold the calendar sheets, address and send them to our clients and friends. It is a practical and usually nice gift for the following year;)