Broadcast available at
On September 22, 2020, we organized a LIVE meeting with Mateusz Mastalski, an architect from Henning Larsen Architects, and Hugon Kowalski, who runs his own design business in Poznań at UGO studio.
Sustainable city? Architectural competitions? Do these buzzwords open a can of problems facing architecture in a post-pandemic world, or are they rather effective ways to solve them? How to design cities today and who should do it? Architects or residents? Who has the right to the city? Who decides what it looks like and how we live in it? What values do we need in architecture to design well-functioning cities that do not contribute to the degradation of the planet and the ecosystem?
Is sustainability nowadays mainly a very catchy marketing slogan and is there a place for it in the discourse on engaged architecture and urbanism?
We will also talk about the differences in urban design from the Polish and Danish perspectives.
Be with us!
Save the date: September 22, 6 pm
Mateusz Mastalski - architect and urban planner. He graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the Silesian University of Technology. He worked in the offices of medusa group, KWK Promes, MVRDV and COBE. Since 2008 he has permanently lived and worked in Copenhagen, where he has been a member of the Henning Larsen design team since 2014. He specializes in competitions, master plans and large-scale public facility projects. He has led, among other projects, the development of the Imperial Shipyard in Gdansk, a concert hall in Ostrava or the Vejlands Kvarter social district in Copenhagen. Multiple tutor at InDeSem, CanActions or OSSA workshops. Masterclass presenter at École Nationale Supérieure d'architecture in Marseille. He has collaborated with A10 and Architecture & Business magazines.
Hugon Kowalski - architect, and has been running the UGO design studio since 2010. Co-leader of the Architecture I Workshop at the University of Arts in Poznan. Author of the project "Let's talk about garbage" presented at the main exhibition of the International Architecture Biennale in Venice in 2016. Winner of the archiprix award for the best architectural diploma in the world defended in 2011-2013. Fan of architectural competitions. A very nice person.
Online meetings in the series "Architects for the 21st Century. Architecture of Tomorrow" with prominent personalities of the Polish architectural scene
Previous meetings in the series - around the problems of today's world
The climate crisis, the global economy driven by the idea of continuous growth plus recent events related to the forced lock down situation or remote work are forcing changes in the approach to design and architecture.
The era of old-architects designing iconic buildings that are expensive to construct and operate, which are landmarks of their cities, but also monuments to their authors, is coming to an end. However, energy inefficient buildings are still being constructed: they require heating in winter and intensive cooling in summer, and the materials used in them, such as glass, steel and concrete, contribute to increasedCO2 emissions into the atmosphere.
We live in a culture of constant pressure of economic growth. Architecture, being part of this process, influences economic and social inequality, the rise of consumerism and the greenhouse effect in our cities. Yet we continue to build more premium glass office buildings, luxury development estates with fences and remote control gates, shopping centers on the outskirts of cities or in their centers causing an exodus of residents fromthese places, short-term rental apartments, we invest in parking lots, road infrastructure and everything that in theory is supposed to improve the quality of life in the city, but in practice reduces it. On top of that, we are cutting out greenery and parks for more developments instead of adapting existing buildings for change.
meeting issues
- Will lockdown change the approach to design?
- Are these changes likely to be sustainable?
- To what extent will it be architects who will be able to engage in the construction of a new world and a new order, and take advantage of the existing situation in such a way as to design responsibly, flexibly, in the spirit of circular economy, and above all serving to improve the quality of life in the urban environment?
The series kicked off in June 2020. The architects we have invited talk about their perspective on current times, projects and ideas on what the architecture of tomorrow should look like. The meetings are live-streamed on YouTube and Facebook with the opportunity to ask questions on the Facebook profile of our event. We encourage you to also ask questions before the meeting and send them to: malgosia@archibi.pl
videos available at
1 Maciej Siuda, Marcin Wicha
"Around design in the New World"
2 Jerzy Szczepanik Dzikowski, Maciej Miłobędzki
"A rational approach in irrational times".
INVITE! Be with us!
