Neighborhoods are not just good company and a helping hand - sometimes they can cause a lot of trouble. This is well known to designers from the Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz studio - architects who faced the not easy task of reconciling the potential of a prestigious location with a problematic context. Their answer to this challenge became Midori House - an apartment building in the center of Wroclaw, which does not turn its back on its difficult neighbor. To achieve this, however, something had to be sacrificed. What did the architects "cut" from their building?
Midori House, a nine-story residential building in the center of Wroclaw, stood in a place with great potential and a huge problem. The team from the Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz - architects studio was given a plot of land to develop, located in the Oława Suburb, in its most attractive part, right next to the Oława riverbed and the Oława Promenade, opened last summer. There is plenty of greenery all around, including old trees whose crowns rise above the roofs of the tallest buildings in the immediate area. Not far away is the market square, Wroclaw's train station and the popular Hydropolis educational center. Even closer, however, is the complex of blocks of flats to which the building designed by Marcin Dziewinski and Bartosz Lukaszewicz is adjacent. It was this that posed the biggest problem during the development of the Midori House concept.
Midori House
Photo: Maciej Lulko | Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz Architekci
a building that was not blind to its surroundings
The buildings of the "Kamieniec" Housing Cooperative at 5-7Szybka Street, erected by Awbud Developer, are eight-story blocks of flats that, on the side of the Oława River, end in a blind, monolithic wall, on which at one point a mural with an "architectural" theme was painted. It was of little use; the blank wall no longer frightened, but still left an unpleasant feeling of inadequacy. The chance to save this difficult situation was faced by Dziewoński, Lukaszewicz - architects. How did they deal with the problem of the blind wall?
[...] the width of this wall turned out to be the biggest challenge for us; in order to obscure it, it was necessary to design a building with a tract depth of about 27 m(!). We proposed a block with proportions of an almost ideal cube with a side of just 27 m. By basing the internal communication on a centrally located, covered courtyard and three-sided lighting of the building - it was possible, despite the rather unusual for residential buildings size and proportions of the plan, to design a functional layout of apartments.
- explain the architects.
Midori House
Photo: Maciej Lulko | Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz Architekci
architectural Rubik's cube
The most distinctive element of Midori House is the eastern corner, where part of the volume has been "carved out", based on a scheme of
An additional measure to improve the lighting of the premises was a dodged cutout of one of the corners of our "Rubik's cube": Taking advantage of the favorable exposure in relation to the sides of the world, and above all - the spectacular views toward the river, the surrounding greenery and the monumental silhouette of the historic Pressurization Tower - in the corner selected from the solid, large terraces of the largest apartments were located.
- explain the architects.
Midori House
Photo: Maciej Lulko | Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz Architekci
The solution entailed consistency for the composition of all parts of the facade:
The square-based scheme was also consistently used for the composition of all elevations - except for the corner cutout described above, they maintain a strict square grid of windows and loggias of the same dimensions.
- explain the architects.
Midori House
Photo: Maciej Lulko | Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz Architekci
troublesome neighborhood
The cascade solution of the corner facing Olawa influenced not only the way of illuminating the interiors; it is also a kind of response to the complicated urban situation - the mentioned blocks of flats belonging to the "Kamieniec" housing cooperative are just one of its elements. Right next door, but at a certain angle to them, stands another long block, built in 2011. Together they form a complex of buildings resembling a triangle in urban scale.
Midori House
Photo: Maciej Lulko | Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz Architekci
According to the local plan, the area closest to the river, in the place that closes the triangle formed by the blocks rising around Szybka Street, will not be developed. Closing the entire layout in the form of a quarter is therefore out of the question - thanks to the dematerialization effect produced by the "disappearing" corner from above, one does not get the impression of suddenly ending development, which prevailed before the construction of Midori House, when the development complex ended with a blind wall of a building from the first decade of the 21st century.
Midori House
Photo: Maciej Lulko | Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz Architekci
Thanks to the withdrawal of the building's corner and its openwork structure, one no longer gets the impression of an abrupt end to the development, as was the case before. The resulting composition gains lightness. What's more, when the neighboring triangular plot on the other side of the development is developed in the future, the open form of Midori House's corner can prevent the creation of a narrow urban "canyon."
Midori House
Photo: Maciej Lulko | Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz Architekci
elegant counterpoint
On the outside, Midori House provides an elegant counterpoint to the older, neighboring building - its colorful plaster and blue glazed staircases. The facades of the new building are clad in gray quartz sinter, complemented by wooden shutters, and the terraces and loggias are capped with glass balustrades that do not affect the visual expression of the "disappearing Rubik's cube" at the eastern corner. The whole is topped with a green roof, which, however, was not designed as a usable space.
Midori House
Photo: Maciej Lulko | Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz Architekci
green house
Inside, Kwadrat Architectural Studio, responsible for the interior designs, also opted for an aesthetic that is elegant, but not overly luxurious. The heart of the building is a centrally located staircase, around which galleries leading to the apartments are hung.
Midori House
Photo: Maciej Lulko | Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz Architekci
The interiors of Midori House were designed by Studio Architektoniczne Kwadrat. The dominant aesthetic is elegant, but not ostentatious. The center of the building is the staircase, around which stretch galleries leading to the apartments. One of its walls is finished with vertical wooden fins. White neon lights run between them, which - with a little imagination - can resemble reflections of light reflected in the streams of a waterfall.
Midori House
Photo: Maciej Lulko | Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz Architekci
And that's where the greenery comes in, at the base of the light cascade. The name Midori means "green" in Japanese, which is reflected not only in the location by the Olawa River, but also in the presence of vegetation - both in the form of a large pot in the representative entrance area and floral motifs on the walls of the staircases.
Midori House
Photo: Maciej Lulko | Dziewoński, Łukaszewicz Architekci
to gain, sometimes you have to lose something
Where the urban landscape ended for years, a new reference point was created: thoughtful, sustainable and open to the future. The architects didn't try to pretend the problem didn't exist - they responded with architecture that integrates instead of divides. And that, in an urban context, means more than an ornate facade.
