In such places, the solution is revolution: chaotic suburbs are sometimes a white paper that I want to write radically from scratch. Only that this is a pipe dream - you have to fix the space piece by piece. Like in Poznan's Kopanina, gradually transformed by successful office buildings from Easst Architects.
There is no shortage of similar places in Poland: amorphous spaces of former villages long ago absorbed by cities - neighborhoods full of workshops, warehouses, flawed houses and huge advertisements. How chaotic and degraded they are is only partially told to us by the views from the entrance routes to the cities. When you take a closer look, it's even worse. The components are the mismatched shapes and functions of buildings, poor infrastructure and mutilated greenery. With no regrets, one can think of demolishing everything and implementing planned sensible buildings and green areas. However, it is known that this is essentially impossible in our legal and planning realities, especially with the high fragmentation of ownership.
Castor and Pollux office buildings, Kopanina Street, Poznań, new buildings and old chaotic buildings - proj. Easst Architects - Łukasz Sterzyński / Marcin Sucharski
photo: Jakub Głaz
clay in the wedge
Poznan's Kopanina is one such place. The former settlement on the southern outskirts of the city, in a wedge between the railroad tracks and the outgoing Glogowska Street, was partially absorbed by Poznan as early as 1900, but has retained a character far from urban. It does, however, have a significant distinguishing feature: picturesque ponds called Szachtami wdawnych excavations of clay, next to which brickyards once operated to supply the city with building material. There is thus, on the northern side, a chaos of residential, commercial and manufacturing development, and on the southern side, an extremely valuable area of scenic and natural significance. For the part of Kopanina with ponds, there is a local zoning plan passed more than a decade ago. For the rest of the area, the plan has not even been called.
Ponds on Kopanina, the so-called Szachty
photo: Jakub Głaz
Since the middle of the previous decade, designers from the experienced Poznan studio Easst Architects, led by Lukasz Sterzynski and Marcin Sucharski, have been working in the area. The first project here was the distinctive Quartz Office building erected in 2016 at the junction of the natural and built-up parts, at the curve running along the gentle slope of Klinkierowa Street.
Quartz Office building, Klinkierowa Street, Poznań, view from the southeast - designed by Easst Architects - Łukasz Sterzyński / Marcin Sucharski
photo: Jakub Glaz
The building owes its unusual triangular projection to the provisions of the local plan. As the architects admit, both this requirement and the related restrictions on the area of construction were quite a challenge. However, they coped with it very well, creating a dynamic and light body. In the author's description they inform:
"We concluded that the triangular shape would cause interesting and unpredictable visual disruptions to the building as one approaches it from different angles (there are viewpoints from which the building appears to have a square base!"). To mitigate these unexpected effects, we decided to divide the building into two parts separated by glazing. This effect provided an opportunity to create a more subtle body of the building. The upper part is somewhat suspended in space.
Quartz Office building, Klinkierowa Street, Poznan, south-west elevation - proj. Easst Architects - Łukasz Sterzyński / Marcin Sucharski
photo: Jakub Glaz
warning triangle
The exposure of the successful block against the background of the surrounding greenery at the bend of the street is also an asset. The office building, despite its small scale, has also become a useful landmark. After all, on its southern side, construction is underway on an intimate residential development on the site of a former brickyard, benefiting from a very attractive neighborhood of ponds and greenery (we will describe this development soon). Quartz acts, in its own way, as a landmark marking the presence of the development.
Quartz Office building, view from the east, Klinkierowa Street, Poznan.
photo: Przmysław Turlej
This year, meanwhile, construction of a complex of two office buildings, also by Easst Architects, was completed on Kopanin. They are named Castor and Pollux and lie 300 meters north of Quartz Office, on Kopanina Street. The investor is Everest Development Hawryluk. The first building (Castor) was built four years ago, and the second (Pollux) is a development completed this year (both in an area without a local plan).
Castor and Pollux office buildings, Kopanina Street, Poznań, view from the street, in the background on the left - a warehouse, and on the right - an old office building - design by Easst Architects - Łukasz Sterzyński / Marcin Sucharski
Photo: Przemyslaw Turlej
Originally these were to be twin buildings, but the newer one has been enlarged and varied by the diagonal bend of the eastern elevation. The simple five-story blocks with underground parking stand perpendicular to the street - between the green corner of the plot they occupy and the substandard housing estate of residential barracks erected here during the occupation.
Castor office building and residential barracks, Kopanina Street, Poznań - designed by Easst Architects - Łukasz Sterzyński / Marcin Sucharski
photo: Jakub Glaz
Next door, at the back stands the office building of the Wielkopolska Sugar Beet Breeding Company. There is also an old warehouse nearby. Thus, the new buildings represent a completely new quality in this space, and - like the Quartz Office, which is older than them - they are closer to good downtown developments than to the out-of-the-ordinary office buildings often erected in the suburbs.
Castor and Pollux office buildings, Kopanina Street, Poznań - designed by Easst Architects - Łukasz Sterzyński / Marcin Sucharski
Photo: Przemyslaw Turlej © Easst Architects
The masses are simple, but the facade drawing is carefully considered not only in terms of aesthetics, but also in terms of the relationship with the surroundings. The architects report that
the main idea of the facade design is to increase the glazing towards the top of the buildings. This is because the top floors offer a view of the adjacent green areas and picturesque clay ponds, which are the most characteristic element of the landscape. The top floors have therefore been almost entirely glazed. Thanks to this assumption, an abstract composition of windows was created, further enhanced by the creation of slanted elements of the facade, which gave additional opportunities to enrich the composition. The skin of the building was envisaged as aluminum panels of smooth and embossed sheet metal on the slants and the entrance to the building.
Castor and Pollux office buildings, Kopanina Street, Poznan - designed by Easst Architects, east elevation - Łukasz Sterzyński / Marcin Sucharski
Photo: Przemyslaw Turlej © Easst Architects
municipal must equal!
Three new office buildings from Easst Archite cts are successful, but are they able to influence further changes in the amorphous neighborhood? Much depends on individual decisions by landowners, but also on the City, which should begin work on a master plan for the area lying north of Kopanina Street. For now, only efforts are underway to change the carve-out of the existing plan next to the Quartz Office building. Two years ago, the owner of the neighboring plot wanted to build apartments there under the so-called Lex Developer procedure . He was unsuccessful, so things are proceeding along the usual course.
Castor and Pollux office buildings, Kopanina Street, Poznań, view from the south from Klinkierowa Street - designed by Easst Architects - Łukasz Sterzyński / Marcin Sucharski
photo: Jakub Głaz
The new office buildings are, for the time being, thrown into a space that is completely alien to them, lacking services for their employees(the garden of the Castor's ground-floorfood court is currently squeezed between the building and the concrete fence of the property).
Castor and Pollux office buildings, Kopanina Street, catering garden, Poznań - designed by Easst Architects - Łukasz Sterzyński / Marcin Sucharski
photo: Jakub Glaz
It also raises questions. Is this the right space for an office development and of this scale? What if no new valuable buildings appear in the neighborhood? Then Quartz, Castor and Pollux will be, as they are today,a startling contrast to the old farms, workshops, warehouses and - in the first place - the residential barracks standing right next door . The latter, being the responsibility of the Board of Communal Housing Resources, are to finally make way for new communal buildings. Poznań has been building more and more of them lately, and gradually increasing the quality of this residential architecture. In the case of Kopanina, however, there is no information on dates so far, and no designs have yet been shown. It remains to be hoped, therefore, that they will match the standard brought to Kopanina by Easst Architects.
