Fashion and Design Center. Infill in the historical urban tissue.

Project idea

The main idea was to create an infill, blending in with the nearest, surrounding buildings in the best possible way.
It was designed on Pawia St. in Krakow, in a frontage development among the historical urban tissue. There is a current Local Development Plan for the area, which indicated a mandatory building line.
When shaping the front elevation, the focus was on combining adjacent buildings with different heights of cornices, eaves, ridges or characteristic divisions. Height of the building is 24 meters. It is maximum height according to local development plan. Division into floors based on cornices and characteristic lines on the facades of adjacent buildings.
The object, after the analyses, develops and improves the spatial characteristics of the place it is located, i.e. the historical center of Cracow.
It is also an attempt to answer the question of how to shape new elevations in historic street frontages.

Project description

The subject of this work is a commercial building with an exhibition and educational function related to fashion and design.
The building is designed following the principle of universal design and is intended for users from all age and social groups, including those with disabilities.
The shape of the plan was also influenced by analyses. Shadow and daylight analyses were made and after daylight analysis the conclusion was that building doesn’t affect access to daylight in adjacent buildings, but after shadow analysis the conclusion was that north-west corner cannot be build.
The facade was designed with 3 types of surfaces. The first is fine ceramic tiles shaped parametrically, another is kinetic panels, opening and closing according to the needs of the users of the individual rooms. The last is fully transparent glazing surrounded by concrete frames. Parts of the front facade were designed parametrically using components and creating an algorithm in Grasshopper software. This allowed for an interesting smooth gradient on the facade
The building is divided into different zones with corresponding functions. Starting from ground floor, there are the main hall with information point, cloak room and shop. On the first floor are workshop areas where people can create fashion and design projects. On the next floors is auditorium for lectures presentations and conferences with two storey foyer, thet could be used as an exhibition area. On the forth floor is also workshop area. It is possibility to adapt this room to runway. The last floor is administration area.
Ecological solution have been used in the building such as rain water recovery from roof and building facades with underground rainwater tank and this water is used as grey water in the building, photovoltaic panels, green roof, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, air source heat pump which is basic source of heating and heat the water.

Technical information

The building is fully made of reinforced concrete technology. Additionally waterproof reinforced concrete was used underground. Due to its location in downtown frontage, it was necessary to design the securing excavation. Firstly a palisade was designed and neatly waterproof concrete technology was used. This allowed for the construction of the building on the densely build-up urban tissue.
The front elevation is a fully structural glazing covered by different types of panels.

Documentation

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