Student participiants:
Zofia Krupa, Katarzyna Brągiel, Agata Kotlicka, Paula Riechardt, Carla Riechardt, Lazar Karpachev, Tobiasz Obrębski, Wojciech Smyczek, Paweł Mytnik
Location: The Ugory social welfare home
The Ugory Social Welfare Home’s operations are aimed at assisting seniors. The home provides care to people who require 24-hour supervision due to age or physical disability. The home assists seniors in basic life activities, daily care and running errands.
The home is occupied by 136 residents. The facility can house 116 elderly people, and 20 individuals with a physical disability. More than half of the residents require constant nursing care, as their health condition makes it impossible for them to function independently. About 30 of the residents are active and move independently, half of them only in wheelchairs. Another 30 residents leave their rooms only with the assistance of caregivers.
The ugory social welfare home is located in the buffer zone of the Szelągowski Park. The buildings are located among a old-growth trees. The facility is a complex of two residential buildings and an extensive garden part with three front wedges of greenery with flower beds, a recreational garden and a vast park landscape. The complex is closed and fenced off.
The architectural plan is dominated by the wish to encompass the building complex into the surrounding natural elements, especially the rather steeply descending Warta river valley and the historic old-growth trees. The steep slope towards the river provides a good microclimate. The surroundings of the Veteran’s Home are also decorated with park furniture such as the gazebo and stairs.
The main building, known as the Veteran’s Home, was designed by a team of Poznań architects associated with Miastoprojekt. The building was commissioned in 1972.
NEEDS
An important element which hinders the free activity of residents is the lack of a well-thought-out arrangement of furniture adapted to the needs of seniors and occupational therapy, as well as the lack of awnings or pergolas which would reduce sunlight. As a result of consultations with the Residents Council and the therapist, the idea of developing the terrace space through useful multifunctional furniture was born.It is worth considering to build pieces of small useful furniture, such as tables, shelves adapted for people in wheelchairs and those walking, so that seniors who spend time here outside the workshops have a place to put tea or put away a book. All elements of useful furniture should be next to the building’s facade and be integrated into it. It is important because many people have visual impairment and it is important not to disturb the communication route. Fixed elements could be supplemented with mobile workshop furniture, such as tables, which would be set up for workshops and events on the terrace.
FINAL RESULTS
BENNNNNNNNNNNNCH – is a modular bench project designed for the terrace – the space that is often used by resort residents for spending free time.
Key to the project was to fit in the modernistic facade of the building. Except for the pillars and window recesses, an important aspect of the design was the covering of the air conditioning. Group decided to design modules, rather than one long bench, that would fit perfectly into the space.
As the terrace is a part of the communication between the garden and welfare home, designers decided to leave most place of it for people with disabilities. Some desigined modules are movabe so it is easy to create seperate spaces for guests or workshops.
Tutor: ConstructLab/ Mascha Feshe and Marius Busch
Architects from Germany
ConstructLab is the description of a collaborative construction practice, working on both ephemeral and permanent projects. Unlike the conventional architectural process, in which the architect designs and the builder builds, in constructLab, the project’s conception and construction are brought together. The designer builds and continues to design on site. The construction site is no longer the place of uncertainty where the design contends with reality, but the context in which the project can be enriched by the unexpected opportunities that occur on site. The designers-builders bring the site to life through their permanent presence, generating new dynamics between people and allowing them to integrate other participants. This synergy results in a collective work, and gives the building site a sense of place. The idea behind constructLab’s practice is also to rediscover a constructive intelligence in materials themselves, to design at the same time as we handle the material. In foreground are low-tech and simplicity. It is not about technical prowess, but rather finding a common sense approach whose building techniques can be appropriated and used by everyone. ConstructLab is more about the approach to, rather than the method of, building. ConstructLab’s work integrates environmental awareness from conception to realisation. Projects are made with recycled materials or for temporary projects designed and built with future re-use of the raw materials in mind. Throughout its projects, constructLab binds the creative and the practical, thinking and making, and sets the project within a social, environmental and temporal context