Student participiants:
Aleksandra Stasica, Weronika Remisz, Paulina Kwiatkowska, Hannah Emily Gerules, Julian Söller, Yannick Möbius, Jagoda Owsianna, Szymon Kuś,
Jacek Grzegrzółka
support: Wojciech Jenerowicz
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. There are three green wedges in the Social Welfare Home, each of them has different functions and is used differently by the seniors. The green wedge on the front, with flower beds, plays a decorative role. Seniors spend their free time on the benches in front of the building and integrate. The extensive park garden serves several functions. Seniors can use the garden until 5 p.m. Access to the park garden is via the terrace. Festivities and integration events take place in this space in the barbecue area under the linden tree. The ground in this area is paved. For the time of festivities, tables and tents are set up to protect against the sun. Up to 60 people take part in outdoor events. There are two recreational zones set up nearby on the grass. One serves as a football field, the other is a space used during various types of sports competitions. Here, seniors also play boules.
FINAL RESULTS
The project for|rest caters to the different needs of the residents and their visitors. Project gives its users the opportunity to subjectively experience the garden space in different ways and through this caters to a spectrum of requirements. It can for example be used as a viewing spot for the sports tournaments taking place on the neighbouring lawn, a space for meetings, or a spot to enjoy nature of the garden. Project forIrest is based on a grid. The structure functions through a modular system, with each square of the grid resembling a 2×2 meters module. The nine 2×2 meters modules function as a pergola structure and varry in height. With the same construction method as the roof, benches are added in between the pillars to give structure and open up different spaces. Through the addition of these nine modules the effect of a forest with a layered tree roof becomes visible. The irregular roof construction imitates the shadows cast by a tree: depending on the position of the module in the grid there are parts of the roof with more and spots with fewer shading elements. In the future the image of a constructed forest will be enhanced further by the climbing plants growing at the base of the pillars.
Tutor: SUPERGUT studio/ Łukasz Smolarczyk and Katarzyna Furgalińska
Architects from Poland
SUPERGUT STUDIO is a design team from Katowice, created by architects Katarzyna Furgalińska and Łukasz Smolarczyk. Operating at various scales and at the meeting of different design disciplines, they refer to urban topics to a large extent. Exploring peripheries of classically understood architecture and urban planning, they also develop projects in the field of visual information, spatial installation, furniture and product.