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Our joint work with architects Pawel Halaburdzin, Krzysztof Urbaniak
and Engineer Zenon Stachowski won
the first place in International Urban Planning & Architectural Competition for Land and Urban Development Conceptual Design of the City Centre of Gorzów Wielkopolski - Poland.
211 teams had been qualified to take part in the competition, among which 50 entry works have been submitted for the competition.
Honorary patronage over the competition was supervised by Infrastructure Minister - Cezary Grabarczyk
The authors:
arch. Adam Beim
arch. Pawel Halaburdzin
arch. Pawel Kobylanski
arch. Jan Liszkowski
arch. Krzysztof Urbaniak
The author of the transportation solutions:
mgr inz. Zenon Stachowski
Cooperation:
stud. arch. Martyna Bulinska
inz. arch. Michal Marchewicz
Please visit also the competition web page: http://www.gorzow.sarp.org.pl/index_en.php
BOARDS
Board 1 (3,7 MB) >> Board 2 (1MB) >> Board 3 (4MB) >> Board 4 (1,1MB) >>
VIDEO
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For better understanding of city organism, a similarity to a human body can be brought about. Like any living thing, a city may suffer from various diseases, some of which can be sometimes cured only by major surgery, like it occurred in the case of Paris of the XIXth century. But there is more to city, then just its material element. One must not forget about its unique spiritual qualities and emotional values, often referred to as: urban magic.
Before finding a relevant solution, one must identify and analyze problems at first hand. Moreover, in case of a city the analysis should be of a dynamic nature and relate not just to the status quo, but also to an ongoing process of urban transformation. In case of Gorzów, the results of such analysis have raised our anxiety, as we have found that the city is suffering from a number of diseases, such as negative demographic factor, oppressively dense traffic crossing the central area and overall spatial chaos - resulting in an impression of a city seeking its identity, but all in vain.
That status quo derives from the history of Gorzów which developed over 7 centuries, surviving through better and worse times, just like most of the other Central European towns, until it was wiped out by the Red Army in the last days of the World War II. Before that it had been regarded as a wealthy, fairly well planned, mid-size town in the eastern part of Germany, with numerous parks and gardens. After the war Gorzów became a Polish city and was quickly reconstructed from the rubble.
Unfortunately, the reconstruction was as fast, as schematic and the city never restored its original quality. Shortly after the war the city suffered the uncertainty syndrome and not before Polish-German border treaty of late sixties has been signed a really rapid growth would occur. That was further propelled by the national administration reform of 1975, when Gorzów became an administrative district capital. Subsequently to the following reform of 1997 Gorzów began to share that status with the city of Zielona Góra and its population began to shrink.
Today Gorzów appears to be losing in the competition with proximate larger cities of Szczecin and Poznan. And yet, that mid size city, picturesquely located on the hills surrounding Warta River Valley might have every good chance to become a most attractive habitat, labour place and playground to its citizens, a real home nest, to which one would always like to return, from whatever distance.
Having completed the analysis phase of the project we began to identify major goals to be achieved and their hierarchy of significance.
The first goal was to create a certain volume of public space in the central area of town, which would stimulate sustainable development of the local community and support its economy. Such space should become a value of its own by providing the city with new, distinctive character and hence becoming the living room for the entire community.
The second objective was to reverse the de-migration trends by proposing a program of complex services, including academic level education in order to encourage the local inhabitants to stay in their hometown for life.
The third goal dealt with the traffic solution to stimulate development of sustainable public transport and reduce volume of car traffic within the city’s central area. That could be achieved by creating a ring road alternative to the present traffic solution.
The fourth goal was to counterbalance the existing Old Town with a newly designed district on the opposite side of the Warta River. The fifth goal was to bring the city closer to the river, and create a clearly defined core of the entire urban re-composition along North-South axis across the existing Old Town Bridge.
While exploring more specific solutions, we have identified and evaluated a number of elements in the urban fabric which we regarded as values to be preserved and developed. These were: The river with the historic Old Town Bridge, Old Market with a gothic Cathedral, historically shaped Old Town layout with remaining fragments of the medieval walls, inner city railway system on a flyover and railway bridge, and last but least, city parks and green complexes.
On the other hand, we have listed elements which in our opinion disturbed the integrity of the urban space, such as: traffic solution allowing heavy traffic through the very centre of town, undefined, demoted space around the junction of the railway flyover and the main road entrance to the Old Town, questionable quality of architecture surrounding the Old Market, neglected left bank part of the city, lacking clarity of urban fabric and overloaded with traffic, non-matching object of the “Info Globe” and strange “stairway to nowhere”.
Having all above in consideration, going step by step and closing circles we have reached a solution of urban renewal and sustainable development. The pivotal elements of the proposed solution are:
- Clarity of urban structure and the city transportation system,
- Protection of city’s centre from dense traffic by creating an efficient ring road system around it,
- Two additional bridge crossings, while the existing Old Town Bridge would change its character and become accessible only to tram, pedestrians and bicycles,
- Defining space of the living room between Old and New markets and overall improvement of the urban fabric quality,
- Continuity of parks, by linking existing greenery complexes with green avenues for pedestrian and bicycle traffic,
- New central district on the left bank of the river with attractive public space and broad variety of functions, from housing to work places, services, leisure and entertainment facilities.
The program of revitalization of the Old Town includes remodelling of buildings surrounding the Old Market, providing new paving for uniformity of space, refurbishment of the Old Town quarters by removing casual and poor quality structures inside semi-private spaces of street blocks and providing green interiors with limited parking possibility instead.
The most essential for the renewal of the Old Town structure is reconstruction of a city block at the “Gate to the City” located on the main axis between the Cathedral and newly designed district on the left bank. We have decided to leave two first floors open in order to provide visual contact between the New and Old Towns. All industry is to be removed from the Old Town area and replaced with housing, services and car parks for Park’n’Ride system. The space on both sides of the railway flyover is to be integrated and brought to uniform standard of quality, to form a promenade along the river. The river within the city limits to be utilized for various forms of water activities and inland water navigation. The traditional city functions to be supported by newly invented facilities, such as all season Civic Centre, loft offices in remodelled old cereal warehouse and Spa Centre. On the top of the stairs to nowhere a tower with a restaurant featuring panoramic overview on the city has been proposed.
The newly planned, left bank central district has been planned to create a nearly self-sufficient urban structure, offering a full variety of opportunities. The existing roundabout to be liquidated, while traffic on the Old Town Bridge to be limited to tram, pedestrian and bicycle passages. Instead, a partially submersed river side driveway has been allowed to provide road link between two newly planned bridges. The entrance to the new central district has been provided through a pedestrian street similar in nature to Copenhagen’s Strřget. The newly planned district has been meant to provide a high standard of living in an attractive, sustainable urban environment, with a rich offer of comprehensive, multi-level services and job opportunities, while old style industry is to be replaced with modern facilities located in the special economical zone, the Business Park.
In order to propose an integrated solution of urban renewal and development together with a system of sustainable city transport and traffic organization we have worked hand in hand with a traffic engineer from the Day One. Having analysed the status quo we found that Gorzów had one of the highest automobile ownership factors in Poland, reaching 515 cars per 1000 inhabitants. That results in 11,500 of passages per peak hour with visible growth inclination, while use of public transport has declined by 20% in the last five years.
The planned development of the left bank would result in 4,500 passages through the river in a peak hour, which brings the need of construction of another two bridges. The proposed model in based on a ring road “framework” around the central zone (both Old and New Towns) while the internal traffic would be limited with large preference for public transport, mainly the tram (with the third rail power supply in the historical part), bicycles and pedestrians, while car owners would be encouraged to use Park’n’Ride system. The existing central railway station is to be converted into a multi-modal junction, integrating various means of transport.