Villages of the Future: Rethinking How Poland Lives
In Poland, innovative urban planning projects that may pave the way for the design of the future have been implemented outside large metropolitan areas. The countryside is ahead of the curve.
In 2013, the construction began of Poland’s first ever eco-friendly town, offering the inhabitants exceptionally healthy and comfortable living conditions. Located 20 minutes away from Katowice and 50 minutes away from Kraków, the district of Siewierz-Jeziorna has been meticulously planned according to the well-known but, in Poland, rarely implemented premises of the so-called New Urbanism. The concept, developed in the USA around the late 1970s and early 1980s, was meant to remedy the detrimental consequences of the urban sprawl and of modernism’s organising of space, radical and inhospitable to people.
The theorists of New Urbanism called not only for the return to the traditional frontage layout and human-scale buildings but, first and foremost, for constructing small, self-sufficient settlements wherein it would only take a stroll to run most of one’s daily errands. According to these guidelines, towns and estates were to be planned around a public square or plaza and include, within a small area, all the facilities necessary for the fulfilment of basic social and economic needs (schools, kindergartens, and stores, but also community centres and local offices). In such estates, built spaces ought to be complemented with large swathes of greenery as well as recreational and sports facilities.
An exceptionally large number of towns planned according to the rules of New Urbanism emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in Florida, but these ideas gained some traction across the world. In Europe, for instance, they inspired building projects in France, Great Britain, and Sweden. One of the Polish designers implementing the ideas of New Urbanism in their work is Maciej Mycielski, the founder of the Mycielski Architecture & Urbanism (MAU) studio. An architect and urban planner, Mycielski gained professional experience in the Duanay Plater-Zyberk & Co. studio in Miami, whose founders, Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, are considered the most important figures for the development of New Urbanism.
An anti-modernist estate
The Siewierz-Jeziorna housing estate, photo: Dawid Chalimoniuk / AG
And it’s the Mycielski Architecture & Urbanism (MAU) studio that’s responsible for designing the Siewierz-Jeziorna estate. The first ideas for the town started to emerge as early as in 2007. They were shaped based on the outcome of a series of workshops, during which various groups of people (from the future inhabitants through developers to local officials) were developing a common vision for the land development plan. Siewierz-Jeziorna will occupy an area of 120 hectares and eventually be inhabited by 10,000 people. Developers could only obtain the right to build once a detailed urban plan had been prepared, along with the guidelines regarding the scale of buildings and their functions. The initiators and designers of the Siewierz-Jeziorna estate write:
Cities, especially the largest ones, play a key role in the social and economic development of countries and regions; however, they also contribute to destruction of the natural environment and to the deterioration of the inhabitants’ health and quality of life. That’s why urban planners, economists, and experts on environmental protection – but also inhabitants, governments, and investors – seek new solutions for human habitation that’ll be economically efficient, limit the environmental footprint, and support the local community.
The premise of their project is the construction of a sustainable estate – meaning hospitable, offering comfort and security as well as a space conducive to the establishment of social bonds and the building of a local community. The town’s location on a hill also works to the benefit of the future dwellers, since it means that the estate won’t be impacted by smog. Furthermore, the proximity of the Przeczyce-Siewierz reservoir provides recreational opportunities.
Innovations for the times of crisis
Town hall, Zielone Wzgórza, Murowana Goślina, designed by Tomasz Durniewicz, photo: Tomasz Kamiński / AG
Siewierz-Jeziorna is being built as of now. According to the project, the estate is meant to encompass single-family homes and low multi-family buildings. The small, human scale of the buildings is one of the key premises of New Urbanism, placing it in opposition to the dehumanised, overlarge, and monotonous masses of modernist estates. Before American urban planners outlined the theoretical principles of New Urbanism, architects who acknowledged the shortcomings of modernism had sought ideas for a new kind of residential buildings on their own accord. In 1983, a team led by Jerzy Buszkiewicz designed the Zielone Wzgórza [‘Green Hills’] in the town of Murowana Goślina near Poznań.
It’s a residential complex whose layout resembles a small town, with shops, schools, and all sorts of necessary infrastructure within walking distance. The heart of the estate comprises a public square surrounded by arcaded tenement houses, with the central point constituted by a building resembling a Renaissance town hall with a tall tower. Although raised contemporarily, the small, multi-family houses boast historicising architectural elements and details, such as columns, bay windows, turrets, and high mansard roofs.
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Siechnice Municipality, 2012, Town Hall, design by Maćków Pracownia Projektowa, Zbigniew Maćków (lead architect), photo by Daniel Rumiancew, Maciej Lulko.
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While in the 1980s the return to small-scale forms inspired by the past could be justified by the desire to recover from the prefabricated large-slab block estates, nowadays such solutions are meant first and foremost to improve people’s living conditions. On top of that, they are an expression of respect for the environment. The Silo housing estate, being designed as of now by the Horizone Studio and meant to be erected on the land of the former cement plant in Jaworzno, will be an eco-friendly settlement for almost 5,000 inhabitants. According to the architects, the energy-efficient, multi-storey residential buildings are an equally important element of the project as the numerous public spaces, recreational facilities, and green areas.
In recent years, many innovative urban planning solutions have been implemented in Siechnice near Wrocław – what made a significant difference for the town’s functioning was the construction of a public square with a town hall and a local market, which became the main meeting place for the locals. The ideas behind New Urbanism can also be glimpsed on some estates designed as a part of the government programme Mieszkanie Plus [‘Apartment Plus’, a government programme implemented in the years 2016–2023 and meant to support the construction of apartments for rent at a moderate price]. Nowe Jeziorki, to be erected in the southern outskirts of Warsaw, is supposed to be integrated with the railway line ensuring easy commute to the city; however, the estate itself is to offer all the facilities necessary for everyday life.
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Life in the urban areas – polluted, overcrowded, and paralysed by traffic – has become increasingly difficult. For years, we’ve been aware that we need new ideas for residential estates, innovative concepts ensuring healthy, comfortable, and secure living. Less popular solutions are easier to implement on a small scale, in the outskirts and the countryside, where it’s possible to experiment or simply to introduce urban planning concepts that depart from the commonly held standard. Thus it’s worth staying tuned on the new developments in the Polish rural and suburban areas. Who knows, maybe what emerges there are cities – excuse me, villages of the future.
Translated from Polish by Anna Potoczny
