Łęgajny Garden | Low-density housing  

Ogród Łęgajny sits on six adjoining plots in the village of Łęgajny, twelve kilometres from the centre of Olsztyn in the Warmian-Masurian region. Across 4,972 square metres, FAAB has placed ten buildings holding twenty-one dwellings, a service unit and a shared community building, together with 2,723 square metres of residential floor area and 185 square metres of service space. The buildings are deliberately unequal. The dwellings vary in size. Most are provided with a study, a designated room that makes working from home possible. The intention is a settlement that can be owned unit by unit by individual purchasers, or held whole by a single owner and let, without the architecture having to change to suit either model.

The interior of the settlement is free of vehicle traffic. Ten parking spaces are provided at ground level, six beside the housing and four beside the community area, and twenty in a collective garage and in individual garages. A bus stop is planned at the corner of the site. What remains is a continuous landscape rather than a series of fenced parcels. The dwellings are provided with dedicated gardens, and the remainder of the site is publicly accessible. Pedestrian routes run at two levels. At ground level they cover the whole site and connect every entrance. A raised walkway links the buildings directly at first-floor level. The upper dwellings are reached from it without recourse to the internal staircase, so a study used as a professional practice can receive visitors of its own. The private terraces attached to the dwellings and the terraces in the semi-private space are laid in birch board. Sheltered bicycle parking is provided at ground level. Together these form a small urban unit, in which dwelling, work, services and shared space sit within a short walk of one another.

Each dwelling has a winter garden on its south façade, and holding that rule across twenty-one units of unequal size is what turns the footprints polygonal and sets each building at its own angle to its neighbour. The south-facing roof pitches are planted with grass. The roof is laid in the same warm sand-coloured brick as the walls. Wall and roof become one continuous surface, carried from the ground to the ridge without a break, so each building reads as a single piece of masonry. Glazed green brick marks the reveals at every entrance. A small service component can house medical, care and activity functions, which makes the settlement well suited to older residents in the senior housing formula. The service unit sits at ground level, facing the street, and the shared building holds a multifunction hall on each of its three levels, together with a sauna. The car-free interior, with space for short walks and time spent outdoors, serves them and families with young children equally.