Services

A headquarters has two jobs at once: to serve daily work and to say something about the organisation inside it. The headquarters of PGE Górnictwo i Energetyka Konwencjonalna in Bełchatów followed first prize in a closed nationwide competition. The client is the largest electricity generator in Poland, employing 17,000 people. In a building of 8,230 m² for 230 staff, we combined office floors with a conference suite, a canteen and a document digitisation centre. The form was drawn from the client’s fields of activity rather than from a catalogue of office solutions. Siting was a design decision too: placed at the edge of a residential district, the building became the first element of a local service centre and shaped the frontage of a new public square, while allowing staff living nearby to give up their daily commute.

Non-profit organisations and public institutions build rarely and carefully, and often on a site that is not empty. We delivered the 2,180 m² headquarters of the Foundation for Polish Science by converting and extending a residential building from 1933 that had been badly damaged during the Second World War and was originally scheduled for demolition. Foundations, floor slabs and load-bearing walls had to be strengthened, and the makeshift post-war infill replaced. At the same time we kept what was worth keeping: the cantilevered green terrazzo steps and the landings finished in small through-coloured tiles were restored, and the original brass rosettes were worked into the design of the new balustrade. The project followed first prize in an open architectural competition.

The interior of a government department has to reconcile institutional gravity with accessibility for citizens. At the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy on Nowogrodzka in Warsaw we refurbished the ground floor, mezzanine, basement level and part of the elevation, 1,357 m² in total. The entrance hall and arcade flow into a foyer serving three conference rooms, and the sense of openness is built by spaces opening into one another rather than by decoration alone. The work also removed barriers that had made the ministry difficult to enter for people with reduced mobility, and made the main entrance legible.

A large share of office projects involve buildings that cannot be taken out of use. At the Ministry of Labour, the double-height entrance hall, foyer and conference rooms required removing substantial areas of existing floor slabs in a building that continued to operate normally throughout. We plan work of this kind around sequencing, working zones and continuity of the institution’s daily business, because here the programme of works is part of the design rather than a consequence of it.

We treat access to daylight as a design parameter rather than a by-product of the floor plan. At PGE, close to 92% of the internal floor area has access to daylight, including stairs, corridors, print rooms, staff kitchens and lavatories. At the Foundation for Polish Science, an atrium cut through every above-ground storey lights 96% of their area, and rooflights bring daylight into the whole of the underground car park. In both cases the approach also serves the energy balance: in Bełchatów we specified fittings with daylight sensors that adjust artificial light to conditions outside.

The elevation of the Foundation for Polish Science headquarters carries the first external vertical garden in this part of Europe, 260 m² planted with 17,000 plants set into a modular substrate. It is irrigated with rainwater collected from the roof and impermeable surfaces into a retention tank, which removes the need to discharge grey water into the municipal network. At PGE, planting is irrigated with rainwater held in an underground tank, and the water in the pool at the heart of the square is treated using a process that requires minimal chemical input.

On publicly funded projects, durability matters as much as construction cost. At the Ministry of Labour we worked to the assumption that the building would pass the standard fifteen-year service life without refurbishment and in good condition. We specified materials that resist wear and can be refreshed while the building remains in use, and chose simple geometry and forms intended to remain legible and current well beyond that period.

Our office projects have been recognised in national and international competitions and published in the professional press in Poland and abroad.

2013 Second prize, Building of the Year, ArchDaily, PGE Headquarters

2010 First prize, closed nationwide competition, PGE Headquarters

2009 First prize, open architectural competition, Foundation for Polish Science headquarters