First Prize in the Architectural and Urban Planning Competition
The project entitled “New Technologies District – Katowice Gaming and Technology Hub” includes the adaptation and revitalization of existing buildings of the KWK “WIECZOREK” mine, which closed in 2018, to serve as a gaming and technology hub, as well as the development of adjacent areas, including road solutions for Szopienicka Street.
The estimated cost of the project is over PLN 200 million, and its usable area is approximately 24,000 m².
Below is an excerpt from the competition idea.
1. IDEA
The complex of buildings of the former Giesche – KWK Wieczorek mine, built in the 19th century, is a unique example of an industrial-era mine from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, due to its existing industrial brick architecture and state of preservation without significant alterations. The design solutions adopted in our project aim to preserve the historic complex without any structural alterations or changes to spatial relationships, while simultaneously revitalizing it functionally. Adapting the facilities of the former, disused coal mine to the contemporary needs defined by the terms of the competition requires transformations that ensure appropriate functional and spatial connections. To this end, a two-level passageway was designed as a public space. The lower level of this passageway unites all the facilities and buildings functionally and spatially, creating a representative hall with a modern, minimalist interior that further enhances the beauty of the historic brick buildings. The upper level of the passageway is planned as a park-like public space with a rich program of public spaces in the form of squares and paths nestled among greenery. Urban spaces – patios, convenient ramps, outdoor stairs, and skylights – were incorporated to create spatial connections and provide adequate lighting for the lower level of the passageway. The design was designed to ensure timelessness and functional versatility, as well as the possibility of easy functional adaptations of the entire building complex, so that the completed “Katowice Gaming and Technology HUB” could simultaneously serve other service functions, such as congress, conference, cultural, exhibition and event, retail, and office space.
THE WORLD OF THE METAVERSE AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES VERSUS HISTORIC 19TH/20TH CENTURY INDUSTRIAL ARCHITECTURE, LANDSCAPE GARDENS, FLOWER MEADOWS, CASCADS AND WATER MIRRORS
The world of the Metaverse, avatar contacts, digital games, and films will develop at an unprecedented pace. The more pervasive the digital parallel world becomes, the more it will need the real world of material culture, material continuity, the history of civilization, the natural landscape, animate and inanimate nature and its elements: water, fire, and air. The Metaverse will constantly need a parallel real world, just as light needs darkness and music needs silence to exist. The Metaverse will need the real world with its historical and cultural continuity, just as an artist’s imagination needs cultural memory and the layered cultural codes formed over millennia. It needs them to be able to create, either in relation to them or in negation of them.
The metaverse will also need the world of animate and inanimate nature, which, along with the physical existence of humans and their capacity for abstract thought and higher emotions, is the natural space of reference and inspiration for the metaverse.
THEREFORE, THE DISTRICT OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES – THE KATOWICE GAMING AND TECHNOLOGY HUB IS BUILT FROM THESE SEVERAL BASIC, TIMELESS LAYERS AND MATERIALS:
· THE HISTORICAL INDUSTRIAL ARCHITECTURE OF SILESIA IN THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES,
· THE REGION’S TRADITION AND ITS CULTURAL LANDSCAPE,
· LIVING AND INLIVING NATURE, CONTEMPLATIVE LANDSCAPE GARDENS, SOCIAL GARDENS, AND COGNITIVE AND COGNITIVE GARDENS, THE ELEMENTS OF WATER, AIR, FIRE, FLORA, AND FAUNA. · CONTEMPORARY MINIMALIST AND FUNCTIONALIST ARCHITECTURE, BUT CARRYING WITHIN ITSELF SYMBOLIC AND CULTURAL ELEMENTS.
· ABSTRACT ART, UNDERSTOOD AS A SYNTHESIS OF EXPERIENCES, EMOTIONS, EXPERIENCES, AND DESIRES EXISTING IN THE STREAM OF MEMORY SPACE AND THE THREADS OF INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE HISTORY.
· TECHNICAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE, EVOLUTIONARY AND DEVELOPABLE WITHOUT PHYSICAL OR STRUCTURAL LIMITATIONS, ENSURING THE FEASIBILITY OF THE ENTIRE PROJECT.
Thus:
· HUB AND HISTORIC SILESIAN INDUSTRIAL ARCHITECTURE OF THE 19TH/20TH CENTURIES;
The preserved historic mine complex, designed by the outstanding architects Emil and Georg Zillmann from Charlottenburg, will undergo meticulous restoration and conservation. The early modernist architecture, with Art Nouveau and eclectic elements, will be rigorously and completely preserved in its original form and will remain the sole and main spatial framework of the project. The buildings and all their details, including brick, stone, steel, and cast iron elements, glazed tile cladding, green and cream glazed or glazed brick masonry and details, copper roofs and sheet metal work, plain tile roofing, joinery, metalwork, walls, and floors in their original materials, preserved machinery, such as the unique electric hoisting machine from the early 20th century and others, the steel structures of the hoisting tower with its mechanisms, etc., will be painstakingly restored, without exception, using contemporary conservation techniques and current conservation procedures. The main goal is to preserve and meticulously recreate the original architectural and historical Genius Loci of this site.
• The historic industrial architecture of the “Giesche” and “Gieczorek” mines and its layout in the area. We integrate separate buildings into a functionally coherent HUB space; we achieve this through a minimalist lower garden – a landscape passage arranged below ground level and illuminated by daylight through regularly adjacent courtyards – light tunnels recessed in the ground,
• We are integrating all eight (plus the shelter) remote mine buildings into a functional whole, without constructing any new contemporary structures or structures above ground, so as not to disrupt the revitalization of the historic landscape, view, and layout of 19th- and 20th-century mine architecture.
• Following the example of such emblematic projects as the integration of the Louvre Museum in Paris, and utilizing the symbolism of underground mine connections, all basic functional and utilitarian relationships and connections between the mine buildings take place at the level of the lower passage – a landscape garden generously illuminated by zenithal natural light and side light from the courtyards – thematic tunnels.
• The architecture of the garden – a landscape passage arranged below ground level – is minimalist and abstract in form.
We will also encounter deliberately placed cultural and historical metaphors of Silesia.
The materials used: architectural reinforced concrete, stained with a glaze and wax finish, rolled steel, rust-resistant or varnished in its natural color, glass in double-glazed units on the exterior or laminated, glued, safe for interior use, iron-free and highly transparent, local stone from Silesian quarries, and ceramics or glazed brick create a post-industrial, natural range of textures, including semantic ones.
The Data Center building, although built at a distance from the mine complex, is also minimalist and abstract in form. It uses the same materials as the landscape passage below ground level. All new, contemporary-designed and added elements are generally restrained and as visually and formally neutral as possible. This principle allows for the appropriate appreciation of the historical, historic architecture and its spirit. New functions and uses do not result in any significant changes to this historical and culturally autonomous space. Garden architecture – landscape passage at ground level.
The integration of the mine buildings also takes place at the natural level. The historical buildings scattered throughout the area are connected and integrated through the gardens and landscape.
The garden spaces, through which we move from building to building and in any direction within the HUB, are thematic. We designed them as separate worlds, as follows:
– contemplative gardens,
– community gardens, where herbs, flowers, fruits, and vegetables are cultivated,
– cognitive gardens; Cognitive and educational, thematic and scientific games and activities, as well as outdoor and skill games,
– Water gardens, onomatopoeic cascades and water surfaces
– Walking paths are located throughout the area for two types and uses:
– as contemplative paths for any meditative and contemplative walks, recreational activities, and creative, problem-solving conversations
– as fast travel paths, straight from point to point and accessible
for pedestrians, scooters, electric unicycles, etc.