BÓŻNICZA

The office building at Bóżnicza/Małe Garbary Streets is a seven-story structure with units intended for sale. It was constructed on a small 340 m² plot under challenging geotechnical conditions. The usable floor area is 1,236 m². Due to the limited size of the plot, parking spaces required an automated system with lift platforms.

The building occupies the last corner of a city block, which for many years represented (and still represents) a significant gap in the downtown fabric. The context allowed the building to open only in two directions. Given the plot size and the need to maximize usable floor space, shaping the building form itself was difficult. In accordance with the development conditions, 85% of the plot was built upon, “pushing” the building volume to its limits without the possibility of reducing it in any area.

The façade is the result of exploring divisions and fragmentation characteristic of historic architecture. We did not want to use the typical division into a base, main body, cornice, and roof section. Instead, we sought a strong articulation, fragmentation, detailing, and ornamentation specific to tenement houses, reinterpreted in a contemporary form. The result is a building with simple geometric divisions.

The modularity of the façade divisions reflects the interior layout—small offices starting at 20 m². The second “skin,” composed of aluminum frames with a passive sun-shading system, is stiffened by a system of rod tie-bars, which introduce additional directions into the horizontal and vertical frame arrangement.