SELF-SUMMARY

1. Name and surname

Mariusz Twardowski

2. Diplomas, academic/artistic degrees - including name, place and year of obtainment

and the title of doctoral dissertation

2.1 The degree of magister inżynier architekt

Blok zabudowy miejskiej: ul. Łobzowska - Aleje Słowackiego w Krakowie

supervisor: dr hab. inż. arch. Dariusz Kozłowski, prof. PK

reviewer: dr hab. inż. arch. Zofia Nowakowska, prof. PK

Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology, 8th of November

1994

graduated with honours

2.2 The degree of doktor nauk technicznych

Kwartał zabudowy mieszkaniowej jako model współczesnej przestrzeni miejskiej

prof. dr hab. inż. arch. Dariusz Kozłowski

reviewer: dr hab. inż. arch. Jacek Gyurkovich, prof. PK

reviewer: dr hab. inż. arch. Jacek Kenz

Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology, 4th of December

2002

3. Information regarding previous employment with academic/artistic facilities

3.1 Employment with academic facilities

3.11 didactic and academic assistant: March 2003 - March 2005

Chair of Architectural Composition,

Institute of Architectural Design,

Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology

3.12 adjunct: April 2005 - December 2014

Chair of Architectural Composition,

Institute of Architectural Design,

Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology

3.13 adjunct: September 2013-September 2015

Independent Chair of Residential Architecture and Architectural Composition

Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology

3.14 adjunct since 2015

Chair of Urban Composition

Institute of Urban Composition,

Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology

3.2 Employment with artistic/professional entities

3.21 designer, co-owner 1996-2007

Twardowski Wokan Studio Projektowe s.c.

3.22 designer, co-owner since 2007

MTWW Architekci sp. z o.o. sp. k.

4. Identification of the achievement listed in art. 16 section 2 of the Act of the 14th of

March 2003 on Academic Degrees and Scientific Titles, as well as on Degrees and Titles in

the Arts (Dz. U. 2016 pos. 882 with changes in Dz. U. 2016 pos. 1311.):

4.1 title of academic/artistic achievement,

Wieże mieszkalne monograph

b) (author/authors, publication title/titles, publication year, publisher name,

publishing reviewers),

author: Mariusz Twardowski

publication title: Wieże mieszkalne

year of publication: 2017

publisher name: Wydawnictwo Politechniki Krakowskiej

publishing reviewers: prof. dr hab. inż. arch. Andrzej Wyżykowski

dr hab. inż. arch. Anna Januchta-Szostak, prof. nadzw.

c) Presentation of the scientific/artistic goal of the abovementioned work and the

results that have been achieved, along with a description of their potential

implementation

The "Wieże mieszkalne" monograph constitutes a conclusion of many years of research

on the architectural form and shaping of the residential environment. It is a record of

a formal and social phenomenon that are modern residential towers.

The pace and scale of environmental, social and spatial changes in modern cities is

without precedent. Research on this complex phenomenon has exceeded the framework

to which the history of architecture and urban planning has made us accustomed to long

ago. Style has been displaced by the problem of the approaching deficit of energy, space

and natural resources, the degradation of the environment, overpopulation and the

accompanying social tensions.

Towers, including residential towers, are also an important element of the global

economy. The curves of global fiscal policy, the rise and fall of the largest stock indices are

correlated with curves that illustrate data associated with investment in real estate and

infrastructure. David Harvey, in his critique of capitalism stemming from reading Lefebvre,

Marx and Engels constituted solemnly that so far no major attempt has been made to

introduce concepts regarding the process of urbanisation and the shaping of the built

environment to the general theory of the principles and flow of capital. How should we

interpret the city in such a context? "We do not know', answers Harvey with disarming

frankness. People want homes with a garden, but there are already 7,5 billion of us.

The main scientific goal of the study was to prove that a residential tower - with its

originality, individuality of form, fine-tuned indicators of built-up area intensity, its

pluralism of formal solutions, the drive towards uniqueness and the borders of

technological capabilities - is one of the model materialisations of the phenomenon of the

modern city. An analysis of the development of historical forms and a study of modern

cases made it possible to outline tendencies that the buildings of the towers of tomorrow

are either currently following or will be following in the future.

In the multitude of formal means used by designers we can find a number of patterns

and paradigms that allow us to speculate about what the new architecture of tall

residential buildings is and what it should be. The work took on the subject of residential

towers in the context form, function, environment and society against a background of the

history of the development of this architectural form. The most representative examples

of designs and built projects that have been built in the last fifteen years in the largest and

most emblematic of today's metropolises, as well as in cities with a medium and low built-

up area intensity, or in the historical compact cities, in which residential towers

constituted singular urban landmarks, built deliberately and not out of a necessity dictated

by the requirements of the financial market - were selected for the performance of

a detailed critical comparative analysis.

Most of the towers in the cities under analysis feature offices and services. Cairo is an

interesting exception, as service buildings are of low height and the dominating typology

of residential buildings is a skyscraper with over a dozen floors, and the highest buildings

are hotels. On the other hand, in the cities that are developing the fastest in the belt of the

highest increase of built-up area intensity and population density, living in a tower is

a necessity. Hybrid buildings that feature multiple forms of use are not the sole domain of

cities with the highest intensity, like Beijing, Hong Kong or Dubai - the hybrid is the

dominant form in Las Vegas. The most often encountered cases of the dominance of

a residential tower in the skyline of a city are still European cities, mainly those with

a medium or low built-up area intensity, such as Copenhagen, Malmö or Maastricht.

Tall buildings, among them residential towers, regardless of concentration level and

maximum height, exert considerable influence on the skyline of a city. Hand-drawn

panoramas of the cities analysed in the work, viewed from the most representative

viewpoints, constitute a significant supplement of the iconographic material used in the

work. Due to the large differences in the expansiveness of the cities being discussed it was

not possible to adopt a common scale for all the drawings and it was decided to show the

outline of the Eiffel Tower as a reference scale for height, as is often the case with

illustrations showing building height records.

The atlas of modern residential towers that constitutes a part of the work is a study of

cases that illustrate the diversity of forms and design strategies, tendencies, structural and

material solutions, finally - of the context in which a given building had been built. It

includes both qualitative and quantitative data, and every example was presented in

a systemic frame, referring to its surroundings, the history of a city and the context of the

place. An image of a residential tower, in which it is not only a materialisation of the

general idea of the modern city, but also an individualised form, in which the aspects of

a given period and place are focused, emerges from it. The atlas is supplemented by tables

containing lists of qualitative and quantitative indicators.

Modern residential towers are largely mixed-use buildings. The study group was

narrowed down to structures in which residential use had a dominant character. The

temporal scope of the study for the analytical part was limited to the years 2000-2015. In

the case of cities with a larger number of known or interesting projects, those that were

the most representative or original were chosen so that the set of analysed cases would

reflect the spectrum of modern capabilities in shaping the residential environment using

the archetypical form of the tower as much as possible.

The analysis of the selected cases was carried out on multiple levels of scale: from the

detail, through the scale of the structure and its immediate surroundings, to the scale of

the landscape and the scale of the creation of a city. The method of field research that had

been adopted required gaining an in-depth familiarity with the context of the place. When

analysing residential towers in the space of modern cities featuring high, medium and low

intensity, the author decided to focus on the role and meaning of tall and very tall

residential structures that have the archetypical form of a tower - which is determined by

the proportion of the width of the sides to the height - in the shaping of the skyline of a

city: their - not necessarily positive - influence on the socio-creative character of public

and semi-public spaces in a city - the connection between a tower and its surroundings

and the strategies of organising public and semi-public spaces within a building; aesthetic,

technological and functional solutions that have an impact on the quality of life of the

residents, and the limits regarding individual capabilities, the creative statements of the

designers in the context of such demanding projects.

A critical and comparative analysis of cities in combination with an interpretation of the

data shown in tables confirmed that the deciding factor regarding the number, height and

function of towers within the skyline of a city is built-up area intensity and population

density. We can also observe a wavelike character of the dynamic of changes within each

city - from the conservative strategy of European historical cities that avoid changes in the

skylines of cities or New York that readily replaces old towers with new ones through the

building of new structures in place of old ones (Las Vegas and Tokyo), to aggressive

urbanisation in the most populated areas (Hong Kong).

Although the overarching tendency is the construction of mixed-use residential towers,

single-use towers are still being built. The dominant structural system is a concrete

structure, while in areas with seismic activity it is replaced with steel. Modern towers are

mostly freestanding structures as well as towers or complexes of towers that stand on

a common base (for instance that of a parking garage). In some cities, the towers that are

being described are located in entire districts of tall buildings - the towers of Hong Kong

that were described in the work are a part of probably the highest residential city block in

the world. It is surprising that many towers that are built in areas that feature historical

buildings have a tendency to extend beyond the frontage line (e.g. examples from New

York with the exception of 8 Spruce St.).

By comparing the price of a square metre of floor area in the analysed towers it can be

observed that although the design form an quality of construction have some influence on

prices, the price of the plot, location and the average cost of life in a city remain the

deciding factors. This is why - due to the fact that the criterion of form was one of the

criteria of case selection - the work discusses cases of solutions that are spectacular in

terms of form, but not necessarily the most luxurious if we assume that the price of an

apartment is a measure of luxury (e.g. the price of 1 square metre at the Met building in

Bangkok is lower than the average price per square metre in Warsaw).

Public and semi-public spaces that are established inside towers and tower complexes

are an area with much room for opportunity, combining the issues of form, space and

function, including social and socio-creative functions. Meeting places are often being

placed on the higher floors and the roofs of the lower ones are converted into gardens or

even small parks at times. Their functions are can sometimes be taken over by SPA,

wellness and fitness complexes. One important element of the strategy of shaping the

connection between an introvert tower and public space is the careful planning of

entrances and driveways, both in the context of the accessibility of services and spaces

(streets, squares, parks, etc.), as well as transport (subway stations, public transport stops,

driveways, driving routes, etc.). In the cases that were discussed, practically all of the co-

factors: built-up area intensity, plot price, care for the quality of public spaces, etc. - force

the elimination of above-ground parking lots. As far as most towers - provided that

conditions related to the foundation do not rule this out - offer its residents parking places

in underground parking garages, their placement and connection with the public

transportation network, pedestrian walkways and bicycle routes make it possible to

eschew the car in everyday life. A similar flexibility can be seen in residential interiors that

can be shaped in accordance to individual needs.

The final chapter of the work, titled Residential towers of tomorrow, inspired both by

the results of the research, as well as the images provided by mass culture, is the author's

reflection on the directions in which the architecture of modern cities appears to be going

and regarding one of its most expressive elements - residential towers.

As it was underlined in the conclusion of the work, "today, when the cost of a city

sprawling beyond the limits of the capacity of municipal infrastructure is known, it would

be good to look at residential towers not only as a necessity dictated by economic and

demographic conditions, but also as an interesting and rich typology that can offer a high

comfort of living in a time of dwindling resources. And this is not about endeavours that

are as brutal and total as Plan Voisin or the construction of luxurious ghettos on the

outskirts of cities, but to entertaining the possibility that a single tower in the centre can

cause less damage to a compact European city than hectares of gated condominiums that

are not connected to a municipal heating grid, and to which one can only get to with one's

own car".

No Polish-language works devoted to the subject of residential towers in the proposed

perspective were found during the study. The author hopes that the work that explains

the mechanisms that decide about how residential towers take on their final shape and

how this influences the comfort of living of the residents, what spaces are shaped at their

connection to their surroundings and how they change the skyline of a city will be

a significant contribution to research on the phenomenon of modern cities that is being

carried out not only by architects and urbanists, but also by practitioners of similar

disciplines.

5. Description of the remaining academic and research achievements

The fields of academic work strictly correlated with didactic and popularisation work

are concentrated around the following, mutually supplementary subjects:

the shaping of the modern residential environment

architectural composition;

architecture through a lens.

5.1 The shaping of the modern residential environment

The field of the shaping the modern residential environment, within which the

abovementioned monograph is placed, is very familiar to the author in the context of his

academic, design and didactic work. Undertaken already during the author's Masters

studies and continued in his doctoral dissertation about the city block as a model of the

modern city (Krakow, 2002, supervisor: prof. dr hab. inż. arch. Dariusz Kozłowski), it then

found its reflection in scientific publications and conference presentations. Among these

one can mention, among others, Urban Towers. Residence, Work, Joy of Life (in: Hybrid

Urban Structures, Krakow 2016), Stracone szanse: Niezrealizowane założenia

mieszkaniowe w Krakowie (in: Kraków: Wybrane problemy ewolucji struktury miejskiej,

Krakow 2016), Bottom-up: Design na czasy kryzysu (w: Przyszłość miast – miasta

przyszłości, Krakow 2014), Kwartał jutra (in: Dom jutra - osiedle jutra, Krakow 2013),

Linked Hybrid - kwartał miejskie w Pekinie (in: Definiowanie przestrzeni architektonicznej,

Krakow 2009) and Przestrzeń w kształtowaniu obszarów architektonicznych - kwartał

zabudowy mieszkaniowej (in: Definiowanie przestrzeni architektonicznej, Krakow 2003).

In the abovementioned texts that were written over the course of over a decade, we

can see a reflection of not only an evolution of the author's scientific interests, but also

changes that have taken place in the discourse and design tendencies in terms of the

forms of residential buildings. In older publications the echo of the postmodern discourse -

firmly placed in the historical context, focused on the search for a role of the traditional

typology of the built environment in the realities of the second half of the XX century - can

still be felt. The latest ones are focused on problems associated with aggressive

urbanisation, overpopulation, the deepening social inequality and the simultaneous lack of

the ability to establish a common strategy and direction of development, which could

adapt itself to the rapidly changing environment as the architecture of the past did.

In the case of the author, his own design work is a creative research field devoted to

modern residential architecture. It includes both multi-family and single-family buildings.

The phenomena that have taken place in the Polish built environment in terms of

single-family buildings, including the connection between architecture and the open

landscape, can - from the perspective of a quarter-century - hardly be called positive. The

lack of spatial development plans, the uncontrolled or, at any rate, not fully controlled

process of changing the form of use of vast areas of land all over the country from

agricultural and recreational areas to buildable land and the dominant, as statistical data

has shown, share of single-family residential buildings in the entirety of the residential

built environment has irreversibly changed this landscape. The dominance of gable roofs

dictated either by sentiment or a flight from the "Polish cube" does not appear to be the

factor that could ease this situation.

An administrative decision regarding site development conditions issued for a site near

Krakow included the requirement to introduce a gable roof. The site was not covered by

a local spatial development plan, and landscape park regulations did not apply to it. As the

author's studies and analyses proved, the form of the gable roof was not even the

dominant form in the area and did not facilitate a better blending in with the surrounding

buildings than in the case of a different roof shape. One could have gotten the impression

that the regulation regarding the shape of the roof appeared in the decision as if by

default.

The analytical material that had been gathered made it possible to convince not only

the administration to change the decision, but also the developer. The client, who had

initially been very attached to the "classical" vision, had one more condition: building one

more house on the site. The possibility of operating using simple forms with flat roofs

created a much wider field for compositional activity and simultaneously allowed for a less

stereotypical interpretation of the functional programme of a single-family house. All of

the spaces, which are largely the cause of the low intensity of single-family residential

built-up areas: driveways, garages, paths, halls, entry zones - which are effectively

amortised in multi-family buildings - have been grouped within a covered patio. Thus,

instead of only two single-family buildings with individual driveways, enough space was

left on the site for four residential units featuring a full functional programme typical of

single-family houses, with the exclusion of a part of the inconveniences associated with

such prosaic matters like shovelling the snow off the driveway, as well as the intangible

ones like the feeling of safety and supported by the possibility of forming and maintaining

neighbourly relations facilitated by the existence of a common area and its manner of

organisation. Such a solution, although non-standard, appears to be an interesting formal

solution and a sort of micro social experiment that an architect can sometimes propose in

their work - involving changing the way of thinking about how we can live.

The much larger footprint than in the case of a typical single-family residential building

proved to be sufficient to create a common underground parking garage. At the same

time, the broken up and complex form of the above-ground parts, with the simultaneous

rigour of the cuboid form, made it possible to create a form that would not dominate the

neighbourhood and that would not stand out in terms of its size.

The centrally located patio and the attempt at preserving the similarity between each

house made it necessary to introduce some modifications in terms of the orientation of

some rooms in relation to the cardinal directions, however, it never forced making

a mistake in their placement. The cuboid form, within which appropriately sized openings

were featured, made it possible to ensure full comfort of use regardless of layout and to

go beyond the type, or rather even the stereotype of thinking about the residential

environment and single-family buildings.

One of the basic problems in the field of design is making a building blend in with the

surroundings. In the case of a residential city block in Rzeszów (design and construction

2006-2009) there was a complete lack of any reference points, traces and spatial pretexts

apart from a filleted corner of the site forced by the outline of a road, the construction of

which was abandoned in the end. The complicated situation in terms of the land

ownership of the area that was reserved for the construction of the road made it

impossible to merge it with the buildable plot - the city block needed to fill in the filleted

corner. As a consequence, the only guideline was to be the line that outlined an area with

an uncertain status and future.

The first conceptual design featured the construction of two separate buildings: one

that was inscribed into a rectangle and another based on a section of a circle. The officers

who were approving the design forced both forms to be connected, which resulted in

a city block that was much more enclosed and in which the built-up area suddenly went up

by 25%. Breaking up the form into smaller segments was the result of a division in terms of

staircases. The large "box" of the city block was composed of smaller, empty boxes: rooms

which together formed apartments, apartments that combined into floors and floors that

combined into a single segment and of segments that combined to form a city block. This

seemingly simple task was complicated by difficulties associated with providing

appropriate insolation to each apartment. In the end, the living rooms were placed to the

east, west and south and each of them was adjoined by a loggia. In the part inscribed into

a section of a circle, the loggias remained straight lines. Thus the arch of the wall was

visible from the outside but was lost on the inside. The slight deviation from the right

angle in combination with the rectangular balconies elicits the appearance of an

"ordinary" room and does not make it difficult to use.

The great construction skill and quality of the materials that were used made it possible

to achieve the feeling of unity and clarity of each of the cuboid forms that made up the

form of the complexly shaped city block that had been intended in the design. The full

loggias broken up by drainpipes, parapets and railings would become nothing else but an

extended vanguard of the building, so well known to us from the wider residential

landscape, but not a necessary integral - at least not from a compositional point of view -

part of the architectural form. The Rzeszów project is also a voice in the debate on the

subject of colour in multi-family residential architecture. Assuming that apartment

buildings do not need to be neither gray nor pastel-coloured, the composition of the

facade was rounded out by colour. The striking red breaks the strong rhythms established

in three dimensions, at the same time allowing both vertical and horizontal layouts to co-

exist. Two of the author's research fields meet in this design - the shaping of the

residential environment and architectural composition.

5.2 Architectural composition;

The problems of architectural composition and the sources of architectural forms -

found within the scope of interest of every professionally active architect - have, in the

case of the author, found a particular expression in academic publications and

presentations at international scientific conferences, in which he searched for the role of

extra-architectural pretexts for architectural form. Publications that deal with this subject

include: Park Ibirapuera w São Paulo Oscara Niemeyera zbudowany jedną kreską (in:

Czasopismo Techniczne, Krakow 2017), Kobiece kształty architektury: Architektura oczami

Oskara Niemeyera (in: Architektura i nowoczesność, Krakow 2016), Dziedziniec dusz (in:

Definiowanie przestrzeni architektonicznej, Krakow 2010), Smutek i radość w architekturze

(in: Definiowanie przestrzeni architektonicznej, Krakow 2005). An image of the multitude

of sources of inspiration that gave rise to architectural form emerges from them.

Simultaneously to this perspective on the subject, the author performed research on

the cuboid form as a building block of architectural form, strictly correlated with academic

and didactic activity carried out at the Chair of Architectural Composition of the FoA CUT

(2003-2013) as well as at the Chair of Residential Architecture and Architectural

Composition of the FoA CUT (2013-2015), first at the post of assistant and then as an

adjunct. These interests have found their reflection in numerous architectural designs by

the author, including the built "Lamusownia" Collective Refuse Gathering Site (2008-2011).

The design of the "Lamusownia" in Krakow, due to its form of use and its location in the

vicinity from the city centre, was faced with certain stereotypes in terms of thinking. Due

to functional reasons, the unloading ramp and the refuse containers needed to be an

integral part of the design, yet the entire complex could not be associated with waste,

otherwise the social experiment that was to encourage residents to a more

environmentally friendly and deliberate approach to the problem of recycling and waste in

general, was at risk of failing. In other words, as strangely as it may sound, a visit to

a refuse dump was to be pleasant and provide the best possible aesthetic experiences

while at the same time preserving its full technical effectiveness.

For both practical and compositional reasons, the driveway onto the site was placed

from the north, from the side of the base of the then-Municipal Cleaning Company. The

area borders Nowohucka street from the west, while from the northeast a belt of greenery

separates it from residential buildings.

Because the residents are meant to bring the refuse that they cannot otherwise deposit

at their local refuse containers to "Lamusownia" themselves, the solution of the manner of

the circulation of vehicles on the site was of key importance. The slightly irregular

character of the site and the existing tall greenery, the most valuable specimens of which

were preserved, made it easier to introduce a sort of symbolic and narrative element: the

driveway onto the site first leads onto the unloading ramp, on which the visitors leave the

refuse, while the exit driveway leads first near the buildings and then along a slightly

winding road that quite picturesquely meanders between the trees. Thus, taking the

refuse to the place of their segregation is immediately "rewarded", giving a positive effect

that is not limited to the longer term.

The height of the ramp was determined on the basis of guidelines that were to ensure

safety in the event of a flood. The space beneath the ramp thus has the necessary height

to optionally serve as an additional covered area that can make it easier to receive the

refuse that has already been segregated by companies that deal with recycling and refuse

processing.

The remaining elements of the functional programme were gathered into two boxes –

a concrete and a copper one. The first version of the design featured the sole use of these

two materials and their two colours, however, a mistake during construction forced the

introduction of a third texture during the design's implementation. The necessity of

covering a part of the retaining wall of the ramp with plaster did not disrupt the

composition. The smooth wall, that was painted black, underlines the character of both of

these noble materials - concrete and copper - even more.

The upper, more visible parts of both buildings house, respectively, the social facilities

and the administrative section. In the lower, connected section, an area was assigned for

the technical facilities of the refuse sorting facility and the temporary, short-term storage

of sorted refuse.

The technology of this type of structure was the deciding factor in the selection of

design solutions, however, at least theoretically - buildings like these can be designed

using any form whatsoever. The outline of the manoeuvring belt was formed be economic

factors. The site was densely overgrown and a part of the tree stand needed to be cut

down. The most valuable specimens were preserved, delineating the road between them.

In turn, the cube turned out to be the perfect solution to combine all the various

functional programmes, as well as the straight and soft lines. The rationality of the

proposed layout was probably not without influence on the possibility of using high quality

materials in place of complicated forms.

The Perfect forms from Plato's cosmogony - with few exceptions - remained out of

architecture's reach for centuries. The change that has taken place in architectural

aesthetics and in the art of construction due to the industrial revolution made it possible

for architecture to operate with perfectly flat-surfaced forms and it does not shy away

from the simplest ones that make up the set of basic shapes: cuboids, cylinders, spheres.

The floor plan, cross-section and view - two-dimensional orthogonal layouts that make

up - first by implication, and then in the process of construction - a three-dimensional

shape, a module expressed in the metric system and, first and foremost, such concepts

like the square and cubic metre, which meant nothing to the builders of cathedrals, have

changed our thinking about architecture overall, and about architectural design in

particular.

New built-up areas, the grid of straight streets or perfectly rectangular blocks and plots

outlined in virgin territory without the necessity of modification forced by earlier forms

and layouts along with large-scale prefabs have somewhat drained the cuboid of its magic.

No wonder, then, that new technical possibilities, both in terms of design and structural

engineering, which make it possible to create architecture free of the dictum of the right

angle, with a form generated beyond the rules of Euclidean geometry, have become so

popular. However, even such forms are measured with square metres in the end, and their

volume is listed in cubic metres.

Individual design work can be an eternal search for new forms, a chase after novelty. It

can also be a consequent materialisation of the simplest forms and solutions, of faith in

the endless potential of the cuboid. Combining, cutting and multiplying a cuboid, although

not being a complicated process of composition in and of itself, provides an infinite

amount of combinations that can meet the requirements of every functional programme

and adapt to every context. However, sometimes an atypical project makes one lean

towards slightly less typical solutions. Another built project that can be treated as

a creative synthesis of research work devoted to architectural composition with particular

emphasis on the role of basic solids in the shaping of a synthetic form is the design of

Studio F. The complex is composed of three halls of similar size, each of which is a studio

with a different specialisation. Each of them has a different finish: concrete, Cor-Ten steel

and milky white glass. They are connected by a common section, which, apart from a

spacious hall and conference hall, also houses changing rooms and social facilities, as well

as equipment storage. Each of the halls also has its own driveway and walkway, which

gives the individual parts of the complex full functional independence.

The three cubes: the concrete one - coarse, with a greyscale colouration, the metal one

- smooth, partially porous, with an ochre and vermillion tone, as well as the milky white

one are, however, not standing straight. Each of them is slanted a little, they differ in the

angle of their deviation from the surface of the foundation. They are cuboid in their

nature, as they preserve right angles between their walls, however, from the point of view

of the ground floor they give off an appearance of a dynamic, stacked composition.

The context of the special economic zone in Krakow, filled with structures with an

exceptional diversity of forms, sizes and materials did not offer any clear design guidelines.

The new form that housed within it an atypical form of use was devised as a compact

element, which was to stand out from its surrounding, but in a positive and unobtrusive

manner. The simplest of all the possible architectural forms: a full, uniform cuboid, took on

a new, modern expression thanks to one equally simple operation - rotating it not in two,

but in three dimensions. It is the number of dimensions that an architectural form has, if

not more.

5.3 Architecture through a lens.

All of the author's research work has been initiated with on-site field research. Despite

the accessibility of a vast amount of information and iconographic materials, the subjects

that were undertaken demanded personal participation within a space. The photographic

documentation that was gathered on both structures that constituted the direct subject of

interest, as well as neighbouring ones, along with the everyday life that was caught on

camera, has evolved over time into a separate research subject about the fluid boundaries

between the fidelity and the completeness of the photographic record that separate the

tool of research work from an original form of the interpretation of reality. The

fleetingness and highly individualised character of the creative act that is the selection and

recording of a frame was best reflected by the experimental group exhibition "La Tourette

- jeden widok / różne spojrzenia" organised by the author at the gallery of the Krakow

branch of SARP.

At the current state of research, achievements regarding work on this subject are

materialised chiefly in the author's photography exhibitions and the accompanying

lectures, as well as popular scientific publications in professional magazines, including the

ARCH magazine. The photography cycles devoted to locations that are so geographically