Marek Martynowicz

Project Location 
Bystrzyca Kłodzka, Poland 

Topic 
Utopia New Ways of Living 

Program 
Social welfare Community 

Transformation of Building Quarters in Bystrzyca Kłodzka 

The small town renaissance is a comprehensive approach to small-town living possibilities enabled by the rise of the digital age. Allowing for the transformation of existing typologies into new hybridised states of ownership and function in which the definition of a traditional tenement house goes beyond the existing framework. 

The downfall of the small-towns is caused by a series of crises which have emerged since the economic transformation of Poland in 1989 which transformed many small urban centres into "bedrooms" of large agglomerations. Now, it is necessary to balance economic activities, natural resources and transportation with the existing capital and opportunities. In the face of the digital revolution, the rules determining our habits of living are changing, which may result in the relocation of the attractiveness of social life from loft spaces of post-industrial cities to historic small-town buildings, close to nature and offering as great opportunities for development as the largest cities. 

In an age of digitalization, work from home and in the broad sense means of Internet connectivity, the modernist understanding of a house as a space of rest and privacy and workplace as a remote location detached from our dwelling become obsolete. As architects we should look for alternatives at a bigger scale than a functional home with an office but rather new settlements accessible for all kinds of people. The timeless values ​​of small-town complexes and how modern solutions in the field of communication, logistics and management constitute a unique opportunity for a renaissance of small towns. The specific time resistance, responsible for the phenomenon of the invariability of the image of a small town, requires taking actions that are resistant to changes in economic and social conditions. Those ideas have been interconnected with the needs and achievements of emerging digital society. Bystrzyca Kłodzka was selected for the project development area - a city located in the Kłodzko Valley with a well-preserved mediaeval structure. The design process was based on the idea of ​​urban archipelagos constituting a scattered and comprehensive action plan for small towns through point architectural interventions, changing patterns of human behaviour and enabling the emergence of new ways of living and working. The three proposed activities include three parts of the city showing different design approaches: the market quarter, the reconstruction of the post-industrial area and the city transfer point. The living and working environment thus achieved contains a wide spectrum of spaces with different levels of privacy and ownership structures defined as hybridised intermediate states. All of the proposed interventions provide housing units which can be expanded thanks to unassigned joker rooms that can be used as home office, additional room or community space.