Redevelopment of an existing historical property in downtown Warsaw.
The property consists of an 18th century villa, which served as a command and operation centre for Nazi police Gestapo during second World War in the occupied Warsaw. The building was initially built as a private residence with the neoclassical facade facing the street and large backyard at the back between two neighbouring 7-storey residential buildings.
The concept proposes converting part of the existing building into a restaurant on the ground floor facing the street and the rest into modern office space adding also office area above the existing villa and in the backyard, creating a 7-storey interior atrium as an echo of the existing open garden space.
Addition above the villa is to be a very light crystalline volume visually detached from the existing building, set back from the existing facade to minimize the impact from the street and respecting the continuous cornice line of the 7-storey buildings along the street.
The steel structural columns will penetrate the existing villa only in two locations and one of the two proposed elevators will be placed in the existing light well to minimize the impact of the new construction on the existing building.
The historic villa is to be carefully restored throughout including both facades, with the back to be facing the interior weather controlled atrium.
- design Voytek Gorczynski Architect
- team Tomy Huang, Edgar Tatou
- cg Ejoy CG
- client White Star Development, Lars Thomassen, Jan Kedzierski
- local architect Pawlik i Partnerzy
- gross fl. area 7,400 m2