6 hectares, 4 blocks, 3000 people,
a garden, a square, an apiary...
this way one can describe a small town.
But one can also describe this way a single building.
This one. "Focus" office bulding in Warsaw.
Designing an edifice wich will have 62 000 square meters of overall space
is an enormous task.
How did Kuryłowicz & Associates Architecture Studio manage to do that,
when they designed it nearly 20 years ago?
Let's take a closer look!
Winner of prestigious titles, like Construction of the year, or best public building in Warsaw, Focus opened in 2001.
Four, independent, 12-storey office parts are standing on three levels of underground parking garage.
They are aligned around a glazed atrium, measuring 25 by 40 meters.
From the outside they form a gigantic cuboid.
The overall dimensions are impressive: 65 by 67 meters.
Height: nearly 50 meters.
When I was still studying, I talked about this building with its chief designer, and my professor,
Stefan Kuryłowicz.
And he pointed to the fact, that this building will be seen not only from the front, but also or even mainly, from its sides.
It is situated next to very busy "Łazienkowska" thoroughfare where people are on the move.
So they will be looking at the building rather from either side.
On the move, and outside rush hours this can be a fast, dynamic move.
So in order for the building to be characteristic and memorable, it should consist of large elements that one can see while on the move by bus or by car.
And so it was designed so that it appears a bit defferent on each side.
From the east, the wall is clad with stone, but there are two glazed oriels.
They create a contrast between the glass and the large, dark, stone-clad surface.
From the front there's a smooth glass surface, crowned with a large cornice projecting far out, and resembling
a fin or a wing.
In the centre, behind the glass plain a hole has been cut. It houses a winter garden.
From the west, the wall is generally flat, but there is one oriel, shaped like a kiosk, projecting far out of the building.
No matter whether we look from the park here, or we drive from the west or east,
there always is a large, characteristic element that we can see from afar, making this building memorable and distinguishable.
But when we approach the building, we start to see a variety of smaller details that decorate the building like an ornament.
Front, double-glazed facade ends above the ground floor,
revealing the entrance which resembles a bit a gate to a small town.
After entering the building we can appreciate the size of the atrium, and diligence with which everything here has been designed.
In any detail one can almost feel that the architects enjoyed designing the building, and filled it with their talent and... state-of-the-art technology.
The union of architecture and technology is emphasized everywhere.
The building is meant to resemble a supermodern machine.
And this is a key feature of the movement in conteporary architecture represented by this building - high-tech.
Precision, perfection, modernity - these are characteristics of a good high-tech building, achieved by uniting aesthetics and technology into one.
I think it was the use of state-of-the-art technology in architectural design and construction and its exposition in this building
created this feeling that when one enters this space, not knowing it was opened 16 years ago,
one can think that the grand opening was yesterday, or last week.
This space is so modern and filled with modern technology.
It is visible everywhere and emphasized in the architecture of this edifice.
The essence of this thaught about the building and its ornamentation on the edge of architecture and technology in my opinion are these stairs
standing on small rollers.
I think it is in this detail that you can see this diligence, joy or even love for designing and caring about the tiniest of details.
Because often in architecture, even in such grand buildings, the devil is in the detail.
There are so many of these details that students can come here and look for inspiration if they have any problem desiging their projects.
How to join different types of surfaces, different materials, how to attach various elements to each other.
Any architectural problem is solved here possibly in many ways in different places.
But if this building consisted of only high quality details, if it had everything designed perfectly,
but it lacked office space... it wouldn't have any sense.
The essence of this building, the reason it has been built are over 30 000 square meters of office space.
And in the case of many office buildings it is often so that the floor slabs are identical and repetitive.
One plan can be repeated dozens of times to create a large building, but one whose office space is boring or indifferent.
Here the architects worked hard not only to create a building that supports people in their everyday work tasks,
but also whose spaces are diversified.
And now let's take a tour around the building in search for this variety of office spaces, because in many places there are some accents,
things that make these spaces varied and interesting.
First stop - terrace on the 5th floor.
Probably only from this place you can fully admire the vastness of the atrium, how huge this space really is.
Far larger than just a hallway, more like a town square.
And architects who designed it related to the appearence of urban squares.
For example they analyzed the size and proportions of Old Town Market Square in Warsaw,
to make shure that this enormous space had the best spatial quality,
and affected the guests and employees like the perfect urban spaces from the past.
One of the key questions here - how high should the roof be?
If it was lower, it could appear to crush the space.
If it was higher, we would feel as on the bottom of a well.
This height, above the fifth floor seems to be perfect. We feel that we're inside, in an atrium,
while at the same time we perceive this space as a market square of office-town of Focus.
Here, on the fifth floor we can get a glimse of what is one of the most characteristic elements of the building's exterior.
and we perceive this space almost like an old market square where Focus is the small town.
Probably the first mega-window in Warsaw, let's have a look!
And here it is. The mega-window with a winter garden inside.
It is seemingly cut out of the building roughly half-way through the depth of the office space.
The rooms here are a bit narrow.
This place is a little inside and a little outside.
Because this is only the outer layer of the facade.
This is a single plane of glass, it is ventilated with spetial holes, so that the air can flow in and out freely.
This is the south face of the building so it can become really warm. Right now it's quite hot, because today is a very sunny day.
So this acts like a winter garden should. We catch the energy from the sun and store it here.
Thanks to the fact, that this space is cut out from the building and completely glazed both to the interior and exterior,
people who have their desks or conference rooms here can feel as if a small part of the park opposite has been transefered here.
This acts like an embassy of the park inside the building.
Something that acts as a park in the office-town of Focus.
This is a very warm space, so let's go to another, this time air-conditioned space.
Way up!
Right now we're in office space - seemingly very normal.
But also here the architects included some diversity. This is the east face, so the one with two glazed oriels.
I'm standing in one of them, so in a way I'm outside the building.
And I'm looking at its facade clad with black stone from the outside.
Maybe it's an architectural reference to "thinking outside the box"? I'm looking on the building's boxy solid from the outside.
What's most important for me in this view are the details that ore on this elevation.
When we look at the building from afar, we can barely notice them, as if they are just an ornamental lace on the building,
Only here, up close we can appreciate the scale of these large objects and their architectural, high-tech, technological quality.
The east face has two oriels, the west face - only one, but what an oriel this is!
A cuboid projecting close to three meters out of the elevation.
And what could be housed in a glazed room on the ninth floor, like this one?
It's simple - a chairwoman's office! One of the best corner-offices in Warsaw.
Here, on the seventh floor you can actually go out of the building.
Not only go out to fresh air, but there's a balcony with cantilever of around two meters attached to the north face.
It has partially glazed floor, fully glazed side parapets.
The view over the center of Warsaw is magnificent.
But what's interesting is not only what can be seen from the building, but also the views that the building itself offers.
Things that we possibly didn't think about or haven't noticed.
The back elevation is cracked, the upper stories create a small canyon.
Standing here I see the skyscrapers in the center, but there first I see this canyon, then the mega-window through which a see the trees in the park.
Here's this urban landscape, there's almost pastoral, park scene.
Also present are some high-tech details, for example these mountings.
You can say - it's pure technology, these things attach the glass to the wall.
But these are the things that make up the architectural expression of the building.
We finish our tour of Focus on the terrace on the eleventh floor.
Just under the great cornice, projecting far away from the facade.
Only here you can see how far, actually, and how large it is.
I don't envy the people who had to build it.
But it the size of the whole building that made this building a bit controversial.
Critics argued that it was too large, gargantuan. That it diminished, dominated its surroundings.
These surroundings from the west being small streets with one, two, or three-storey buildings.
The author of the building had an surprising rebuttal.
It isn't that Focus doesn't fit the surroundings. It's the sourroundings that don't fit Focus!
At first you can say, that this view may be a little bit over the top... maybe not a little bit.
But when you dig into this notion, you have to admit there's something in it.
The context of this building are not the small streets to the west, because it isn't situated on these streets.
It stands on Łazienkowska thoroughfare, almost a highway with 10 lanes.
This is the direct context to which the building had to be adapted in mass and scale.
When Focus was being finished there weren't many large buildings around.
But if large buildings are to be built, isn't the center of the city the perfect place for them?
This thoroughfare here lines the border of the center of Warsaw.
It was that Stefan Kuryłowicz, a visionary designed a building adapted to a context that was not yet here.
But as an experienced architect he knew, that this context was going to emerge.
And he was right!
A few years after completion of Focus new large office buildings together with a skyscraper were built to the east.
Together these buildings form a large scale gate or border between green park area and the urban core of the center.
Of course the architects felt the responsibility for each decision.
Both the Polish investor and architects knew that they're developing something that will change this area
and will affect the views from the sourroundings.
They approached the design process in an interesing way.
Of course the building wasn't designed by one architect but by whole team within Kuryłowicz Studio.
They also hired an external controller, an experienced, highly esteemed architect.
He controlled the design process to make sure that the building was being designed according to highest standards.
Everyone understood the significance of this project. They knew they couldn't let down the expectation.
And I think it is visible. Even here, on the eleventh floor, barely visible by just a handful of people are these posts.
They are crafted with passion and with joy.
Every thing from the general shape of the building to the tiniest of details is designed with heart
Perhaps it's the combination of meticulous care, joy of working on large scale project, sense of resposibility for the outcome,
resulted in this effort's success.
16 years since the building opened, almost 20 since the designing started,
it's still strikingly modern and can still set the standards in terms of diligence and technology.
When we enter this building we still can hear the metallic murmur of perfection and modernity.
Thank you for watching this video. To see a film about another great office building on Warsaw,
The Metropolitan by Foster and Partners click below. And click here to subscribe to this channel. Thank you!
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