Brick, railway and modernity. This is how architects interpreted the character of Warsaw’s Praga

At ul. Białostocka 5D in Warsaw, OH! Praga – a residential building designed by the Warsaw studio Foroom. The investment includes 185 apartments and was designed as a contemporary response to the extremely complex surroundings. Nearby there are the former Warsaw Vodka Factory “Koneser”, railway infrastructure and rapidly developing new buildings. The architects did not try to unify this landscape. Instead, they used it as a starting point to create a building firmly rooted in its place.

Two volumes instead of one large building

One of the most important design decisions was to divide the development into two parts. Thanks to this, the investment better suits the scale and diversity of the neighborhood, and individual shapes can refer to various elements of Prague.

The bright part of the building refers to the character of the street. Białostocka, while the brick façade evokes the industrial history of the district and the nearby “Koneser”. The rhythm of windows, balconies and loggias organizes the facades, but at the same time avoids monotony.

“We wanted to extract from the historical architecture of Prague what is characteristic of this place: scale, rhythm, material and a certain severity, and translate these features into contemporary residential architecture. Thanks to this, the building is not a historical stylization, but at the same time it could not be built in a random place. It is a response to this specific part of Warsaw,” said Bartłomiej Grotte, architect and co-founder of Foroom.

A courtyard that is supposed to be teeming with life

Architecture OH! Prague doesn’t end with facades. An important part of the design is the space between the buildings. Their separation made it possible to create a green courtyard, which is to be a place of rest and daily meetings for residents.

Gardens and terraces additionally introduce greenery into the intense urban environment. As the designers emphasize, the common space was not treated as an ordinary communication facility, but as one of the elements building the character of the entire development.

“In the case of a large residential investment, what is happening between the buildings is particularly important to us. This is where the everyday life of the estate is created. That is why the courtyard, greenery, gardens and terraces are part of the architecture to the same extent as the facades. We wanted to create not only a collection of apartments, but a fragment of the city with its own scale and common space,” added Bartłomiej Grotte.

Prague inspires, but is not copied

The project also includes references to the railway landscape of the district. Tracks, embankments, viaducts and transport infrastructure have contributed to the identity of Prague for years. Together with the pre-war buildings, industrial heritage and new investments, they create the multi-layered surroundings of OH! Prague.

Foroom did not decide to recreate historical forms literally. Instead, the architects used characteristic materials, scale, division of the mass and rhythm of the façade. Brick and light plaster allow you to combine different contexts, while maintaining the contemporary character of the investment.

“Praga is a place where subsequent layers of the city’s development are clearly visible. In addition to the pre-war buildings, we have industrial heritage, railways and new residential architecture. We did not want to blur this diversity. OH! Praga is supposed to be a contemporary building, but at the same time it has to be aware of where it is being built. This is the most important aspect of this project for us,” concluded Bartłomiej Grotte.

Designed for longer life

OH! Prague has been BREEAM certified. Bartłomiej Grotte, Rafał Jedliński, Maciej Pędzich, Konrad Waligóra, Eugeni Frankowski, Aleksandra Kępka and Tadeusz Szaraniec are responsible for the project.

Forum has been operating in Warsaw since 2005. The studio implements residential, office, public utility, industrial and energy projects. It uses BIM technology, and its team of approximately 20 people cooperates with experienced engineering offices.

OH! Prague is an example of an approach in which new architecture does not have to compete with the history of the place. It can use its characteristic elements and transform them into a modern language. In the case of Białostocka, this means combining brick, bright facades, urban scale, greenery and railway landscape into one contemporary fragment of Prague.