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British Embassy, Warsaw
British Embassy, Warsaw
Kawalerii, Śródmieście, Warszawa, Poland
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Other Projects by Tony Fretton Architects
British Embassy, Warsaw
Kawalerii, Śródmieście, Warszawa, Poland
YEAR
2009
SIZE
300,000 sqft - 500,000 sqft
The new British Embassy Warsaw was built by Mace Group, the
Foreign & Commonwealth Offices Strategic Partner for Construction. It
was designed by Stirling Prize nominee Tony Fretton Architects, with a team of
British and Polish consultants and including Buro Happold and Schoenaich
Landscape Architects Ltd. Porr Polska acted as Mace’s principal
sub-contractor.
Set in its own grounds facing onto Ulica Kawalerii on one
side and a park on the other in an area of the city devoted to embassies, the
building has a serene and formal quality. Its long form is centralized by an
attic in an elementally neo-classical way and underlined by the longer figures
of the walls and railings enclosing the site. The building is explicit in
its conservation of energy; its glass elevations function as the outer skin of
a double fade, which provides substantial thermal insulation in winter and
relieves heat in the summer. The outer layer, delineated by pale bronze
aluminium mullions and mirror glass reflects the sky and trees of the
surrounding gardens. Behind this is a more substantial fade of windows set
between solid piers and spandrels in a modulated composition of a similar
palette. The pale polychromy of this arrangement is a distant relative of
the painted stucco buildings of the school of Schinkel, which can be seen
across Europe from the Hague to Oslo and here in Warsaw.
One enters the Embassy grounds through a Gate House on Ul
Kawalerii. A carriageway leads to a stone clad porte coche at the centre of the
fade. The ground floor is reserved for public activities and features a
large space for exhibition and events, and a cafthat opens onto the garden.
Occupying the remainder of the ground floor is the area for Consular Section
and UK Border Agency complete with a public waiting area accessed via its own
entrance from a route through the grounds. The administrative offices of
the Embassy are located on the first and second floor. With an
acoustically absorbent ceiling, carpeted floor and double fade, the offices are
places of calm efficiency. Workspaces are amply lit with daylight from
the glass facades and two generous planted courtyards in the centre of the
plan. In the attic at the second floor is the Ambassador’s suite, which
looks out on either side to extensive roof terraces. A variety of
material finishes are used in the interior. Structural columns are
expressed and the windows set between them have mullions and spandrels in light
bronze anodised aluminium. The floors are terrazzo or carpeted. The
foyer coat cupboard and cafscreen are made of walnut panels.
Each floor has its own identity through the association
between its parts and their relations to the outside world. Public spaces
in the ground floor flow from one to another and into the grounds. Open
office space in the first floor is given a degree of separation by the interior
courts. In the comparatively small Ambassador’s suite the offices will
have the scale and quality of cabinets, a theme that continues in the small
spaces for sitting that are cut out from the wide areas of planting filling the
roof terraces on either side. In its larger form the roof planting
relates the terraces to the grounds around the Embassy and the park beyond.
With these simple gestures, the Embassy maintains its role in the culture and
fabric of Warsaw.
Foreign & Commonwealth Offices Strategic Partner for Construction. It
was designed by Stirling Prize nominee Tony Fretton Architects, with a team of
British and Polish consultants and including Buro Happold and Schoenaich
Landscape Architects Ltd. Porr Polska acted as Mace’s principal
sub-contractor.
Set in its own grounds facing onto Ulica Kawalerii on one
side and a park on the other in an area of the city devoted to embassies, the
building has a serene and formal quality. Its long form is centralized by an
attic in an elementally neo-classical way and underlined by the longer figures
of the walls and railings enclosing the site. The building is explicit in
its conservation of energy; its glass elevations function as the outer skin of
a double fade, which provides substantial thermal insulation in winter and
relieves heat in the summer. The outer layer, delineated by pale bronze
aluminium mullions and mirror glass reflects the sky and trees of the
surrounding gardens. Behind this is a more substantial fade of windows set
between solid piers and spandrels in a modulated composition of a similar
palette. The pale polychromy of this arrangement is a distant relative of
the painted stucco buildings of the school of Schinkel, which can be seen
across Europe from the Hague to Oslo and here in Warsaw.
One enters the Embassy grounds through a Gate House on Ul
Kawalerii. A carriageway leads to a stone clad porte coche at the centre of the
fade. The ground floor is reserved for public activities and features a
large space for exhibition and events, and a cafthat opens onto the garden.
Occupying the remainder of the ground floor is the area for Consular Section
and UK Border Agency complete with a public waiting area accessed via its own
entrance from a route through the grounds. The administrative offices of
the Embassy are located on the first and second floor. With an
acoustically absorbent ceiling, carpeted floor and double fade, the offices are
places of calm efficiency. Workspaces are amply lit with daylight from
the glass facades and two generous planted courtyards in the centre of the
plan. In the attic at the second floor is the Ambassador’s suite, which
looks out on either side to extensive roof terraces. A variety of
material finishes are used in the interior. Structural columns are
expressed and the windows set between them have mullions and spandrels in light
bronze anodised aluminium. The floors are terrazzo or carpeted. The
foyer coat cupboard and cafscreen are made of walnut panels.
Each floor has its own identity through the association
between its parts and their relations to the outside world. Public spaces
in the ground floor flow from one to another and into the grounds. Open
office space in the first floor is given a degree of separation by the interior
courts. In the comparatively small Ambassador’s suite the offices will
have the scale and quality of cabinets, a theme that continues in the small
spaces for sitting that are cut out from the wide areas of planting filling the
roof terraces on either side. In its larger form the roof planting
relates the terraces to the grounds around the Embassy and the park beyond.
With these simple gestures, the Embassy maintains its role in the culture and
fabric of Warsaw.
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