The office building of the Porcelana Slaska Park is located in the area of the historical porcelain factory in the industrial part of Katowice. The post-factory buildings are located here and this is where the widely known porcelain signed “Giesche” and later “Bogucice” was manufactured since the 1920s. The post- industrial building complex is considered to be a space of high architectural value. The technological park that has been established here includes: offices, a design centre, an exhibition area, a workroom for creative industries, an IT research laboratory, a design laboratory, as well as cafés and restaurants. New functions of the buildings aim at reviving the area.
Such a great undertaking required a clear organization of functions associated with the project. The site can be divided into three separate areas: vicinities of two office buildings of the Porcelana Slaska Park and post-factory building complex. Due to the accepted project specifications concerning the collaborative functioning of these three areas, a transportation hub has been designed. The hub connects the areas of the site, thus providing a clear system of communication between specific buildings. Near the converted buildings, which function as offices, and the post-factory buildings the entrance area was designed, forming a natural vestibule that makes the buildings more prominent. The designed hub connects the entrance areas, thus joins the buildings into one functioning complex.
The converted office building from the 1970s is located on the driveway leading to the technological park area. It used to function as a seat of the porcelain factory management and has a different character than the other buildings of the historical complex. Its localization was a reason for reconstructing the building so that its modern, minimalistic form would unequivocally suggest a new, second life of the factory, the place where innovatively thinking people and companies create the technological park. The elevation is made from smooth, black plaster that purposefully contrasts with coarse, warm brick elevation of the post-industrial buildings, thus becoming a background for the historical buildings and simultaneously, in a special way, drawing attention to the modernizing changes made within the factory area.
The converted Porcelana Slaska Park office building is located on an artificially built acclivity, in the vicinity of the road. It precludes from designing a sufficient number of parking slots on the tangent road on the side of the existing main entrance. The required car park has been planned on the other side of the building. This solution however generates a functional problem. The entrance to the building is located on the side near the road, whereas the main car park is located on the other side of the building. Thus, designing an additional, equally important entrance seems necessary. In order to emphasize the equal significance, the entrance elevations have been given an identical design. Consequently, this pair of entrance areas have been merged into one area - a lobby that has become a horizontal core of the entire building.
View Original