Small is beautiful – and green too!

Have sustainable development standards already been fully integrated into the design of private homes? And are individual investors ready for environmentally friendly solutions?

Magdalena Morelewska, co-owner of the Morelewska Wojcieszek Architektki architectural studio: Sustainable development design concepts for single-family homes have been around for some time. Investors are paying more attention to how their solutions impact the environment as well as the running costs of each building. They do the calculations to see if it pays off to use technology to reduce a home’s running costs, although this nonetheless requires a greater financial commitment upfront. More buyers are now asking about installations that in extreme circumstances free them from the vagaries of both the electric grid and the water and sewage board. We approach every project on an individual basis and choose the optimum solutions for that budget – and for the most part these are small-scale, environmentally friendly solutions, such as heat pumps, rainwater collection and green roofs.

Does it matter to your clients what materials are used to construct buildings and the effect they have on their surroundings?

MM: Sometimes there are clients that don’t want to have their homes built in a traditional manner and instead opt for them to be made of wood. There are two main methods for doing this. There’s the wooden skeleton that’s so popular in the US but not so popular here, and CLT (cross-laminated timber) – in other words, entirely wooden constructions. This technique is becoming more popular, but it’s still a little more expensive than traditional methods. Investors often have the firm intention to build ecological homes entirely out of wood but then have to face the realities of the market – and it turns out that this is expensive and has certain limitations, such as the physical span of the structural elements.

Anna Wojcieszek, co-owner, Morelewska Wojcieszek Architektki: Such techniques also have technical limitations. Most of our projects are of a premium standard and our clients often want lots of glazing and space.

MM: …and so these are not ecological homes. You can’t create such space with the span that wood has – you can only do this with concrete or steel. Those who demand such aesthetics have to opt for construction techniques that allow them to have large open spaces with as much glazing as possible. Of course, you can also have a lot of glazing in a wooden home, but this will always be on a smaller scale. Recently, we visited Copenhagen, where they do in fact build office and residential blocks out of wood.

AW: I have a few concerns about wooden construction because I already know that certain environmentally friendly solutions don’t work in practice. Even CLT, which we mentioned earlier, when it is reformed or extended loses its elasticity. And then there’s also the question of limiting the chemicals used in construction to natural lacquers.

So, natural lacquers aren’t as effective as chemicals?

AW: They don’t last as long and they are less resistant to usage. Furthermore, their natural ingredients can attract insects.

MM: In our culture, homes are built to last for generations so they need to be durable. This is a part of our tradition and customs. In the US, the population is much more mobile and people live where they work. In Poland, however, brickwork is regarded as more permanent and wood as less predictable. When buyers are considering having wooden windows, they also have to think about the lacquering. But the manufacturers clearly insist that the chemical lacquers that were used until recently are effective for many years. However, due to EU regulations, such strong chemicals are now no longer permitted and have been replaced by lacquers based on water, so they’re only going to last for a couple of years, at most three. Nonetheless, manufacturers recommend that you repaint every year. And very few people are going to opt for lacquers that need to be reapplied each year.

AW: We’re moving towards pro-environmental methods and sustainability becoming the norm, because that’s the direction the world’s going in. But, to be frank, construction in itself is not ecological.

Which are your favourite buildings in Warsaw?

AW: I like buildings that integrate with the natural world and change with the time of day or season. And those that clearly blur the distinction between the inside and the outside. Nature is so important in the lives of modern people living in large cities.

MM: My favourite building is the National Museum. I like its simplicity. I also appreciate how modern it was for its time and what it represented. In any case, whenever I’m passing it, I’m always struck by what a fantastic building it is.

Interview: Anna Zamyłka