Down by the riverside

Rivers have always attracted people to settle in their neighbourhood, sometimes growing into metropolises of millions of people. Nowadays river communication routes do not play such an important role, but embankments are still an enduring feature of our cities

Zuzanna Wiak

Everyone who has walked at least once along the Vistula embankment tends to get the powerful feeling that the riverside is not being utilized. In 2009, hopes arose that this might finally change. Warsaw decided to take a closer look at the river banks. The most important project now being developed on Warsaw’s riverside is the Copernicus Science Centre: a 15,000 sqm cultural, exhibition and research centre being built over an area of 40,000 sqm. An ‘experimentarium’ is to be opened at the end of June 2010, for experiments and research into natural phenomena. The whole facility (including a planetarium) should be completed in 2011. This is not the only project planned for the improvement of the embankment area. At the end of October 2009, the city council signed a contract with RS Architektura Krajobrazu Dorota Rudawa – the company which won the architectural and urban tender for the design for the development of the left (city) bank of the Vistula. This includes the preparation of a full-scale building permit and the execution design of the embankment development from ul. Boleść to ul. Tamka. The city is also planning improvements to Podzamcze Park below the Royal Castle: a “multimedia fountain” is to be installed in the park next year. There are also definite plans – so to speak – for the other side of the river, in the Praga district of Warsaw. The undeveloped river bank, which is covered by the Natura 2000 programme, will remain as it is, with only conservation work to take place. So far, 100-ha of the area has been cleaned, with as much as 40,000 cubic metres of waste having been removed! However, the fate of the derelict Port Praski docks is still unclear. A new residential district for the city could be built in this area, which covers app. 42-ha. Last year, Elektrim announced a tender for the sale of a minority stake (42.33 pct) in the Port Praski company (Embud holds the other 58 pct of the shares). The asking price was PLN 96.3 mln. Two companies initially declared an interest – Ghelamco and Bristol Investments – but neither decided to pursue the matter.

A city needs a harbour

The mayor of Warsaw announced in autumn last year that there would be a tender for the revitalization project of Port Czerniakowski, to the south of the city. However, this will only happen around April this year because the entire city authority has been busy with preparations for the tender for the reconstuction of Plac Trzech Krzyży square. The derelict harbour is to be rebuilt as Warsaw’s main harbour with sports and leisure infrastructure. Regulations have been introduced to designate it as a public place for mooring recreational and sports boats as well as – something which is quite unusual – residential barges, houseboats and service barges. The Warsaw Rowing Association, which has been appointed as the harbour authority until the end of the year, will also contribute towards changing the river’s image. “We are planning to announce a research tender, which we would like to be the basis for the preparation of the local plan for the Port Czerniakowski area. For the revitalization of this area we have to take into consideration many factors, such as the tradition of the harbour, the Natura 2000 programme, and other traditions connected with the former dockyard, or simply the values that the Vistula river represents,” claims Marek Mikos, director of the city’s architecture and spatial planning office.

Rowing project

In October last year, the Warsaw Rowing Association (WTW) submitted an application for a change in the spatial development plan for an 8,000 sqm site on ul. Wioślarska, where a training, fitness and conference centre is now to be built, as well as a swimming pool for rowers, hangars, a boatbuilding plant, offices and a hotel with 200 rooms. “This subject has been cropping up for about eight years. Negotiations with potential investors that were supposed to finance the construction of the harbour in exchange for purchasing the area to be used for hotel development were put on hold due to the financial crisis,” relates Maciej Śliwiński, director of the Warsaw Rowing Association. The company, which is to develop the hotel, will invest app. PLN 20 mln in the construction of the WTW centre. The costs for the construction of the hotel itself are not clear, and the identities of neither the investor nor the operator of the three- or four-star hotel have yet been disclosed. The project should be profitable at the same time. “There will be office space built on an area of app. 1,000 sqm, which will be leased at market prices. This will provide us with additional income for the WTW,” adds Maciej Śliwiński. The construction of the new harbour will take app. 1.5 years. The WTW is currently waiting for the site development conditions to be issued for the area; but it is not yet known whether the city will agree to a relatively high-rise development, something which has never been built along the Vistula river bank before.

The current headquarters of WTW, which are close to Port Czerniakowski on ul. Zaruskiego, could also be modernized in the future. This depends among other factors on whether the city will extend WTW’s lease of the area, which has so far been prolonged every three years. “It is good that Warsaw council has realized that the riverside is not just the Wisłostrada (main) embankment; our project is fully integrated with the municipality’s plan for the development of the Vistula river bank. The biggest problem for us today is the dirty and shallow water in the river,” says Maciej Śliwiński.

Neighbours can already do it

In a comparable scheme in Bratislava, it is not only leisure and sports facilities that are being developed along the banks of Danube. The multi-functional Eurovea project will have a total area of 260,000 sqm, and will include residential, hotel, office and retail space. The designer of the entire project is the Bose International Planning & Architecture architectural studio. So how do you go about designing such a large complex on the very edge of the river? “When planning such types of public space, you have to take into consideration many technical aspects, which will guarantee the strength of both the buildings and the embankment itself. The underground floors are designed on the same basis as a watertight bath, so that water is not a danger to the building,” explains Marek Tryzybowicz, co-owner of Bose International Planning & Architecture. The architects have also paid a lot of attention to the design itself. A glass-roofed shopping arcade is planned, and not just as another soulless mall, but as space which creates “the tissue of the city”. “As a rule, projects located on river banks have a capital-intensive nature, which is why it is not enough just to take their aesthetic properties into consideration. When it comes to the Vistula, a single cohesive strategy is needed. Due to the fact that there is no concrete embankment on the Vistula, like in many other European capital cities, some really unique projects could be developed there. Along with land owned by Polish State Railways, the plots along the embankment are some of the best in the city,” adds Marek Tryzybowicz. There are many companies interested in the Vistula river bank, even though it is not yet known what sort of development will be allowed around Port Czerniakowski. One thing is clear, if the project is not well thought through by planners, architects and representatives of the city, any decision over the fate of the Vistula river bank will be left for future administrations and it will remain one of the most neglected rivers in our region for an even longer time. ν

A house without foundations

The tender for development of Port Czerniakowski will bring a new quality to the Vistula. When we think about residential boats, our thoughts drift to Amsterdam rather than to Warsaw. However, residential barges, houseboats and service barges will be able to moor in the new harbour. These solutions might also result in the construction of houses on the water. The first such facility in Poland is being developed in Wrocław. This is not an easy project because of the difficulty in obtaining the necessary permits, among other problems. Construction law is not designed to cover vessels. At the MIPIM trade fair in 2007, the Amazon barge designed by IN-VI Group’s architectural studio was given a distinction in the Architectural Review Awards. “With climate change becoming a greater issue, floating homes should become more common in low-lying areas. The Parisien peniche or the houseboat in Seattle have always been in a class of their own, and will continue to be so. As you float, you feel closer to the elements: not only the water, but also the sky, altering your notion of time. There is a feeling of independence and security. 
It is often also easier administratively to be on the water rather than near the water. Savings on land traditionally offset the cost premium of building on water. Today, however, exclusive resort groups are targeting our ecological Amazon barges for the top of the leisure market,” reveals Guy Perry, the president of IN-VI Group.