Plac Defilad square is certainly awaiting investors, said Tomasz Zemła, deputy director of Warsaw's architecture department. "Right now the city council is working on the preparation of the square for the construction of new buildings. When it was preparing the Museum of Modern Art project, the city started work on the underground infrastructure, together with the modernisation of the underground sewage system. At the moment there is a mish-mash of several subterranean systems installed throughout the entire history of Plac Defilad," explained the architect.
"A lot of stuff was being done underground as several things were happening over an area that was undeveloped for years. A consistent, integrated system is now needed to leave the area free of surprises and obstacles. We cannot expect every single investor to prepare such infrastructure and connections independently. This could only be a stopgap measure. So we are working on an integrated utilities system, " revealed Tomasz Zemła.
"For the plot under the future Museum of Modern Art on the eastern side of Plac Defilad, intensive work has already started on the underground infrastructure. I don’t know the exact budget for the project, but it’s being carried out by a professional company and should be ready next year," de added.
"Around 30 pct of Warsaw is covered by municipal land use planning. We are working on new plans all the time. But in the meantime we also have to implement changes to our existing plans as new information, new conditions and restrictions are put in place – for example, when new flood maps are published, forcing us to change our own maps," said Tomasz Zemła. "The numbers are impressive. We have set drawn up 200 municipal land use plans and we are working on the next couple of hundred. It is hard to say how many will be adopted over the next few years, but the pace of the work is very fast and the number of plans is rising. So investors are feeling much more confident that their projects are being processed on the basis of a land use plan instead of an individual site development conditions decision," he revealed.
As an architect, Tomasz Zemła agreed with our journalist that the atmosphere of a place can’t be designed. "But we can create favourable conditions for an atmosphere to develop and watch how it does so," said the ingeneer.
