Polish Building: PR
from Tony Fretton Architects Jul07
PRESS RELEASE
New British Embassy Warsaw scheme revealed
310707
Image © Hayes Davidson
Tony Fretton Architects has received planning permission for a new £12million
scheme for the British Embassy Warsaw, Poland.
Commissioned by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the building occupies
a vacant site adjacent to a park in an area of the city devoted solely
to embassies. It is set back from the street within its own formal garden
between the existing Spanish and Dutch embassies. The 4,300sqm building
has a serene and simple form and retains the glass façade of the
practice’s original competition winning scheme of 2003.
The building is arranged over three floors served by a central lift core
and stairs. The ground floor is reserved for public activities and features
a large exhibition space with an adjoining restaurant, and a consular
and visa section with a separate entrance. The second floor is dedicated
entirely to ambassadorial work and offers a 360-degree panoramic view
of the city. The floor in between contains an open plan workspace for
non-public activities or ambassadorial work.
The building as a whole is enclosed on the three sides facing the sun
by a double façade. During the harsh polish winters the gap between
the two skins provides a thermal buffer, while in the summer it serves
as a thermal chimney, drawing warm air from the inner façade. This
solution addresses the tight security requirements of the brief without
compromising the high level of fenestration.
The buildings image is inextricably bound up with the planting strategy
devised by
Schoenaich Landscape Architects. Glass courts which penetrate the open
plan offices on the first floor will be planted with Hawthorn trees and
planted to bloom in all seasons, providing a foreground of lush greenery
against the formal landscaping of the compound and the urban fabric of
the city beyond. These glass vitrines bring light into the building, a
crucial aspect of the scheme to ensure optimum daylight in Polish winters,
and are glass topped to keep out the snow in the winter.
On the second floor either side of the Ambassador’s officer there
will be a roof court, richly planted with poppies and long grasses to
provide shade in the summer while remaining picturesque in the snowy winters.
One is accessible to all embassy staff; the other is for the exclusive
use of the ambassador and his deputy.
Despite its simplicity of form and rigorously standardised frame this
is a building of rich material articulation. The aluminium surfaces of
the outer and inner skin are anodised to differing tones of gold and homey
and the area between the windows is faced in white Cararra marble. The
entrance is marked by a porte-cochere faced in bronze. Inside the flooring
is terrazzo, all interior walls are of lined with leather or timber veneer
and the ground floor café is fitted with velvet curtains.
The building is due to go on site Spring 2008 with anticipated completion
in 2009.
British Embassy
Warsaw : Tony Fretton Architects
Polish Architecture:
Gdansk Competition 2007
• Tony Fretton Architects original scheme for the new British Embassy
Warsaw and
Ambassador’s Residence was won in an international competition in
2003 and is the subject of the publication ‘Designing the Warsaw
Embassy’, published in 2006 by Navado Press, Trieste.
• The original scheme had to be reappraised in light of tightened
security measures in the aftermath of the bombing of the British Consulate
in Istanbul in 2003. The practice was reappointed in June 2006 to develop
a new scheme for a discrete embassy building without a residential aspect
on a new site1.6km south of the original site.
• The design team for the new embassy includes Tony Fretton and Jim
McKinney (Principals), David Owen (Associate), Tom Grieve (Project Architect),
Matt Barton, Nina Lundvall, Frank Furrer, Laszlo Csutoras, Martin Nassen,
Max Lacey
• Consultants include Mace (Design and Build Contractor and Project
Management), Buro Happold (Structural Engineer), Epstein Sp. z o.o. (Executive
Architect), Schoenaich Landscape Architects Ltd (Landscape Architect).
Tony Fretton Architects A group of dwellings in Amsterdam, an office building
in the historical quarter of Copenhagen and the new British Embassy in
Warsaw illustrate how Tony Fretton Architects is diversifying, building
on a reputation as a sensitive designer of spaces for art, for which it
has become renowned.
Arts spaces remain an integral part of the practice’s activity; Fuglsang
Kunstmuseum in Lolland Denmark will open in January 2008 and the practice’s
new London house for the British sculptor Anish Kapoor, is due for completion
at the end of 2007.
The practice continues to work at various scales, from modest buildings
such as the award winning Faith House in Poole to major urban master-plans
such as the €24 million residential scheme for Andreas Ensemble in
Amsterdam, which is currently in development.
As well as being the principal designer of all projects at Tony Fretton
Architects, Tony is Professor of Architectural Design & Interiors
at the Technical University Delft, the Netherlands and is active in the
discourse of architecture.
Tony Fretton Architects Ltd, 109-123 Clifton Street, London EC2A 4LD
T: +44 (0)20 7729 2030 mail@tonyfretton.com
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