The Shipyard in Gdynia was one of the most productive and important parts of the city but unfortunately in 2008 workshop was closed. During 90 years the Shipyard built 600 ships with carrying capacity of over 8 000 000 tons. Sadly, today instead of industrial tunes which were part of the city’s symphony, we can only hear a tranquil melody played by the wind on hooks. Over 5000 workers lost their jobs. Nowadays over the city “manless” (jobless) cranes are looming just waiting for a signal to start work…
Proposition is to use the abandoned shipyard and its whole potential to solve current, regional problems. There is a visible lack of high quality office space as well as unsatisfying housing diversity in the city. The Region has also alarmingly low percentage of usage of renewable energy sources. Only 2,7% came from wind and water turbines.
The program attempts to bring Gdynia’s shipyard back to live while utilising deep understanding of its industrial potential, economic condition and social aspects (all of which are tightly related to this extraordinary place).The Workshop will be used not only to manufacture wind turbines but also to make the buildings elements of a new district spreading over the post-industrial area.
The Core of this project is modularity as an efficient technique of organization and simplifying even the most compound systems. Just like in nature every single cell has its own unique features and purpose. This project defines the individual attributes of every single building block of the created org(urb)anism.
The geometry of module (cell) gives opportunity to create a variety arrangements, what allows users design different types of spaces and further adapting them according to their lifestyle. This modular system gives flexibility in the creation of function.
By Giving the potential to build, connect, service, move. grow and change easily the building structure elements, we receive fantastic future metabolic chances. This kind of buildings can be still alive even after finishing the design process. and evaluated during the time.
To provide a natural and proper development of the structure, the project proposes a system of self-organization.
In theory all of this establishments sound promising but to find out if this building generation is possible, potential users were invited to take part in activity entitled “ how to grow the city?”. The aim of this event was the building creation, accordingly to the self-organization rules and individual needs of inhabitants.
The results were really astonishing and even surprising. The participants received adaptable structures reflecting their desires and determined by the context of Gdynia’s harbour. The available infrastructure like: old track ways and cranes were used as tools to transport and build an object.
Building is surrounded by greenery to improve life condition and create shelters for animals. Including users in designing process was aimed at causing their identification with this part of the city, as well as reviving their community awareness.
Next step of the project was to analyse the structure future behaviour. The Function, the age of the users and their preferences – these are factors which have to be taken under consideration as they will have the strongest impact on the object. Depending on the configuration of these components the structure will have a unique, adjusted shape and scale. Sometimes the factors setup can make a building look highly defragmented to provide diversity of space and proper lightening in each module. Some other time, the object will spread and thicken its structure.
The most fascinating aspect of the project is that any scenario is possible as while time architecture will adjust to local environment changes (economic crisis, users’ expectations or the need of fast growth). The proposed design allows this structure to go hand in hand with the on-going EVOLUTION of this part of Gdynia.

http://vimeo.com/43742781