Onyx Apartaments
Location: Łódź, ul. Piotrkowska 195, Piotrkowska 197, Żwirki 2
No. Apartments: 56
No. Commercial Premises: 2
Design Team: Maciej Taczalski, Karolina Taczalska, Mateusz Cyganek, Marta Szafnicka, Wojciech Iwachów
Piotrkowska Street is undoubtedly the showpiece of Łódź, known and praised not only on a local level but on national too. Numerous gaps in its frontage, however, disturb the characteristic and unique urban layout, not allowing for full appreciation of the street’s charm. ONYX Apartments – Cem-Mix’s latest investment – will stand at the intersection of Piotrkowska and Żwirki streets, filling the last empty corner of this junction, in the place where the three-story tenement house of Moszek Szymon Wiślicki used to stand. The tenement houses at 197 Piotrkowska Street and 2 Żwirki Street, adjacent to the proposed building it will also become a part of the complex.
The architectural design of the building is a direct reference to the modernist architecture principles that can be found throughout Piotrkowska street, with a contemporary twist expressed through the façade materials used. The elevations of adjacent tenement houses will be unified in colour. The mass of the building, spreading across most of the site will be integrated into the context by setting its height at the level of surrounding structures. The frontage of the street will be filled and the three rounded corners that shape the new volume alongside the sculpted elevation detailing will add to the area’s metropolitan and elegant character, harmoniously fitting into the context. The dwellings facing the street will have loggias rarely found in the city centre, and representative terraces on the upper floors.
What was of paramount importance during the design process was to create a façade that is attractive both visually and economically, which was made possible through locating the main entrances to the commercial spaces in a cut corner of the building, below an overhang created through retracting parts of the elevation both on the ground floor and above it. Thanks to the introduction of the city-forming function to the commercial premises, establishing a dialogue between the street and the pedestrians, this underappreciated part of the street will gain an added value in form of economic recovery.
