Lubin Flower by H3AR

Describing their project the architects from H3AR said:

Strangely enough it is mostly undeveloped land, used by the inhabitants of Poznan as a sort of green oasis in the city center. Unfortunately, for the past ten years buildings have been sprouting up, here and there, with no wholesome plan in mind, and have thus infringed this green zone with architectural monsters.

Our first guideline was to form a skyscraper of minimal width, so it would overshadow neither the green zone nor the river. Therefore we knew our building must „scrape the sky”, but at its base it should take as little of the green area as possible. This way we wanted to strike a compromise by opening these territories to development on the one hand, and leaving them as wild and untouched as possible on the other.

Our second guideline was to find an organic form that we could refer to. Ideally, this would be an organic form that is native to the place concerned and therefore well known to the people of Poznan. By this we wanted our architecture to be contemporary and at the same time intimately linked to Poznan. 

The effect of our bionic approach was a skyscraper in the form of the Lubin Flower - flower easily found on the riverside in the beautiful months of spring and summer.  

The petals became the apartments. Their round form inspired us to use glass as the main material, and by this to introduce enough light into the dwellings. This is a very important feature in a country of so little light.  The people should be able to take advantage of every ray of sunshine. 

Project: Lubin flower   
Location: Poznan, Poland
Author: Alba Labuda, Hugon Kowalski
Year: 2008

Program: Residential