warsaw university

The new building for the Social Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences integrates into the urban fabric not as a closed campus, but as a natural part of the city. Located in the heart of Warsaw, near the Vistula River, historic architecture, and a newly designed pedestrian and bicycle bridge, the project turns the city itself into a campus. The design embraces openness - public and semi-public spaces flow into one another, allowing for the free movement of people, ideas, and emotions.

Urbanistically, the project adopts a courtyard block layout that continues the historical building lines. A key role is played by the “Good Microsphere” - a semi-public space along Dobra Street that serves as both an acoustic buffer and a social enclave, featuring a café, mature trees, and welcoming shade that encourages people to pause and gather.

A brick colonnade structures the space and forms a distinctive forecourt to the main entrance. On Karowa Street, a second entrance - equally important in its symbolic meaning - connects the building with the historic UW campus on Krakowskie Przedmieście, embedding it into Warsaw’s urban continuum. The reclaimed brick colonnade is an architectural manifesto - not only aesthetic, but environmental. It is a material that already exists, with its own history, and its reuse becomes a symbolic act of care for the future and sustainable development.

The interior is unified through consistent use of materials - reclaimed brick, also used for the ground floor paving, blurs the boundary between interior and exterior. The academic courtyard, shaded by relocated trees over 80 years old, becomes a green oasis and an archetypal center of academic life.

Functionally, the ground floor houses the most publicly accessible spaces: a library, learning center, lecture halls, and café. The upper floors contain teaching, research, and administrative spaces, with the top level dedicated to the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Shared “M-type” spaces - informal lounges - connect floors and foster social interaction. The building is not just a collection of functions, but a place of exchange and community.