Revitalization of a village bakery.
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Project Description
I bought a ruined bakery on a farm with a baker's house and a bakery shop. I rebuilt a house with a residential and service function. Due to the change in the status of the village of Piltzendorf (Grzybowice) into a district of Zabrze, the professional structure of the inhabitants also changed. Farmers are dominated by the multi-professional middle class. Therefore, the facility has implemented services in the field of aesthetic medicine and design. I also rebuilt a stork's nestI bought a ruined
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Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
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Description of the project
Summary
I am the granddaughter of a mill design engineer. That is why the bakery industry is close to me, because my childhood passed in the atmosphere of discussions about it. After getting married, I was looking for a house to buy, which, due to the low wealth of our portfolio, had to be in the standard "for renovation".
In fact, I found a house in a very bad technical condition owned by a family of bakers. I immediately felt an extrasensory connection with these walls. The facility was located in the former village of Piltzendorf at the crossroads leading to the hamlets of Marienau and Philipsdorf. It was built at the end of the 19th century. There was a front house on the plot, which in the pre-war period and just after the war, housed a bakery shop and a baker's apartment. In the outbuilding there was a bakery with a beautiful (though completely worn out) ceramic baking oven. On the chimney of the bakery there was a huge, multi-layer stork nest. A family of 4 storks looked at me in an interesting way from the nest, while a group of small birds flew out of the lower layers, making a lot of noise. The whole was complemented by pigsties, so characteristic of Upper Silesia.
I fell in love with this building and decided to buy it and restore it to its splendor.
The building was not a monument, but it was built by the arduous work of a hardworking family. They had to prepare bread for miners going to work in the mines Hedwigswunsch, Castellengo, Donnersmarckhütte for the fifth hour.
In 1951 the village with the Polish name of Grzybowice was incorporated into the nearby city of Zabrze, and in the 1990s the settlement of the emerging middle class began. The profession of a peasant worker has completely disappeared, and the profession of a farmer is disappearing
I rebuilt the entire front house, restoring service functions on the ground floor, a residential part on the first floor, and the attic also for residential purposes.
I also rebuilt the stork's nest.
Key objectives for sustainability
The key goal of my activity was to save the building from final destruction while maintaining its residential and service functions.
The process of degradation of the building took place successively from the end of the war. The bakery was unable to cope with the competition of a state-owned industrial bakery. The craftsman was also a public enemy of the past regime, which resulted in fiscal harassment. Also, no one went on foot to work in the nearby Ludwigsglück or Concordia-Grube mines. The last baker also aged and finally died, and his daughters did not want to continue the family profession. Only the baker's widow remained in the house, and a family of storks installed their nest on the abandoned chimney of the bakery. With the death of the widow, the destruction of the building accelerated, as the property was uninhabited. The leaking roof destroyed the roof truss and ceiling beams on the lower floors.
In this condition, I bought a property.
I saved the front building from demolition, restoring residential and service functions. However, since the political transformation in Poland, the professional profile of the inhabitants has changed. The profession of a peasant worker has completely disappeared, and representatives of the middle class with very different occupations started to arrive. Single-family housing has developed significantly.
That is why I implemented an aesthetic cosmetics service salon and a service design office on the ground floor. I devoted the floor to apartments (large and small). I also adopted the attic for a flat, because there is a beautiful view of the surrounding fields and meadows and the stork's nest. I have equipped the facility with solar panels for domestic water heating.
I believe that the example of the revitalization of the facility is worth popularizing. Although it is not a historic building, it has gained a new life thanks to renovation and settlement.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
In a sense, the poor technical condition of the building I purchased was a boon, as it forced technical and aesthetic changes. Due to the fact that the building is not a historical monument, there was a great freedom to change the aesthetics of the plot and the tenement itself. In the first place, I removed the ruins of the backyard cells and demolished the completely destroyed bakery building with the worn-out ceramic baking oven. This opened a vantage point to vast fields and meadows where deer graze periodically. The perspective is crowned with a highway line on which point-shaped vehicles move soundlessly. In this first stage of tidying up the aesthetics, I left the bakery chimney, due to the multi-story stork nest located on it (later I had to dismantle the chimney due to the poor condition that it was in danger of collapsing, and I moved the nest, in cooperation with an ornithologist, to a pole placed nearby). In the front building, I replaced the structural elements and improved the aesthetics by replacing the old casement windows with modern multi-glazed windows. I also increased their surface while maintaining the architectural order of each floor. I insulated the entire building and covered it with mineral plaster, and removed the plaster from the internal walls of the ground-floor service part, revealing, pleasing to the eye, the texture of raw brick. I cleaned and completed the railings of the stairs and the ornaments of the risers, keeping the style of forged elements.
I divided the land part of the plot into two parts: a parking part and a recreation part. I hardened the parking part with paving stones. I have developed the recreational part as a home vegetable garden, fruit orchard and sports lawn. On the lawn, I installed a swing bench overlooking a huge walnut. The project I have implemented can inspire to revitalize buildings that are not historical monuments but are worthy of receiving a new life in a new, changed reality.
Key objectives for inclusion
The location of the object revitalized by me suggested its optimal use. It is located at the crossroads in the central part of the village (and today a district of the city of Zabrze). Therefore, I decided to maintain the use of the ground floor for service purposes for the local community. Since the construction of the tenement house, the structure of its inhabitants has changed considerably. Miners and peasant workers have disappeared, and farmers are a fractional, disappearing part of the total. New residents appeared, with a different material status and different needs. I implemented it for them in the service part of my tenement house, "Institute of Health and Beauty", dealing with aesthetic cosmetics and a design office providing design services. Adapting the attic for housing needs gave the residents of this storey the opportunity to look into the stork habitat and savor the beautiful view of flowering meadows.
A separate element integrating the local community was and is now a stork's nest. It is one of the two nests located in the city of Zabrze. The intense life that took place there attracted the attention of the citizens of Zabrze. On the initiative of the inhabitants of Grzybowice, I installed a webcam on the roof of the building, which sent the image in real time to the website of Grzybowice. You could watch spring fights for the nest, adoration of the stork lady, alternate incubation of eggs by the parents, nervous atmosphere during the hatching of the chicks, feeding the descendants, education in dealing with natural needs, first attempts to soar into the air, and finally driving the stork out of the nest, he had to spend the nights alone, standing on one leg on the nearby street lamps. I have never closed my property with a fence, thus enabling the viewing of the nest directly from under it. I think that sharing with the community a curiosity that arouses the interest and sympathy of people is worth disseminating widely.
Results in relation to category
The property I bought has always been a public place in some way, or at least open to people. In the period when the village bakery was in operation, carts transporting flour for baking bread and taking bread to shops located further away used the yard. After the cessation of production activities, a stork built its nest on the chimney of the closed baking oven. The sympathy that these animals have in Poland and the intense life that goes on there drew the attention of passers-by and provoked visits. The property area has always been open to them.
When revitalizing the building, I remained faithful to this principle and did not enclose it, leaving it open to the entrance from the street. Many people observe the nest and on this occasion conversations, exchange of observations and opinions are established. Social integration develops on the basis of these random meetings.
This also has a positive effect on companies located on the ground floor of the tenement house, as the services they provide are popularized.
I believe that the restoration of such an important object (the purpose of many daily visits for decades) to social life, which was a bread shop, in the new form of health and beauty care services, is worth publicizing and duplicating. The facility with a new aesthetic and new service functions continues to serve the local community.
How Citizens benefit
The first works on the renovation of the tenement house aroused the interest of the inhabitants of the village, and today of the Zabrze district - Grzybowice. People were sympathetic and committed to the new owner and his plans to revitalize the facility. I was suggested to provide an insight into the stork's nest through a camera mounted on the roof of the building. Local entrepreneurs collected the necessary funds and a camera was installed to observe the life in the nest. This can be seen on the website www.grzybowice.pl. This page also keeps a record of events in the nest, such as the number of eggs laid, the number of hatched storks, the number of raised storks, dates of stork meetings for meetings before departure to warm countries.
In order to ensure the good quality of the works and to maintain the historical architectural connection, I hired two women, a well-known Silesian architect and an experienced works manager. Our cooperation of three women resulted in safe and careful execution of the works and a brick façade referring to the Upper Silesian tradition.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
The project I am implementing includes three innovations: functional, utility and aesthetic.
Functional innovation consists in changing the use of the top floor of the tenement house. This storey was occupied by a high attic, where the inhabitants' linen was dried. Today, the attic is no longer used. I noticed the advantages of this room and adapted it to the most beautiful apartment in the entire facility. It has a large area and a beautiful view of the foreground (stork's nest), the background (colorful meadows and arable fields) and the third plan (a soundless line of cars moving along the highway).
A functional innovation is the development of the yard and cells for a recreational area (lawn, swing bench, home vegetable garden).
Aesthetic innovation consists in revealing, in the service part (ground floor), the wall structure. A brick with joints was exposed. The rooms became interesting and cozy. I improved the aesthetics of the façade by increasing the window openings and completely glazed the ground-floor service part. In the staircase, I put photos of the object from the beginning of the 20th century. I have kept the drawing of the risers.
Learning transferred to other parties
I believe that the titanic work I have carried out to save a building object from destruction is worth duplicating. Detailed photographic documentation that I kept at every stage of revitalization may inspire others to put in their efforts to save the souvenirs of the past. Part of the photo documentation can be found at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JtFoqNWdfH0qj3yWPIyVGXefvqgL_Zg7?usp=sharing
The best possible evaluation was carried out by life, as all rooms in the building are used. Both in the residential and commercial parts. The residents of the tenement house enjoy a wonderful view of the fields and the stork family. The inhabitants of the village (and today a district of the city) use the services of craftsmen.
When you get acquainted with the object, you can see its specific beauty. The building does not have a single straight angle, as the angles are determined by the specific shape of the plot.
