Nowy Targówek V

Nowy Targówek is a multi-phase ATAL residential development in Warsaw's Targówek district. When PAKA.archi joined the project, the first four phases of Nowy Targówek, designed by another firm, had been completed and all 523 of their apartments sold. ATAL entrusted PAKA.archi with phase V, which had to become a natural part of a development buyers already knew well while selling on its own merits.

PAKA.archi worked without input from the designers of the earlier phases, so the team had to work out from the buildings already on site what gives Nowy Targówek its character and what buyers expect from it. The design of phase V, from concept to design supervision on site, was led throughout by the same pair, the firm's co-owners Kacper Matysiak and Paweł Balcerzak. Every decision about where to follow the existing development and where to depart from it was made straight away by the people who dealt directly with the developer and put their own names to the design.

Nowy Targówek V contains 70 apartments, from one- to four-bedroom and from 35 to 96 m², 3 ground-floor commercial units and an underground car park for 89 cars. The number of parking spaces a building must provide is set by the local zoning plan or zoning decision and is usually calculated from the number of apartments, so the number of spaces that fit in the garage determines how many apartments can be built above it. At Nowy Targówek V, all 89 spaces fitted on a single basement level because PAKA.archi optimised the structural layout and the floor plans together: the same column grid had to work both for the parking bays and drive aisles in the garage and for the apartments on the floors above. Without that optimisation, Nowy Targówek V would have had to lose apartments or combine them into fewer, larger ones.

Nowy Targówek V follows the scale and character of the earlier phases of the development but has its own identity, based on natural colours. Wood-coloured windows and balconies are complemented by restrained aluminium details. The ground floor is clad in brick, which forms a clear plinth, brings order to the street elevation and marks off the commercial and entrance zone from the residential floors. The apartments have private gardens with terraces, balconies or loggias, and there is a courtyard with a playground next to the building.

Ancillary buildings within a development are usually designed to be as inconspicuous as possible. PAKA.archi built the Nowy Targówek logo into the enclosure of the phase V bike store, turning what would have been another utilitarian pavilion into an almost sculptural element that is recognisable across the development.

Construction of Nowy Targówek V began in Q1 2022, and the building was completed in Q1 2024 as the next part of the development, consistent with the earlier phases.