During the fall 2024, I participated in a stay at the Gdańsk University of Technology, Poland, as a part of the ERASMUS+ mobility. The main goal of the stay was to participate in the pedagogical process at the Faculty of Architecture, specifically at the Department of Urbanism and Regional Planning. The stay also included meetings not only with teachers, but also with scientific and research workers, with whom we addressed current topics and challenges in spatial planning and their implementation in both teaching and research. In September, I even managed to meet the newly appointed Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Professor Jakub Szczepanski, who succeeded Professor Lucyna Nyka, who led the faculty for two terms.
During my stay, I had the opportunity to participate in teaching students at all three levels of higher education; bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral. At the bachelor’s level, I participated in the subject “Urban Design I (composition)”, which is led by Dr. Anna Rubczak. There was a discussion with the students about the created compositional models, which they completed directly in class with other elements in the required scales. The aim was to create places with a high-quality composition, whether when creating street spaces or squares. Attention was paid to the correct interpretation and proportions of individual compositional elements such as dominant, accent, gradation, proportions, relationships, distance, scale, etc.
The subject taught at the master’s level “Architectural-urbanistic Project I”, which is led by Assoc. Prof. Dorota Karmlowska-Zaluska and Prof. Lucyna Nyka, focuses mainly on the connection of urban and architectural qualities of space in a selected area. During this semester, students focus primarily on the territory of the university campus and the resolution of the main flows in the area with an emphasis on previously unused spaces. The consultations were conducted on an individual level and focused on creating a concept and logo for their designs during the week.
Picture No. 6-7: Samples of student work on the subject Architectural-urbanistic Project I under the guidance of Assoc. Prof. Dorota Karmlowska-Zaluska and Prof. Lucyna Nyka. Students use various means of communication during consultations, such as background maps, duplex with sketches, 3D model of the area being addressed, and tablets.
The mobility also included field trips with doctoral students, which were linked to teaching and discussion on selected topics of brownfield regeneration in the urban structure. We focused primarily on two exemplary areas; the regeneration of brownfields in the old town in contact with the Motlava River and the area of the former barracks, Garnison. We discussed the change in the population composition in the given areas, as well as the impact on the local economy.
During my stay, I was invited by architect Bartosz Macikowski to the Chamber of Architects, where we talked about lifelong learning for architects and the current challenges they currently face. It is primarily about the value of their work, which implies the necessity of basic knowledge of management at work and in finance, which is currently absent in university teaching, but on the contrary is very desirable in practice.
At the end of the stay, I was invited by Prof. Piotr Lorens, who is the head of the Department of Urbanism and Regional Planning at the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University of Gdansk, and is also the chief architect of the city of Gdansk, and Prof. Jakub Szczepanski, dean of the Faculty of Architecture, to the conference “Architecture of the Metropolis”. I attended the conference as a listener and as a speaker. I had the opportunity to meet expert speakers from all over the world. I was very pleased when I managed to book two speakers for lectures for our students in online form. I presented a lecture on the topic “New architectural face of Bratislava”, which attracted many participants, since most of them had already been to Bratislava. I focused primarily on the buildings that grew up in the “new downtown” of Bratislava and began to significantly change the city’s skyline.
Picture No. 9-10: Presentation of the lecture “New architectural face of Bratislava” at the conference “Architecture of the Metropolis”