Retirement Home

A retirement home on a site next to the spa park in Busko-Zdrój. The brief meant reconciling care and health requirements with a space that does not feel like an institution — residents spend not hours here, but years.

I based the project on the principles of biophilic architecture: contact with greenery built into a resident's daily route, rather than added beside the building as a garden to visit. Two long wings are joined by a pair of circular shared spaces, with a glazed planted patio running between them. On the roof sits a raised-bed garden used for occupational therapy. Outside stands a brine graduation tower, a nod to the spa character of Busko. Green walls inside lower the level of stimulation and warm a space that is institutional by definition.

3,070 m² of total floor area set out across eight boards: from site analyses and the land balance, through plans of four levels and four elevations, to the build-up of the envelope and a 1:20 detail.