Changing the post-pharmacy space to a design cluster open for the city's inhabitants
Jestem Wesoła (Polish pronunciation: [ˈjɛs.tɛm vɛˈsɔwa], which means „I am Happy”). I am Happy. I am Pharmacy of Design. I am passionate. I am the area. I am an idea. And I have strong will to save the last free space in the City Center of Kraków from gentrification and resale.
W_spólnota (community)
E_dukacja (education)
S_ymbioza (symbiosis)
O_becność (presence)
Ł_ączniczka (connector)
A_tmosfera (atmosphere)
Local
Poland
Krakow, around Krakow, Lesser Poland Voivodeship
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): Krakowskie Biuro Festiwalowe Type of organisation: Other public institution First name of representative: Grzegorz Last name of representative: Grabowski Gender: Male Nationality: Poland If relevant, please select your other nationality: Poland Function: Deputy Director for Organizational Affairs Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: ul. Wygrana 2 Town: Kraków Postal code: 30-311 Country: Poland Direct Tel:+48 12 354 25 00 E-mail:wnioski@kbf.krakow.pl Website:https://kbf.krakow.pl/
Name of the organisation(s): Agencja Rozwoju Miasta Krakowa Type of organisation: Other public institution First name of representative: Jan Last name of representative: Pamuła Gender: Male Nationality: Poland If relevant, please select your other nationality: Poland Function: President of the company's management Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: ul. Królewska 57 Town: Kraków Postal code: 30-081 Country: Poland Direct Tel:+48 12 293 45 90 E-mail:wnioski@kbf.krakow.pl Website:https://armk.pl/
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Yes
New European Bauhaus or European Commission websites
Wesoła (Happy) is a name of the area settled on the East edge of the Kraków’ Old Town and the West Edge of the Grzegórzki district. Wesoła has a long story starting before Kraków's location, but its name is officially registered in 1639. In XVIII C. first hospital was open instead of a church ruins. An that’s how Wesoła became a hospital burgh, where whole generations of Krakowians were taking birth, healing and dying. In 2019 the Mayor of Kraków decided to buy this area from the university’ hospital, with a plan to give it to the citizens hands to carry on. The project I am Happy: Pharmacy of Design is to be a long-term process of co-creating a design cluster by the inhabitants of The Old Town and Grzegórzki districts and the inhabitants of other districts of Krakow.
Currently, the main building where we can start working indoors is the former pharmacy, which will be dedicated to design, but in the near future also to education, fine arts and workshops that could be used by residents of Krakow.
The pharmacy pavilion in Wesoła can be a place where art, science, architecture, web design, technology, industrial design and activism meet and intertwine. It is an incubator of thought and experimentation for innovators who are looking for a collaborative space to engage with the most important issues of our time. We will start by inviting design to Wesoła and evaluating the quality of work in the post-pharmacy space.
1. design
2. communicty
3. education
4. activism
5. art
1. transport restriction (focused on local actions)
2. democratic access to the post-pharmacy space (4 floors – 1st dedicated to Design (open to NGO’s)// 2nd floor dedicated to art studios (open for students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków) // 3rd floor will be dedicated to craft studios (open to all interested Krakowians) // 4th floor will be warehouse
3. increasing the quality of life of Krakow’s residents by giving them one, coherent space to carry out various initiatives
4. supporting the sense of pride and importance of Krakowians by showing them that they are important to the city officials
5. gender equality
6. supporting innovative women
7. supporting learning and experiencing
8. ensuring broad access to culture, education and science for people at risk of exclusion
9. climate actions (remodeling green and blue infrastructure around the pharmacy)
10. building a strong culture-forming and design-forming institution
11. working with ideas of innovation, industry, infrastructure
12. high-level education
14. supporting multiculturalism
The above assumptions, or let's call it ideas, will be achieved through the cooperation of several departments of the organizer (KBF). The team of the Interdisciplinary Department will invite other specialists from the institution and from outside to cooperate on the project.
Social and climate activists, NGOs, designers, scientists, educators and students of the Academy of Fine Arts will meet in Pharmacy of Design. It is supposed to be a model, living place. An example of contemporary democratic thinking and acting.
First of all, we will start with courses, meetings, lectures, so that people, their thoughts, their energies, their cultural background will appear there first.
Concentrating these activities in the symbolic center of urban culture will facilitate the communication of the event and the community's sense of belonging to the place and to each other.
In the area of Wesoła, events dedicated to all social groups are to take place, but in different categories of activity. We mapped the cultural and scientific life of Krakow, which resulted in a huge number of start-ups dealing with the design of games, industrial design, furniture industry, crafts, visual arts, but also social activism, designing solutions for society, and cultural activists – ex. artist run spaces and a large group of independent artists. Kraków is a city with a huge culture-forming potential therefore putting Wesoła in the hands of its inhabitants is a great opportunity for us to develop this city not only as a space for international corporations, but also as a creative development through caring for small, local initiatives. The opening of the post-pharmacy space this year will allow several professional groups to start cooperation for the district. In order for us to be able to build the identity of the district as a design collective (in the broad sense of design), we must start to mark our presence there now.
Here are some of the key projects that are about to happen this year:
- moving the office of the Interdisciplinary Department of the Krakow Festival Office to Wesoła
- opening of a design center in a former pharmacy
- organization of a library of design (broadly understood) and an open space - a place for cooperation and exchange of ideas
- conducting meetings with design, lectures with designers, design workshops
- opening of one of the floors of the post-pharmacy space for the studio of graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow
- adapting one of the floors of the post-pharmacy space for workshops for children, families, adults and seniors
- organization of workshops for groups.
1. Accesibility:
preparation of a series of educational events (free of charge, fully funded from by the NEB Prize) conducted by students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków studying in the field of design, animation and movie industry and visual arts with assistance of experienced educators and specialists:
a. workshops for families with children
b. workshops for non specialists youth and adults
c. workshops for people with intellectual and physical disabilities (conducted by students, a trainer in art therapy and and assistants for people with disabilities)
2. Three week-long workshops for young specialists (free of charge, fully funded from by the NEB Prize): candidates apply in the open-call for a week-long program, where 1 expert in the field of design conducts original workshops. One workshop will be conducted in Ukrainian (by Mykola Skyba, Kharkiv School of Architecture; Ukrainian Institute for the Future), anoter one in English (by Thomas Geisler, director of Design Campus Dresden and Kunstgewerbemuseum in Dreseden), and two in Polish (by duo: Hanna Lebensztejn, curator in Museum of Literature in Warsaw + Jakub Woynarowski, Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków; author of Polish Pavilion in Venice in 2017. Another one in Polish will be conducted by: Grzegorz Skorczewski, emcn.pl).
Through specific actions, we want to open the gates of Wesoła for everyone - children, families, the elderly, excluded people and young professionals who, for various reasons, cannot afford or participate in them. Sometimes they are related to the lack of funds, cultural or language barrier. This is a common belief that people with intellectual disabilities do not need design or other specialized training. The same is thought for people with physical disabilities. However, this is a misconception. Everyone should be able to try, get to know and discover passion in the least expected area. People with dissabilities are invisibile in Kraków. We want to change it.
The entire project is organized and curated by the city council, which operates in a non-profit system. We employ 120 people, 50 of whom are specialists from various creative industries. Our basic goal from which we start and finish our work is: HUMAN. Now that we have received the good, which is the infrastructure in Wesoła, and in particular the former pharmacy, we want it to become a common good. Apteka Designu is to be the first structured program task that we will implement in Wesoła. Thanks to communication channels (social media, press advertising) and if we manage to win the New European Bauaus award, we will be able to reach a wide range of recipients of various ages, economic and social status, at various levels of education, and cultures and languages living in Krakow and offer them free participation in planned events. Thanks to this model group of respondents, we will be able to evaluate the project, define the needs and further development directions, and communicate the effects to the public in the form of a written report and photographic documentation.
Wesoła is a very important and symbolic place, here in the Middle Ages trade routes leading from Krakow to Ruthenia intersected. The axis of Wesoła is ul. Nicolaus Copernicus, which used to be part of the silk route. After the period when it was a nutritional base for Krakow (from the 16th to the 18th century), it became the seat of hospitals. The latest history of Wesoła is the period when it has been a place of temporary shelter for refugees from the war from Ukraine for a year.
Therefore, there is no better time or place to make Pharmacy of Design, unique in Europe, a unit of cultural and design renewal, fully aware of the heritage of this place and the competences that we, the organizers, are able to use.
1. Architectural accesibility:
An old pharmacy in Wesoła district is a four floor postmodern building, whith a complex facilities such as an elavator, a flat floor and good warming system
We are a local organization: all of us comes from The Lesser Poland are. But the KBF is known for its music festivals (Misteria Paschalia Festival, Film Music Festival, Sacrum Profanum and film and literary festivals. The KBF is also responsible for the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature brand and for many festivals and awards with which it supports the initiatives of debuting. Even though the Pharmacy of Design initiative was not conceived with foreign partners, our broad and rich experience in the international industry, as well as the position of a leader on a national scale, allows us to take care of this small cel – Pharmacy of Design - without any complexes. We are aware of the challenges that are ahead of us, but we also have each other - a team of employees of the institution who support each other and move forward together. Thanks to Pharmacy of Design, we have a chance to do something really important and non-commercial for the local community. And such initiatives are the most beautiful and exciting.
The plan for this year's activities at pharmacy in Wesoła is:
1. to prepare offices that can be given to designers; enabling them to work on their own, but connecting them with the task of cooperation and generating ideas for innovations within Wesoła
2. to create open space in center of the building, connecting designers’ spaces - a place where they can collaborate, discuss, consult projects, present current achievements, but also a place where lectures or other forms of sharing the "product" of design thinking in Wesoła could be held. In this space, it would be good if a handy library was created
3. every 3 months requireing an informal report of the activities (work, ideas, achievments, effects)
4. organising at the end of the year a small conference presenting the effects of the work of project teams in Wesoła
5. appointment of a curator of post-pharmacy at Wesoła
6. opening project room for designers
7. meetings with Krakow's design and activism
When creating Pharmacy of Design, it is important to have an empathic dialogue between city officials and the residents. On their behalf, we meet with specialists in architecture, design, visual arts, education, curating and green transformation. We have a building, but we also need to take care of the area around it. To make Pharmacy of Design accesible, an exemplary initiative worth copying, we are willing to hear where and how to start.
For instance, a few months ago, a meeting with architects was held, during which we developed a list of the most important needs for creating a friendly, supportive and accessible space, with particular emphasis on green areas. We mapped the needs of redesigning the Wesoła space and together planned the implementation of a roofed pavilion with electricity and a toilet, suitable for closing from all sides, functioning as an amphitheater and a place for e.g. small concerts, outdoor workshops or outdoor lessons; Providing blue and green infrastructure that takes care of rainwater retention, designing a reservoir (pond) that could supply the surrounding greenery; taking into account the natural relief of the land, and in particular to create a model example of caring for biodiversity in the city and restoring the natural ecosystem of the meadow in Wesoła; removing the fences around the area of Wesoła, which would facilitate communication between the densely built-up surroundings of the green areas of Wesoła and would be interpreted as a sign of hospitality, an invitation to the residents; designing pedestrian and bicycle paths connecting the surrounding streets. The intersection of these roads would literally open Wesoła for people moving between the Old Town and Grzegórzki; in order to provide Wesoła with more guests from further districts of Krakow.
All meetings are held in a working mode, during which ideas are discussed and one coherent vision of Pharmacy of Design is drawn up.
What distinguishes our projects in Wesoła is that we do not reach far beyond the simplest tools that we can use with a limited budget. Being aware of the economic structure of Polish culture, we try to cooperate and operate on a low-budget basis. The greatest value of the initiative is the KBF team, which often selflessly and beyond the activity required by the institution, find partners and energy to act on their own terms. We are a large institution with a small budget, which may particularly affect Wesoła this year. That's why any support for the project, such as the New European Bauhaus Award, is worth its weight in gold. Thanks to even the smallest amount of money, we will be able to set more dominoes in motion. Having a former pharmacy building, we will be able to accumulate on four floors, connected by an elevator and a staircase, broad areas of design that we want to cooperate and curate long-distance projects in Wesoła from the bottom up. It is more innovative to look back, to put the brakes on innovation understood as technology. There is no other such initiative in Poland, nor any prospects for it to appear in the near future. This country has gone through a difficult and instructive path from the fall of communism to today. The economic problems that Poland faced for 40 years from the end of World War II to the fall of communism have recently resonated with the current generation of thirty-year-olds. Places such as Wesoła are a „tasty morsel” for developers and politicians, so we must do everything to show that our actions are necessary to build an aware community.
All training methods that we will use are popular in design and education centers. Only the destination and recipient change, as well as the place. The place will be permanent, renovated,
The element that can be transferred are good practices related to the skilful incorporation of the dispersed artistic community and the invisible design community in Krakow into one organism, which will be Design Pharmacy. In addition, an important and measurable element is the number of participants who would take part in all events accompanying the establishment of the unit, which is Design Pharmacy. Every year, a report will be prepared, which will also include ideas and ideas for the revitalization of Wesoła developed jointly by a group of NGOs, start-ups and freelancers. It is interesting because the ideas could also be a portfolio of ready-made projects that potential sponsors could be interested in. Apteka Designu will be a comprehensive center with offices, an open workshop or discussion space, catering facilities and a library, where lively, interesting and opening activities will take place: meetings, workshops and lectures. For now, we are not planning to move this practice anywhere except Wesoła. We need to focus on building the identity of this place, and attracting specialists here, not the other way around. Over time, we would like to be a reference point for similar initiatives, but first we have to start working on this living organism.
The methodology we use is based on the design thinking process, which began with a survey of the needs of the local community of professionals and non-professionals, addressed in the form of a survey to the residents of Krakow in 2020. They said that Wesoła is to be devoted to broadly understood culture, animated by the residents. Drawing the methodology from our experience and competencies, we have developed the following work schedule:
1. Creating of a functional website with news on the actions of Pharmacy of Design, information on events in the area of design, and information on educational events. It will also be a place where a network of similar initiatives will be built, a network of websites on the most important contemporary problems, blogs, portfolios, articles, books in the field of design (broadly understood as: design thinking, design ecology, ecology of design, economy, activism, food design etc.)
2. Appointment of the design curator at Wesoła Street and a co-curating team consisting of representatives of various departments of the KBF
3. Announcement of recruitment for a studio in Apteka Designu (20 percent of working time must be devoted to designing for Wesoła. Groups choose one day when each group moderates it differently). Improvement of the Wesoła biosphere as the first of the goals for the above project groups.
4. Setting the goals of work in Wesoła and for Wesoła, setting the methodology and determining the method of evaluation.
5. Organization of masterclasses and a series of trainings supporting civil society at Design Pharmacy (free admission)
6. Organization of a meeting room with a design library.
7. Establishing an open space where students of the Academy of Fine Arts can work and meet with residents and curators.
8. Continuation of the Sanatorium Sztuka project (outdoor exhibitions)
9. A small conference summarizing the first year of Design Pharmacy actions.
Taking care of the environment by designing and implementing blue-green infrastructure (revitalization of the meadow, restore a river channel flowing under the meadow, construction of a bicycle path connecting the Grzegórzki district and the Old Town), sustainable transformation of a post-hospital site into a cultural cluster, building a sense of identity and a mature civil society, introducing NGOs to one operational center, care for minorities (national, social) and those excluded due to the economic situation (a large part of the activities is free of charge) and disability (facilities in the form of lifts and platforms, specialists and assistants for people with disabilities who will constantly accompany the designed events), CO2 reduction by focusing on a place well connected by public transport, reporting the impact of APharmacy of Design activities on the environment (both the impact of the building's ergonomics and examining the commute of its employees, event participants guests of Pharmacy of Design, along with diagnoses regarding the solutions designed for Wesoła), building the identity of young residents of Krakow and thus the identity of the city of the future, building relationships between the residents and a piece of the city handed over to them.
The activities that have taken place in the area of Wesoła so far have been definitely social projects. Our goal is primarily to show the that Wesoła wants to be a new cultural home for residents of Krakow. From the beginning of the ideological design of Wesoła, we assumed activities based on music, literature, visual arts and the idea of sustainable development, which was reflected in the activation of the civic environment in the "old - new" space. The first curated event at Wesoła Street took place in 2021. It was the music festival I'm Happy: Wianki. Thus, Wesoła, in a cheerful way, wanted to introduce herself to the Cracovians. Wianki is an annual celebration of music referring to the Slavic holiday of the summer solstice. Then, in addition to outdoor concerts, a series of workshops for families with children and young adults were held. In the following year (2022) at Wesoła another a family picnic was held, but a new initiative was a series of exhibitions curated by academics from the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, attended by their students, as well as invited guests from Ukraine and Belarus. At that time, we did not have our own building, so the exhibitions were held outdoors, which over the years of neglect has become a square desert in the middle of the city. Project I'm Happy: Sanatorium allowed for the remuneration of young artists, in particular those who were deprived of their livelihood due to the need to flee war-torn Ukraine. In addition to these exhibitions, there were art workshops for the Ukrainian community living in this area, which were conducted by us. On the occasion, an exchange of books on ecological topics was held. We will not give up activities that animate civic life in Wesoła, Pharmacy of Design is to support us in this even better. The invited designers (from broadly understood design) are to help us model innovative social, ecological and economic solutions.
In Poland, less and less urban space is selflessly handed over to the inhabitants. We are in a privileged position to be proud of the fact that the institution which is the KBF hires a group of enthusiasts and specialists in many fields, who really care about improving the quality of intellectual life of every inhabitant. We want to create a model example of democratic cooperation of specialists for the sustainable development of the Wesoła area and its role for the residents. We want to share our experience and competences with the residents and openly report profits for the culture, social life and industry of Krakow. Our initiative fully meets the assumptions of sustainable development. We are planning a green transformation of the Wesoła area and creating its pro-social image and identity. The Pharmacy of Design will be a platform for people who improve their competences throughout their lives, from the youngest to the oldest participants. Fully democratic. The Parmacy of Design will be a model laboratory for developing knowledge and passion, and a team of specialists from the KBF will take care of maintaining a high level of services that Pharmacy of Design will offer to residents. The Pharmacy of Design and the entire area of the cultural cluster will be aimed at raising the sense of agency and self-confidence. The program presented in this application is to be achieved in the coming year.
