Eco - Revitalisation Tenement Housing Quarters in Szczecin, Poland

The article is trying to answers on question: how the sustainable development influence on designing of revitalization process especially for tenement housing quarters in downtowns of the cities? Residential quarters from the 19-th and early 20-th century are still a major part of existing urban tissue, especially in big cities – same in Poland as in other European countries. Tenement houses were built for middle and lower social classes, and frontal tenement houses had large, comfortable flats, while the annexes had small, sub-standard flats devoid of any amenities. Living conditions and the living environment must be changed now, especially with regard to flats located inside quarters. Proposed to demolish whole inside quarters and to establishment green and recreational areas there is mistake. The sustainable development paradigm changes the view on 19-th century quarters and the ways to improve them. In sustainable development theory: social, economic and ecological problems are equal and deeply intertwined. They all have a significant impact on architecture and thus on spatial and technical arrangements adopted. Ecological aspects present in the revitalisation process have a significant impact on both the planning solutions in big scale and the small scale architectural, technical and material solutions used in particular buildings or flats. Among all the ecological aspects the ones important for architectural design and revitalisation are energy-related, material-related and space-related, or better time-space-related, where the analysis of a whole life cycle is conducted. The presented works of the author and especially the fallowing implementation of an ecological renovation of a Turzyn Quarter in Szczecin are the showcase of the material and non-material benefits for people and environment, which are brought by such an approach to revitalisation.