Important information on Elements of Design classes - 1st semester IDEAS programme winter semester 2021/22

Dear students, 

We are pleased to welcome you to your first design classes during your studies at the Warsaw Faculty of Architecture called “Elements of design.”

The classes will be taught by a team of four professionals consisting of dr. arch. Anna Lorens, arch. Bartosz Świniarski, arch. Baltazar Brukalski and arch. Zygmunt Borawski. 

We will be leading those classes as a series of workshops, open consultations, and presentations that will lead you to preparing your semestral works. The final effect will be strongly based and graded on your individual hard work.

The final submission at the end of the semester will comprise four design tasks that you will be working on consecutively during upcoming months. The tasks will be closely connected and will be reveald to you during our first meeting.

The tasks will be tied to a specific location that all of you need to visit in order to start the design proces. 

This year the location that we build the tasks arround is an old Chalk mine in the city of Mielnik at the eastern part of Poland.

Here:

https://goo.gl/maps/jRcLj9Wep2iKLyJN9  

Getting to Mielnik (52.33148890954361, 23.046007154533395)Mielnik is a small place and  the public transportation options are limited, so our recommendation would be to hire a  bus ( big enough for all of You) for a day – and use the travel time to be introduced to and know each other.  The bus could start at Plac Bankowy, big central hub of Warsaw at 8am at Saturday (02 10 21), and get You to Mielnik in 2,5 / 3  hours time. After the trip to the mine and more, the way back will start at 8pm in Mielnik. The total price for the bus - 1700pln.

Contact to the bus company:

tel.: +48 602 743 406
e-mail: biuro@autokarwarszawa.pl

https://www.autokarwarszawa.pl/kontakt

Please try to get a bus reservation ASAP, our time schedule is so tight.

We are issuing this email even before the semester starts because we wanted to go to the location as soon as possible and we suggest that we should go there in the upcomming weekend of 01.10-03.10. 

Thr reason for this type of haste is the possibility of introduction of governmental Covid based restrictions that may not allow us to visit the location later.  

We plan to meet at the place on Saturday the 2nd od October at arround 10-11am so to talk about the location and the tasks.

We strongly recomand that you plan the trip so that you can stay there for an entire day as you will be asked to carry our observations based on conditions that may vary with time.

How to get to Mielnik:

Access by car: At the intersection of national roads 19 and 62, near Siemiatycze (Podlaskie Voivodeship), at the roundabout, take the road no. 640 towards Adamowo. After a few kilometers, we pass under the railway viaduct. 1 kilometer from the viaduct, there will be a right direction indicator for Mielnik. From there, after the next kilometer, the main road leads left and takes you directly to Mielnik. 

Access by bus: Get to the bus station in Siemiatycze and then go to the stop no. 34 on Grodzieńska Street. From there, direct buses depart to the following towns: Osłowo, Mielnik, Wajków, Sutno, Niemirów, Radziwiłłówka, Adamowo, Tokary, and Wilanowo. See also: bus timetable in the commune of Mielnik In Siemiatycze, it is possible to order a taxi. One of the stops is next to the bus station. 

Telephones for taxi ranks: - Taxi Siemiatycze, John Paul II stop - (085) 655 26 08 - Taxi stop Siemiatycze, Nadrzeczna (next to the PKS bus station) - (085) 655 39 89 

Access by train: You should get to the Siemiatycze-Stacja railway station. For example, there are several train connections during the day from Warsaw, usually with a change in Siedlce. 

We recommend checking connections on PKP websites.

Please dress properly. Take proper walking shoes, warm clothes and rain jackets. You will be asked to hike around, please don’t make it harder for you by dressing too fashionable:)  

The most important thing BRING YOUR CAMERAS and NOTEPADS!! The tasks will be based on the photographic documentation that you will create during the visit.