Abstract
The cityscape changes constantly, reflecting the socio-economic conditions of a given urbanised area—both globally and in any given country. Post-industrial buildings and complexes have been its important elements since the nineteenth century. At present, many of them are undergoing adaptive reuse. The oldest, which are parts of post-industrial heritage and define the local identity, are now located in city centres. Some are revitalised and often adapted into multi-family housing. This paper fills a gap in the research on revitalised areas in Polish city centres, especially the ones converted into housing. It notes the links between these projects with elements of urban green-blue infrastructure, as well as the methods of protection of the reused postindustrial heritage. Studies from 2000–2020 on Polish multi-family housing architecture prove that the quality of buildings and semi-public green spaces is becoming increasingly important to developers and buyers. Properly used and exposed post-industrial heritage can contribute to raising the attractiveness of such spaces. In combination with city greenery systems, they can form attractive townscape sequences, as proven by Cracow cases. The paper’s conclusions indicate that the preservation and exposition of post-industrial heritage in newly built housing complexes is affected by numerous factors. The most important of these are legal determinants based on both state-level and local law. Economic factors also play a major role, as they directly affect projects. The skills and talent of designers who can create unique proposals that expose surviving relicts and a given place’s genius loci even in the most restrictive of economic and legal conditions, are also not without significance.
Highlights
The need for living and residing in confined and safe areas has been a part of human nature for millennia
The city became the natural environment of human life [3], and the twentieth century was proclaimed the century of cities
We examined multi-family residential buildings and complexes built in post-industrial areas in the centre of Cracow
Summary
The need for living and residing in confined and safe areas has been a part of human nature for millennia. The first cities to be documented by archaeological studies appeared seven thousand years ago [1]. Previously virgin areas and continue to do so. This process appears to be increasingly dynamic and generates negative consequences for the natural environment. The spatial structures of cities have changed over time, along with new needs and ideas generated by increasingly complex societies. Already half of the world’s population lives in cities, as demonstrated by numerous academic reports and statistical studies. It is projected that 75% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050. Forecasts note the global phenomenon of shrinking cities as clearly regressing, while over 90% of the one thousand of the world’s
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