Krzysztof Gasidło

Several years after accepting The Revitalization Program for Zablocie District in Cracow its process and effects can be analised. The following are the refl ections of one of the authors of the program and the author of the solution design for program’s key project: Lipowa Avenue.
One of the important purposes of both: the program and the plan was integration of parts of district that were structurally and functionally varied and physically divided by railway track.
Lipowa Avenue is thought to be a public space able to gather split parts and to link the isolated areas. So far during the realization of the program no effi cient action has been undertaken for the realization of the key project.
The studial conception of Lipowa Avenue demonstrates that only realization of key project enables integration of Zablocie District. The result of the studial conception is a voice in the discussion and the answer for the questions: what should Lipowa Avenue become and what should it be like.

Revitalization and urban renewal course was established at Faculty of Architecture in Politechnika Śląska (Silesian University of Technology) as a new course in academic year 2008-2009. Previously problems of that matter were presented fragmentally within the courses of Urban Design and Planning, Architectural Design, Monument Preservation and Urban Renewal. That situation resulted in specifi c misunderstanding. Students understood revitalization mainly as a spatial reconstruction or renewal of urban or architectural degradated objects. In that sense the main goal seemed to be gained by pure spatial act. New course is intended to show revitalization as interdisciplinary, long-term process. Operational aspects of executing this process are strongly stressed in the program of new course. The main didactic objective is to provide necessary knowledge and improve students ability and skills of urban space diagnosing, formulating aims, tasks and actions programming. One of those actions is renewal of urban space elements, treated as a tool of urban revitalization process.