This paper is devoted to forecasts relating to the development of urbanized areas, human habitats, and residential architecture on our Earth. According to the Author, 21st century is a century of a new different approach to issues connected with shaping a city and diversified new forms of residence satisfying all expectations as a result of new current challenges, e.g. the ones connected with considerable climatic changes, protection of natural environment, the rate of natural increase or necessary needs, connected e.g. with the revitalization of degraded urban areas, etc.

The original composition of Królowej Jadwigi Street was determined by the topography and the 16th century public building of Villa Decius. Its current route is the result of the construction of another public building – a garrison shooting range – in the second half of the 19th century. The importance of Królowej Jadwigi Street as a multifunctional urban structure is defined by the historical system whose “center of gravity” is Villa Decius, which forms the main compositional axis directed towards the Cracow Old Town. On the basis of analysis and evaluation of the buildings occurring along Królowej Jadwigi street, as well as their own study experience related to contemporary design, the authors present possible directions for its further compositional, stylistic, formal and material development, pointing to the participation of public buildings in this process.

Despite the ongoing transformations in Poland and the resultant positive developments in the towns, the problems related to space quality remain unresolved in a number of fragments. The lack of measures taken towards obtaining a clear strategy in spatial planning leads to stagnation of the existing conditions. As a result, it promotes deepening problems, their building-up and the spread of spatial pathology. Through the creation of urban and architectural spine, highlighted in a particular urban landscape, the method of “mental maps” of the city would allow for the deliberate indication and stressing of the importance of specific areas and facilities, while maintaining continuity of their joint relationship. Underlining the potential of public spaces, recreational and particularly valuable areas, after identifying the needs and shaping possibilities, would also create the chance to verify a particular social system. The article aims to make diagnosis in the form of conclusions concerning space quality in cities on the basis of “mental map” project as a tool for developing the distinctive structure of the city in order to shape it designedly.

Urban environment is a complex system made by buildings, green areas, empty spaces and city users: this mix through human perception becomes rules, proportions, and spaces. Economic crisis and the phenomena of the shrinking cities push us to face new problems: Is it possible to speak about urban composition without buildings? In addition, in the other hand, can we use un-useful buildings like empty box to build new compositions made by green structures, temporary public spaces and low cost function? The paper will present new tools and key examples in the field of architecture and urbanism facing the problem of the land consumption, resilient cities for the climate changes, and technical apparel for smart cities. The aim is to support the discussion of the regeneration of neglect urban tissues, through common management of the resources, not waiting for a new economic boom.

There are around a hundred towns in the region of Galicia, which have the official status of historic settlements. They are included into the appropriate list and should be conserved. The market squares in these towns are among the most interesting urban odjects of unique architectural and urban features. The paper is dedicated to the issues of their regeneration, more precisely, some theoretical and methodological ones. The meaning of the very notion of regeneration and also the essentiality of an urban object are studied. From such a perspective the directions of the research of regeneration issues are suggested.

The article examines the “Green architecture” notion development as a new stage in architecture development as exemplified by the current trends in design and construction of the “Green architecture” projects.

The article illustrates six implemented designs of architectural and urban composition which were either designed by the author individually or in a team, against a backdrop of an analysis of the term “urban and architectural composition”. The very term and the creative implementation of architectural and urban composition as a synthesis of shaping space in a creative manner is one of the more important scientific, practical and didactic achievements of the Kraków school of urban design, based at the Faculty of Architecture of the Kraków University of Technology. The author of this essay, the opinions that it contains, as well as of the design concepts that it is based upon identifies himself as a member of this school. The examples that are listed in the article carefully illustrate the importance of the fact that the composition of buildings should be closely tied to and coordinated with the composition of the surrounding urban context and lead to a conscious improvement in the aesthetics of the city.

Architecture forms a collective artifact that is the city. It also draws its characteristics from the city, expressing its problems in style and form. A culture building is a place which identity naturally represents cultural and social values. Kozień Architects’ project of the music school could become a symbol of culture, being primarily an educational facility. Project assumptions were based on the analysis of the site. On this basis, we established relationships between parts of an object, so the object’s functional organization has adopted individual characteristics. Architecture is a constant continuation of the existing systems, working on a form that already exists.

The article presents an alternative approach to the composition of architectural space. Physical structure (building’s construction depicted by conventional drawings) has been contrasted with its functional structure (usage depicted by graphs). Dual graphs of the floor plans serve to abstract the functional structure of a house (March & Steadman 1974). Manors and other detached houses are an important position in the work of Józef Gałęzowski (1866–1963), a prominent representative of the Cracow school of architecture. Gałęzowski designed 40 such buildings, 20 of which were built. Floor plans of chosen houses designed by him are analysed in this paper.

The housing environment and public space of the contemporary city , as the everyday life itself is put under pressure of speed; the acceleration from digitalized society where communication is everything, and where an individual who stops for a while risk to be left outside the main stream. It is visible in the way how public spaces in the cities are shaped. Public spaces is seen there as just another product which competes to get users attention. Slowing down which is attributed to small town space builds one of the aspects which allows the preservation of the cultural and environmental heritage allowing to unfold the alternate space composition rules based on the ideas of ecological philosophy. A reflection based on analysis of the possibilities to balance the needs and to build the rules for shaping of the different alternate urban spaces.

The article identifies the specialties of the formation of socialist large-panel housing estates built in the post-war period in opposition to historical cities. Apart from the ideological background and economic and technical aspects the architects and urban planners tried to find out tools to create qualitatively new architectural environment appropriate for the new mode of life. Taking into account the importance of the social dimension for mass housing in the formation, implementation and transformation while changing contexts, the article introduces the concept of social composition of architectural space which is interconnected with the classical concepts of spatial composition of housing estates and also refers to the patterns of space usage by different social groups and their daily practices.

The article discusses the problems associated with the revitalization of urban space and giving it new spatial and aesthetic values. Revitalization, as the recovery process is part of the current activities related to the improvement of the living conditions of the inhabitants of modern cities and estates. Creation of renewed urban spaces on one hand, uses existing compositional and spatial qualities, builds readability and a new scale facilities, on the other hand it allows the introduction of modern materials, technology, detail and endowment, as a complement to these transformations.

Architectural concept defines a composition pattern and the relations among its elements. A façade, as the most prominent element, because of its geometrics, construction, materials used, texture and colour becomes a major element of the whole - the composition. Yet, there is a certain interdependence observable in the urban tissue, giving a thrill to architects: “the old” or “the new”? The choice between imitation and creation of something new should not be reduced to a mere assessment of the situation as is, but should also involve formal and symbolic meaning of the object being designed.

The analysis of architectural peculiarities of the Christian educational institutions of the theological humanitarian type, as based on the example of the Ukrainian Catholic University building complex in Lviv, was done in the article. The factors having the major influence on formation of architectural and space planning organization and on stylistic decisions of the buildings of Christian theological-humanitarian institutions in Ukraine have been distinguished.

Spatial continuity and overall clarity of urban design, or rather a manifest lack of them, has become a significant problem of modern urban planning in Poland. This problem affects both public spaces, semi-private urban interiors, and private spaces. There is hardly any spatial continuity both with regard to the smaller components and, more importantly, in terms of the attendant interrelations between them. This phenomenon has been particularly apparent for the last 25 years, especially in the residential areas, where the individually pursued development projects result in the emergence of the totally unrelated to each other, nor indeed to any locally prevalent spatial layout, security fenced-off residential enclaves, or “autonomous cities-within-cities”, as it were. The newly developed residential areas, originating from the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, generally seem to suffer from the lack of clear urban planning, also manifest in overall scarcity of pre-designed sequences of open spaces. In order to design high-quality open spaces within a city, it is vital to establish a set of criteria that would ensure their adequate public reception and appreciation, thereby enhancing overall functional comfort for the city dwellers. In the present paper the Author tries to offer some insights into the key constituent components of urban planning deemed to affect an individual sense of spatial continuity in the urbanized areas, as well as provides an explication of their prudent application by discussing in some detail the example of one of the spatially most crucial compositional axis within the city of Kraków.

This article presents the matter of human need for theatricalization of architectural environment. The analysis of common and distinctive features between theater and architecture, between theatrical space and architectural space, between play in theater and play in architectural space has been made.

Map of Rome by Giambattista Nolli published in 1748 is considered, by researchers and designers, as one of the most important historical documents concerning the theory of urban planning. It has helped to shape the theory of figure-ground, based on the study of urban development, which is seen as a composition of massive elements (which are “figures”) to the related space (“ground”). It is used to recognize the interdependencies between the components of such compositions and to determine potential modifications, to standardize and continue the existing urban fabric by adding or removing spatial elements. Figure-ground recognition is a methodological tool, which is used by many architects and planners. The author attempts to describe some contemporary and historical examples for inspiration by the map of Rome by G. Nolli.

This work is an attempt to show the influence of context of the place on urban and architectural composition. The composition once characteristic of a given period/style, now takes on a broader meaning. It may be a reaction to the surroundings. The author, on selected examples, shows how we can ‘benefit’ from the surroundings while ‘composing’ a new work and how it influences the whole creative process and the final form of the architecture.

It is common knowledge that architecture and urban planning are largely shaped by political ideologies and doctrines. This paper is an attempt at answering a question how contemporary space recipients perceive architectural and urban composition of cities whose foundation was based on ideologies. The research focused on Nowa Huta in Cracow and Neustadt in Strasbourg, and the study group consisted of adult users of these spaces, staying there only temporarily.

The article presents the Author’s school of teaching architectural and urban design, based on the inseparable approach towards architecture and urban planning and on strong relations between the theory of architecture and the designing and implementation practice, taught in the Chair of Housing Environment of the Faculty of Architecture, Cracow University of Technology, which reaches back to the early 1990s. The article also focuses on issues connected with the spatial composition of one-family detached houses. In the functional and spatial shaping of sustainable one-family residential complexes the relation towards nature constitutes a fundamental criterion influencing the spatial composition and the beauty of architecture. The article presents twenty-one students’ designs of one-family detached houses. According to the Author, they demonstrate diversified and individual creations and visions of functional and spatial solutions of houses, with reference to the landscape context, as well as they manifest the search of contemporary architectural forms and functional solutions of houses that fulfil individual needs of man of the second decade of the 21st century. In doing so, they prove an important role of architectural and urban spatial composition and beauty in shaping residential spaces in diversified locations and conditions of the surrounding area.