To Europeans, fascination with America is like being charmed by oddity. It manifests itself in a reality that is a postmodern mixture of fragmentary experiences that manifest themselves in the image of both large American cities and roadside architecture. I analyse the horizontally stretched Los Angeles as a lively spectacle of street traffic. Despite newer and newer iconic works of architecture, shapelessness, amorphousness and scattering of this city’s spatial formations does not allow for a proper reading of its structures. My study concludes that it is not buildings or historical sites but street traffic and the highway system that define the character of this city, whose image was enhanced by world-class cinema.

The primary object of this study is the common space of a housing development found in Gruvedalen Valley in Longyearbyen, on the island of Spitsbergen, a part of the Svalbard Archipelago. It is a case of a social space that is atypical of European conditions. It is located in a territory with an extremely cold climate. When analysing the architecture and urban layouts of Spitsbergen, as well as its residents, I noted the role and significance of social spaces in their lives, and provided their general overview, which includes the positives, negatives and manner of use by various social groups, in addition to its quality and functional solutions. The research methods used in the study include: theoretical research, in situ field research, original report, and a survey. Social spaces support the correct functioning of the housing environment and enhance the sense of safety among residents and visitors. The most crucial factors that affects the reception and design of social spaces by residents are: architectural form, its location and linkages with the context and surroundings.

Observation of experiences of Polish cities with railway areas shows that despite its unquestionable advantages, railway contributed to the strengthening of spatial divisions and the separation of individual areas. In the era of technological progress, tunneling of railway lines in city centers facilitates investment process in these previously problematic but exposed areas in the city landscape and contributes to their revitalization. The aim of this article is to present methods of work on a degraded post-railway area in an incoherent spatial structure of the city and to show how the effective design supports the revitalization process by complementing social activities. Based on variant, study examples, the area of the Vilnius railway line and the surrounding areas located in the Warsaw district of Praga Północ have been analyzed. The article is a part of the debate on the proper designation of the revitalization area on the basis of reliable data taken from the analyzes of existing and planned conditions in the spatial and functional context of larger urban units. 

The objective of this paper is to present architectural and urban issues associated with the process of shaping residential buildings in harmony with the natural environment, in light of processes of urbanisation and degradation of this environment progressing in Europe and globally. The material focuses on identifying activities fostering a sustainable model of life in the city, in particular on solutions aiming at the limitation of urbanisation costs. These are – without limitations – concepts of designing residential buildings with respect for land protection and aiming to obtain all possible land reserves in the urban landscape. They fit in the concepts of urban development based on the principles of an ecosystem, as well as processes fostering reurbanisation, promoted today.

In the currently functioning planning system there is a lack of studies enabling to determine the main spatial structure of larger urban units. As a result of the analysis of the process of planning the public space structure and the factors influencing the effective transformation of post-industrial areas, the authors argue that the appropriate tool for the transformation of larger and integrated urban units of the city would be an equivalent of the former master plan. The basic content that should be included in such a plan is the functional and spatial structure, defining in particular the form and the layout of the city’s public space. The examples of master plans of Pelcowizna area in conjunction with the development plan analyzed in the text, in which hierarchical spatial structures have been distinguished, show the necessity to cover the entire urban unit with general guidelines and are an example of its more effective development. The article ends with a proposal of a method concerning the manner of constructing the city’s public space structure and being a condition for an effective transformation of post-industrial areas.

This paper presents the results of a survey that explored how the residents of Masuria perceived the contemporary form of singlefamily and tourist housing in their region. The conclusions of this study were used as a starting point for preparing design proposals of contemporary landscape and housing layouts based on homes for rent or agricultural tourism facilities. Bachelor of Engineering in Architecture thesis projects became an answer to the formal preferences of the residents. The temporal scope of the section presenting the survey study concerns the twenty-first century, while the archetype analysis section reaches back to the seventeenth century.