The installation is part of an educational project :W CENTRUM organised by the Warsaw SARP Branch and the Faculty of Architecture, as well as their partners. Together they address the most important and current urban problems.

This year the problem is urban noise. It is a consequence of ongoing urbanisation, which adversely impacts well-being, harms the environment and our health. According to WHO,  after smog, noise is the most polluting factor. Numerous lectures and educational workshops were organised at the Warsaw Architecture Pavilion ZODIAK on how to recognize noise, reduce it and how to protect against it. The aim of the events was to notice and understand urban noise as a psychophysical, social, cultural, economic and, first and foremost, spatial phenomenon.

The outcome of the project HAŁAS :W CENTRUM is a spatial installation which was constructed outside the Main Building of the Warsaw University of Technology. HA-LAS – the work of the Faculty of Architecture students from the specialisation Architecture and Urban Panning 2 "City as a place of living" – is a new usable function in the city. It helps raise social awareness on the dangers caused by noise and improvement of existing acoustic landscape of the city. With HA-LAS you can have a special sensual experience and learn that contact with nature is necessary for our health, both physical and mental.

The green area at Plac Politechniki invites to change perspective, open up to not so obvious stimuli, to quiet down and to look into oneself. The authors encourage everyone to experience what nature offers, to get to know it and experience it, to open up to it with all senses. This is facilitated by simple instructions inside HA-LAS – suggestions to touch a cone or grass, stroke leaves, smell plants or just walk among the trees, sit down and stay there for a while.

– We know that you can’t build a forest in the city centre – admit the creators. – But you can remind people about it by introducing a green area everywhere it is absent. Change the local acoustic landscape. That’s why HA-LAS was created. We encourage everyone to get active, to take up local initiatives, to find similar places in need of intervention, as well as to cooperate with local authorities and companies so that in every place with noise and concrete HA-LAS is created.

With their installations, the students show that such HA-LAS may be created basically everywhere. The installation has a similar form to a pop-up store (a temporary shop) – it is flexible, mobile, it can be installed and transported quite easily and quickly.

Th authors also share the instruction how to build HA-LAS. They advise that one should start by finding a good place (it could be, for example, a square or market place). Then one should collect plants (remember about various heights of plants and use easily available types), get pots (used boxes, pots or box pallets will do the job) and other materials (to place and stabilize trees). Then it’s construction time: inspect the area (in terms of noise), arrange the pots (taking into account aisles and relaxation areas) and plant (so that there are adequate spaces and to create a green visual barrier). Of course, one must remember to water and maintain the installation.

Authors of the HA-LAS installation: Stanisław Bulak, Artur Górski, Justyna Krauze, Julia Król, Marcin Latuszek, Adam Morawski, Patrycja Moszczyńska, Paweł Skoczylas, Marta Wójcik, Mikołaj Wyrostek, Mikołaj Wyszyński, Kinga Zembrzuska

Student group tutors: dr inż. arch. Anna Cudny, dr inż. arch. Artur Jerzy Filip, prof. dr hab. inż. arch. Krystyna Solarek

The green area at Plac Politechniki invites everyone to calm down and look into themselves

Organisers of the :W CENTRUM project: Warsaw Branch of the SARP Polish Architects Association and the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw University of Technology

Co-organisers: City of Warsaw and Association for Better Acoustics in Buildings “Komfort Ciszy”

Main project partner :W CENTRUM: Saint-Gobain group.

Main HA-LAS installation partners: Warsaw University of Technology and plant company Ulińscy

HA-LAS installation partner and maintenance: Greenspace Management Office of the City of Warsaw