The city of Gliwice lies just west of the regional capital of Katowice. Agnieszka and Grzegorz Ziebik grew up here, together. The pair always wanted to become architects. Agnieszka wanted to follow in the footsteps of her father, who was himself an architect and even taught it. Grzegorz recalls growing up in a dreary, bleak and unsightly area, which ended up motivating him to help shape the appearance of his hometown and the world beyond.
Agnieszka Ziebik teaches architecture, Grzegorz Ziebik spent years working in a big architecture company, where he primarily developed offices and industrial buildings. Together, they founded a small architecture office and built a house for themselves and their three kids—in Gliwice.
Architecture is always dependent on context. Sometimes it’s as a contrast to, sometimes it’s indifference of, sometimes it’s separate from the surrounding context. The neighbourhood in which the Ziebik family house stands offers little in the way of clues. Individual single family homes, a variety of shapes and forms without any dominating style or colour scheme.
“There is nothing that serves as a point of reference,” says Grzegorz Ziebik. “There is neither anything here to rebel against nor to follow.” The Ziebik home stands out—with its large, archetypical roof, its simple forms, the Prefalz tracts which dominate the roof and façade in various widths and thus influence the house’s character. The entrance is made of wood, which slowly changes its colours. It stands in sharp contrast to the aluminium, which hardly changes at all. There are no details and no balcony. “It is the model of a house,” says Grzegorz.
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Something different, but within the budget
It took the two young, friendly and dedicated architects two years to finish their home. They both say they hardly argued, as the search for the perfect house, their house, brought them together. Inside, a single, large room with high walls dominates; there is lots of wood and the windows are massive, affording a view of the outside. It could be reminiscent of Japanese architecture.
“People here are surprised when they see our home,” says Agnieszka. “We wanted to do something different. But it had to be within our budget. Today, it’s just as we had imagined.” Nevertheless, “it was an experiment,” emphasises Grzegorz.
No style and yet too much
To Grzegorz, the durability of his concepts plays an essential role. Homes should not only be indicative of a certain trend, but should endure for generations to come. Ensuring that the building does not age has always been of central importance.
“At some point, the fashion of the day always comes full circle,” says Agnieszka referring to timeless taste. This is something architecture has to come up with itself. The pair are critical of the development of architecture in their home country of Poland. “There is no Polish style and structures are built way too quickly. Quality plays a very minor role. It is difficult to carry out anything artistic here,” they say and still, or perhaps as a direct result of it, they follow their profession passionately. Another profession is out of the question for the pair—except, possibly, being shepherds, says Grzegorz with a wink.
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