This is the English version of an article first published in Polish: read the Polish original. It refers to source material: um.warszawa.pl. The text is our own commentary, not a translation or copy of that source.
The first school bell rang across Poland today, but in Wilanów it carried extra weight. On aleja Rzeczypospolitej, Szkoła Podstawowa nr 400 opened its doors, a building residents of Miasteczko Wilanów had been waiting for a long time. Almost five hundred students walked in for the first time today: three preschool groups and nineteen classes from grade one through grade eight.
The investment, including the cost of the land, came to over 84 million zlotys. The building was designed by the Piotr Bujnowski Architekci studio, built around natural materials, greenery on the roofs and courtyards, and a clear, functional layout. It answers something we have already written about on this blog: Wilanów grew from 17,000 to almost 45,000 residents in fifteen years, and growth like that means new neighbourhoods need new places in schools, not just new blocks of flats. Children in Miasteczko Wilanów often had to commute to schools in other parts of the district, because local schools were bursting at the seams.
A sensory room and a rooftop pitch
Inside, students have thirty themed classrooms and workshops with support rooms, a two level library and two common rooms. There is also a sala doświadczania świata, a room for sensory activities, plus offices for a psychologist and a pedagogue with a separate room for pedagogical therapy. Every floor has its own rest area, and the cafeteria has full kitchen facilities, so lunches are cooked on site.
The sports hall makes the biggest impression: four changing rooms, two exercise rooms that can be split into four smaller ones (about 400 square metres combined), a pitch roughly 20 by 40 metres, and stands for 200 spectators. The ceiling has sound absorbing panels so echo does not drown out gym class. On the roof of the sports hall there is an extra artificial turf pitch, so on a sunny day a class can exercise outdoors without giving up parking space or greenery around the building.
Eventually the school is meant to hold thirty classes and 750 children, so today it is only running at part of its planned capacity. For families who have waited years for a place closer to home instead of a commute to schools in other parts of the district, it is still a concrete change, visible from the first bell.
