The reconstruction of the greenhouse complex at the Jagiellonian University Botanical Garden and the Jagiellonian University Teaching Support Center building won the Modernization of the Year and Building of the 21st Century competition.
Organized since 1996, the National Contest for Modernization of the Year and 21st Century Building is an initiative that sets new trends in construction, promoting the best modernization and construction projects. The competition aims to promote and support activities undertaken to save national heritage buildings, promote modernization and reconstruction, revitalize areas, and expand facilities and equipment to achieve beneficial and aesthetic effects.
In the Education and Teaching category, the winner was the construction of the Jagiellonian University Education Support Center, and in the Green Space category, the award went to the reconstruction and expansion of the greenhouse complex at the Jagiellonian University Botanical Garden.
The new headquarters of the Jagiellonian University Teaching Support Center is located at ul. Ingarden 6. Previously, the building, constructed in the 1960s, housed the Geological Museum of the Institute of Geosciences at Jagiellonian University. The reconstruction of the building covered all floors. The requirements of the new user made it necessary to have a large column-free space on the first floor.
The reconstructed Victoria Greenhouse in the Jagiellonian University Botanical Garden resembles its predecessors shown in the garden’s earliest drawings from the mid-19th century.
The height of the new wing is 21 meters at its highest point, which is about 7 meters more than the one that has been standing in this place since the beginning of the seventies. The so-called winter box stores collections of plants from warm countries that decorate the outdoor garden during the summer.
The facility is fully automated. Optimum building solutions are used in the form of suitable insulating materials of the highest quality. It is equipped with an automatic climate control system, which will reduce energy consumption in the greenhouse and maintain the right temperature and humidity inside.
A unique palm grows in the Victoria complex, which comes from a natural site in the Canary Islands. Today it is the most valuable specimen in the Krakow park and the oldest preserved in greenhouse conditions in Europe. According to the gardeners who care for it, it has a unique natural and historical value. The tree, whose height is more than 14 meters, is constantly climbing, so it was necessary to expand the greenhouse to get more space and better growth opportunities.
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