Modus Poland Fordonska

Modus Poland is a major Polish corporation specialising in corporate clothing for airlines, police, and other uniformed services. In 2021, the company began diversifying into real estate investment, and for their first architectural commission in this new sector they approached Rise.Design — the studio's first engagement with a large corporate client entering property development from outside the industry. The brief was to convert a heritage building on Fordonska Street in Bydgoszcz's Fordon district into a viable mixed residential and commercial programme.

The design philosophy centred on unlocking the building's latent spatial capital rather than fighting its constraints. The tall auditorium volume that occupied the heart of the structure — a space that would have resisted conventional subdivision into standard apartment ceiling heights — became the project's primary architectural opportunity: the datum from which loft and duplex typologies were developed, exploiting the full vertical dimension rather than compressing it. This approach produced the most distinctive unit in the programme, a duplex apartment spanning two levels through the full auditorium height, while smaller studios and one-bedroom units occupy the building's perimeter in a range that makes the programme commercially viable. Ground-floor commercial activation anchors the building's street presence, and a passenger lift addresses the accessibility requirement that the heritage structure could not provide inherently. The concept delivers a building that reads as residential conversion — not warehouse lofts, not standard apartment block — but something genuinely specific to its host structure.

The design adapts a historic building with a tall auditorium volume — classified as a heritage structure (budynek zabytkowy) — into 23 apartments and one commercial unit across 1,415.91 square metres of total usable area. The key architectural opportunity lay in the auditorium: its exceptional ceiling height of up to 436 centimetres made conventional room subdivision redundant. Instead, the design deploys loft and duplex typologies that exploit the full vertical dimension, with the largest apartment — Unit 5 — reaching 83.44 square metres across two interconnected levels. The programme ranges from studios at 15.89 square metres to this flagship duplex, with an average unit area of 36.49 square metres across the 23 dwellings.

Conservation sensitivity governed the intervention strategy throughout. The approach followed a clear categorisation of walls: existing structural elements preserved, existing masonry retained, new masonry added where required, new drylining partitions inserted, and selected demolitions executed. The treatment of the historic parapet was particular in its precision — "lintels remain unchanged; parapet lowered by 24 centimetres." Accessibility was fully addressed through a passenger lift and four dedicated accessible parking spaces within the 19-space car park.

Two facade material concepts were explored. The red brick variant preserves and celebrates the industrial heritage character of the existing masonry, pairing it with standing seam metal roofing and dramatic vertical gable glazing. The light cream brick variant offers an alternative reading of the same heritage form — softer, more contemporary in tone while maintaining identical massing, fenestration proportions, and structural intervention. Both were presented with full marketing visualisations as V.1 and V.2 concept iterations, with the commercial unit activating the street-level frontage in both scenarios.

The residential area reaches 839.31 square metres across the four levels from basement (P-1) through two upper floors (P1 and P2). The commercial unit occupies 153.66 square metres at ground level. A staircase core with passenger lift provides shared vertical circulation. The preserved industrial chimney behind the building remains a landmark element that anchors the development within the existing Fordon urban fabric.

The concept was delivered in November and December 2021, with marketing renders completed in January 2022. The project was confirmed as progressing beyond the initial concept stage. A full marketing visualisation package of 22 renders and 44 JPG exports was produced within a one-month turnaround — the rapid response capacity that makes Rise.Design a credible partner for corporate clients entering the real estate development sector with board-level presentation expectations.