Sunflowers for Orunia

The beginnings of the history of sunflowers in Orunia date back to one of the meetings as part of the series “I See Orunia Great”, which was held in Dom Sąsiedzki “Gościnna Przystań” [Neighbourly House “Hospitable Stop”], where diploma projects were presented, i.e. visions of how to give Orunia a new life. During the meeting a discussion was initiated about the realism of the presented ideas, amongst other the organisation of a great garden exhibition. “Why not plant 17 thousand sunflowers in Orunia (i.e. as many as there are residents in Orunia)”, asked dr Gabriela Rembarz, urban planner from the Department of Architecture at the Gdańsk University of Technology and Manager of the Urban Planners Division of BPBK SA. And this is how it all started …

The idea seemed very simple: we decided to plant sunflowers in the area of the intersection of Gościnna Street with Trakt Świętego Wojciecha Street so that the place could assume an extraordinary nature. 17 thousand is a symbolic number, but the number of seeds is significant anyway. Thanks to the enormous involvement of, amongst other, the employees of Dom Sąsiedzki "Gościnna Przystań" [Neighbourly House “Hospitable Stop”], including Przemysław Kluz and Ewa Sasimowska, we managed to prepare the square ground, lay the pavement, acquire soil and almost 100 car tyres.

The development of the square took place as part of the workshop entitled “Sunflowers for Orunia. From Wednesday 18 May until Saturday 21 May, children and youths from the Hospitable Stop together with their tutors – architects, urban planners and artists designed and made plant pots from tyres, which were then laid on the square. The climax of the workshop was Saturday, when we sowed sunflower seeds and planted sunflowers together with the residents both in the flowerpots and in designated fields.

The workshops for children were held in Dom Sąsiedzki “Gościnna Przystań” [Neighbourly House “Hospitable Stop”] at Gościnna Street in Orunia. All the participants, both children and their minders – voluntaries-architects (including employees of BPBK SA), were allocated to various design groups:
Unruly graffiti artists – under the guidance of Robert Rączka, Kuba Borkowski and Krzysztof Syrucia – responsible for designing and putting graffiti on the wall before the entry to Hospitable Stop and graffiti on the polystyrene foam blog, attached to a tree.
Stubborn paparazzi – under the guidance of Monika Wierzba and Justyna Skotarczyk – who kept their eyes and ears wide open during the whole workshop, as apart from design tasks they were also responsible for taking pictures of the workshop and placing them on the blog. Their perseverant works can be seen at the following address: http://slonecznikidlaoruni.blogspot.com/
Kinky painters – with their tutors: Bogna Wikowska-Olejarz, Michał Podgórczyk, Basia Marchiwcka and Grażyna Nowińska (BPBK SA) – the most numerous group, as it was this group whose main task was to prepare the flower tyres.
Bold constructors – who were led by Joanna Sówka-Sowińska and Piotr Orzechowski ‘Orz’ – a group who decided to create something more than flower pots out of tyres, including elements of a playground.

The coordinator of the workshop was Magdalena Stefanowicz (ZUR, BPBK SA).


Along the sunflower mission at the Hospitable Stop, an international students’ workshop was held entitled “In search of fatal places – alternative garden exhibition Orunia 2016”. The organization of the workshop for students fell to: dr Gabriela Rembarz and Przemysław Kluz. The tutors of the group of creative prospectors were doctoral students from the Department of Architecture at the Gdańsk University of Technology: Anna Golędzinowska and Łukasz Pancewicz.