A
Shifting grounds
Navn
Freya Christina Mathilde Jørgensen
Uddannelsesgrad
Kandidat
Fagfelt
Arkitektur
Institut
Arkitektur og Kultur
Program
Political Architecture: Critical Sustainability
År
2026
The project works with the social and political undermining caused by coal extraction in Karb, Poland. By proposing a communal bath complex utilizing geothermal water from the mines, the project combines bathing and public assembly, creating grounds for political agency. The bath complex connects the underground and overground, while linking the past to the present.
Karb is a small neighborhood in Bytom, originally built as a workers’ settlement for the coal mines. Over time, coal extraction has caused changes to the groundwater flows, affecting the geological structure of the ground. This has led to significant subsidence in Karb, where the surface has sunk by 10–25 meters. Although there are no active mines beneath Karb today, the ground continues to settle slowly over time. Today, Karb is a highly stigmatized neighborhood, often seen as being stuck in the past. However, its residents maintain a strong connection to the area’s heritage and mining history. My proposal for a communal bathhouse seeks to preserve this connection to the past while also pointing toward a new purpose for the future. The project takes its departure from the water in the old mines, which is naturally heated underground to around 27°C, becoming a stable resource for the community.
Deep well pump reaching 710 meters below the surface, extracting geothermal water from an abandoned coal mine
Site conditions: workers' housing from 1930-1940
Explorative illustration of the subsurface mining network in Karb
The location of the bathhouse in Karb
The water infrastructure becomes part of the whole neighborhood
The bathhouse is situated in a former school
Section through the bath complex
The assembly hall and bath are located in the same building, creating interconnected spaces for social gathering
Preliminary research: Illustrating a facade changing over time, along with subsidence
Preliminary research: Illustrating the geological structure and coal layers beneath Karb
Det Kongelige Akademi understøtter FN’s verdensmål
Siden 2017 har Det Kongelige Akademi arbejdet med FN’s verdensmål. Det afspejler sig i forskning, undervisning og afgangsprojekter. Dette projekt har forholdt sig til følgende FN-mål
