Anticipating the Crisis: Adaptations of Office Buildings for Refugee Accommodation in Warsaw and Ivano-Frankivsk

This paper presents a study on the adaptation of office buildings into residential centres for refugees, carried out after the outbreak of war in Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The aim of this analysis is to test the possibility of the crisis use of existing office space stock in Poland and Ukraine for residential purposes. The study covers architectural, structural, services and social aspects of the adaptation of 5 selected office buildings, 4 of which are located in Poland and 1 in Ukraine. Conclusions from the research visits, interviews with the administrators of the accommodation points and analysis of the building plans are used to define the issues related to changing office typologies into temporary housing environments and to formulate guidelines for increasing flexibility and potential for adaptive reuse in newly designed buildings.