UNStudio’s Bridge Tower Rises in Warsaw

Rising 174 meters above Warsaw’s Wola district, The Bridge Tower by UNStudio (UNS) turns a dense business quarter into a quiet dialogue between past and future. The new office high-rise for Ghelamco Poland is stitched directly into the historic Bellona printing house, treating the older structure as a co-author rather than a backdrop.

A landmark on Plac Europejski

Set on Plac Europejski, The Bridge Tower offers around 47,000 sqm of office space across 40 floors, supported by several underground levels. The tower’s vertical profile is crisp and restrained, deliberately avoiding a loud gesture in a skyline already populated by expressive neighbors. Instead, UNStudio focuses on proportion, clarity, and a facade rhythm that quietly reinforces its presence in central Warsaw.

Where Bellona’s heritage meets a new tower

At the project’s core is the relationship between the Bellona building, a protected former printing house, and the new glass tower. Rather than isolating old and new, UNS designs a shared lobby that becomes the literal and symbolic “bridge” between both structures. The double-height glazed volume preserves the colonnade, staircase, and historic facades, while adding new circulation, lifts, and an internal atrium for contemporary office life.

A lobby as an urban living room

The connective lobby reads like a public interior rather than a corporate foyer. Graphite-toned concrete columns and exposed structural elements echo the site’s industrial past, softened with warm wooden panels, planting, and green walls. A mezzanine and a broad, multi-functional staircase offer places to meet, sit, or work informally, creating a social node for both tower tenants and Bellona occupants.

Smart systems and sustainability

Behind its calm exterior, The Bridge Tower is wired as a smart building prototype. It targets energy neutrality through clean energy sources and an advanced Building Energy Management System. A vacuum sewer system reduces water use by up to 75 percent, while the Signal OS platform manages energy, water, and air quality. A set of certifications is targeted, including SmartScore, WiredScore, BREEAM, Well, Green Building Standard, and Building Without Barriers.

Health-focused measures such as virucidal UV lamps in lifts and air-handling units support the overall ESG strategy. With this project, UNStudio uses technology as an invisible infrastructure that enables heritage, comfort, and sustainability to coexist.