The studio operates in various design related fields- from accesory, clothing and furniture design to exhibition, interior and building architecture. This large scope of interest comes from years of collaboration within the critical practice of Centrala Designer’s Task Force, a network that Jakub co- funded in 2001 with Krzysztof Banaszewski, Małgorzata Kuciewicz and Jan Strumiłło basing on the infrastructure provided by Studio DECO, his father, Ryszard Szczęsny’s office. Since year 2008 he started a number of solo projects and collaborations with various architects, engineers, artists and designers in his homeland and abroad.
Many of his designs bind architectural tooling and art practice for a reason: Jakub is an ex-press and adverising illustrator who worked, among others, for Polish Playboy, Fluid, FUTU and Fantastyka magazines. Being an avid storyteller, he finds the field of art a more adequate place for narratives than architecture. His intrest revolves around human condition, both of an individual and of large social groups. This is why, following the credo of his preferred creator and thinker Bernard Rudofsky, he recognizes the importance of contextual analysis in any design-related work.
In paralell to the design practice he has a wide experience as studio tutor, guest lecturer and guest critic in a number of architecture schools, including New School and GSAPP (New York), FAU (Sao Paulo), Bezalel School of Architecture (Jerusalem), IAAC (Barcelona), Warsaw Institute of Technology and Warsaw’s Academy of Fine Arts Faculty of Design, from which he also holds a PhD since year 2012. Jakub participated in a number of artist-in-residency projects and programmes,
such as Rooted Design for Routed Living in NKD Dale (Norway), IASKA’s Art out of Place (Australia), Residency Unlimited, Futura and Triangle (USA), Arquetopia (Mexico), Lanchonete and Casa do Povo, Casa das Caldeiras (Brazil), Ideas Louisville (USA) and Schloss Solitude (Germany). His clients include a number of daring private individuals, small companies (La Boba, Aura), multinationals (BMW and GE Apliances), NGO’s (Bęc Zmiana, IASKA, Anadolu Kultur, Ideas, First Build, Artanimacje), institutes (Saint Louis Science Center, Copernicus Science Center, Instytut Myśli Jana Pawła II), municipalities (Bat Yam, Plovdiv, Warsaw, Wrocław) and governmental agencies (Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Polish Institute in Tel Aviv, Republic of Poland Representant in Palestinian Autonomy, Polish Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs).
The works of Jakub appear in different venues, such as travelling exhibition ZNE: exemples to follow! (curated since 2009 by Adriene Goehler), Warsaw in construction in 2012 ( in Warsaw’s Museum of Modern Art), Alternativa (curated in 2012 by Aneta Szyłak), All Around (curated by Aneta Szyłak in 2009), Modes of Democracy (DOX Gallery in Prague in 2015), Towards Critical Institution (in Poznań’s Arsenal Gallery in 2014). His solo exhibitions include Operations in Populated Areas (curated by Kaja Pawełek in BWA Design Gallery in Wrocław, in 2013) and atravelling venue named Operations curated by Tadeáš Goryczka, shown among others, in DOX Gallery (Prague, 2015), Galerie Architektury (Brno, 2014) and Galeria EL (Elbląg, 2016).
Jakub’s globally recognized work, Keret House, was the first Polish architectural design to be included in permanent collection of MoMA New York in 2013.