The paper contains synthetic and analytical test results and model solutions for technical maintenance and wear problems of apartment houses traditionally structured. The crucial methodological aspect of the research is striving to minimize the subjectivity of expert assessment while technical investigation of old buildings. The cause and effect between the occurrence of damage to the elements of the rental houses, treated as an expression of the conditions for their maintenance, and the size of the technical process of wear of these elements was determined on a representative, purpose-appropriate, sample of 102 residential buildings erected in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries in downtown Wrocław (Poland) district. Rational maintenance of existing buildings is nowadays significant issue for their proprieties. Therefore, there is constant need to find a research method that may lead to well thought out building maintenance management. The goal of undergone research was to search influence of apartment houses maintenance on the grade and intensity of their deterioration. As to fulfil the research objective the group of engineers identified symptoms of the technical wear growth, which means performed identification of causes and effects responsible for the defects appearance. The range of the work demanded elaboration of a new qualitative model of detected defects and its transfer into a quantitative model. Therefore, such approach enabled to establish the reason - effect connection ‘defect - technical wear’ related to the crucial structural parts of investigated apartment houses.

This paper discusses public spaces for special purposes, increasingly often designed in Poland, including the gardens presented, which a form of land development. The aim of this study is to present various types of practical activities using sensory gardens for the education and rehabilitation of children and people with disabilities. An increasing number of such spaces is being created, and they are used by children, adolescents and adults with developmental deficits. Contact with nature has a positive effect on health and human psychophysical fitness. This is particularly important in the case of people with impaired perception and processing of sensory stimuli, who, when in a special natural environment, can improve their senses and sensory integration. The following research methods were used: analysis of the literature, observation of sensory gardens, interview, participatory observation, documentation analysis. These methods enabled the analysis of the educational and therapeutic function of classes conducted in selected sensory gardens and confirm the hypothesis that they allow for the education and therapy of people of different ages and with different levels of psychophysical fitness.