<Hvězda Area>

I developed the project concurrently with the Dancing House from 1994 to 2000. It was my attempt to change the absurd situation where, in Prague, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, 40% of its inhabitants live in unattractive housing estates. I wanted to propose a possible way to improve the image of the housing estate by adding shops, restaurants, offices, services, a different type of architecture, different details and materials, new colors, etc. Although the owners of the 350 apartments are wealthy citizens, it is a social project because the offered above-standard services, which were part of the housing offer for the rich, can also be used by less wealthy residents of the surrounding estate.
The complex was funded by three private investors who had a certain courage, certain money, and their vision of what they wanted. Compared to the Dancing House, it was a significantly more challenging task, but with much greater positive social impact. The Dancing House had an unlimited budget, was created with the support of Václav Havel and Frank Gehry in the euphoria of the Velvet Revolution, on the waterfront of such an amazing city. The Hvězda complex, as a billion-dollar investment compared to the Dancing House, was much larger, developed frantically because we wanted to offer wealthy clients a much better investment than a family house on the periphery without service facilities, far from the center. The complex was constructed by three different contractors, and my task was to design three different types of details for the three parts so that these parts of the complex differed from each other. Although I did not receive any awards compared to the Dancing House for Petřiny, I appreciate the Hvězda complex much more despite certain shortcomings. I believe that the Hvězda complex made the Petřiny estate a much better address, which among other things determined that a new metro line would lead to Petřiny. After Hvězda, I won the competition for the Center of the Malešice Estate, which unfortunately ended in corruption managed by the ODS and the investor Sekyra Group.