Construction and Reconstruction of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Hradec Králové

Conceptual solution for the extension including reconstruction structures
The Faculty of Philosophy at UHK is located at the corner of V Lipkách and Gočárova Třída streets, with its façade facing Svobody Square. It is a three-story building built before 1900 according to the design of J. Mrázek. The building's semi-enclosed shape creates an inner courtyard accessible from V Lipkách street. The wing of the building facing V Lipkách street ends independently and borders the city park Pohádka. The opposite wing continues with a continuous street development of multi-story buildings along Gočárova Třída. The façade of the building is an integral part of the public space of the square. The architectural appearance is conditioned by the historicizing cultivated ornamentation of the façade. The building is horizontally divided by a continuous cordon cornice at the level of the second floor. The top floor is crowned with a massive profiled cornice with a smooth frieze and dentils. Vertical division is aided by pilasters in the building's projections, most notably visible in the main façade, which contributes to a high order and gives the building a proper dignified appearance. The quarry-stone rustication on the façade of the first floor transitions into band rustication in the upper floors. The generally classic appearance of the building is accentuated by a triangular compressed pediment above the windows, a series of window sills and heads.

Due to the university's requirements, it was necessary to increase the building's capacity. The new design considers both changes to the existing layout and the proposal for the extension. In it, the geometric rectangular floor plan, two window bays wide, connects to the existing wing of the building from Gočárova Třída and compositionally almost closes the existing shape of the courtyard. Thus defined, the new mass comprising four floors directs its highest visually more dramatically articulated gable side towards Pohádka park, with the side wall completing the calm space of the courtyard. The architectural expression of the extension deliberately responds to the historicizing ornamentation of the existing form with restraint, emphasizing scale and craftsmanship detail. This achieves a unifying appearance and maintains the dignity of expression that the existing building embodies. The shape of the truncated block mass of the extension's gable is material and height-separated from the existing building by a glass elevator. The last floor of the extension, which rises towards the gable wall and is crowned with a large glazed window overlooking the city, clearly delineates the extension but does so in a way that does not compose the extension solely through contemporary contrast.

The load-bearing structures of the original building, built of solid bricks with a thickness of 650–700 mm, are covered by a wooden truss structure of a hipped roof, featuring a mansard design in the gable and central part. In plan, it is a longitudinal two-wing structure with an internal load-bearing wall of 650 mm thickness, separating the corridor from the classrooms. The ceiling structure consists of wooden beams approximately 200 mm high, set into the masonry of opposing walls at an axial distance of about 900 mm. On the beams lies a boarding of planks, and on the boarding is a fill with a final structural layer made of floorboards. Following the change in layout within the existing building, internal walls of bricks 300 mm and 140 mm thick were proposed. The extension is also built with external load-bearing masonry of 500 mm thickness, and interior partitions of 140 mm thickness. Ceiling structures are planned for floors 1–3 using MIAKO brick inserts and ceramic concrete ceiling POT beams for a span of 6500 mm. The ceiling of the 4th floor is designed as a wooden beam structure and is part of the metal roofing. The separation of the existing building from the new one is materially resolved with a glazed elevator accompanied by connecting steel structures.

The main entrance to the building is compositionally correct, with main doors facing Svobody Square, creating the axis of the entire floor plan. The main entrance hall is flanked on the right and left by two wings separated by an internal longitudinal wall. The aim of the reconstruction was to modernize the building for university teaching purposes while preserving and restoring the historical and cultural values of the structure.

The building was originally intended as a school; it is not a change of purpose for the building, and its adaptation for university education has proven suitable even amidst contemporary demands for technology. The project initially accounted for the extension of the building by one new wing – a new construction attached by a neck to the original 19th-century building. The floor plan concept defines two operations, a corridor on the courtyard side and classrooms oriented towards the street. From the design to the execution project, the intention was to maximally support the original concept based on the structural and layout design of the double-wing structure, with only the removal of purposefully placed interior partitions from areas where they created operationally confusing and even unsightly quasi-spaces. The entire idea of the extension and reconstruction is based on simplifying operational aspects within the new layout. Departments that were almost randomly distributed in various locations within the existing building are now consistently positioned at the end of the wing of the building, with the new extension linking more logically to the right wing according to a new coherent concept regarding both layout-operational solutions and architectural intent.