PONAVIA PARK

The area has the character of an urban periphery smoothly growing into an urban structure filling in the regulation from the 1920s. The block was sized generously for its time and by today's standards 100 × 500 m. Its generosity contrasts with the undersized block, which hardly allows for development with an inner courtyard. A number of aspects of the site are equally contrasting. Buildings from the industrial past, large areas formerly used by the military, and small low-rise buildings from the block's tentative beginnings meet here. In fact there are two fundamentally different scales here, the intimate scale of traditional block development of c.2.5 NP and the large scale of modern buildings of 8+ NP, which quite often have the character of solitaires. It is noteworthy that even though they are solitaires, they do not define themselves in relation to blocks. On the contrary, they co-define them. The design of the PONAVA housing complex declares a desire to participate in the reinforcement of the contours of urban space by promoting the block character of the development.

MATERIAL CONCEPT
We tried several methods to find an adequate structure. From the maximum fragmentation of the desired volume into the smallest possible mass to the monoblock. When dividing into the smallest possible masses, the required volume did not allow us to approach the chamber scale of the oldest buildings, nor the original factory. We therefore decided to engage in a context of a game of contrasts between large volumes and small ones. We created a perfectly rational and efficient 8+ NP slab house along Middle Street and across from it a low 2+ NP tract in the courtyard. The face of the slab house accents the corner at the intersection of Middle and Red Mill Streets. However, the slab house leaves a distance to the gable of the Ponavia apartment building. From U Červeného mlýna Street, this creates a view into the courtyard, a charming detail that occurs quite often in the area. However, the intimacy of the courtyard remains protected by the recessing of the courtyard by one storey and the placement of the retail pavilion on the plateau at pavement level. This should make a significant contribution to the whitewashing and 'greying' of the parterre. A separate low tract in the courtyard is a kind of mediator between the newly defined courtyard and the intimate world of the gardens and courtyards of the rear tracts of the development along Poděbradova Street. Although it appears to be a compact apartment building, it is actually seven single-family townhouses.

TYPOLOGICAL CONCEPT
The two volumetrically different masses also represent different typologies. The slab apartment building is designed as a three-tract with apartments oriented to the east or west facade and with corridors in the middle. The three-tract allows the desired range of apartment categories to be catered for, but also has a considerable degree of flexibility for other divisions of the floor plan. It is a chance to create a compact mass of the house, saving space for vertical circulation cores. Two of these are proposed, one for each corridor. One of them always leads out to a representative lobby with mailboxes, etc. The other is more of a service and escape character. On the ground floor of the corner at the intersection of U červeného mlýna and Střední Street there is a retail unit occupying the ground floor. The mass in the courtyard wing integrates row houses with separate lots, separate garages and separate gardens, adjoining the surrounding courtyard gardens and yards. The houses are accessed by a common pavement connected to a ramp along the gable wall of Ponavia House from U červeného mlýna Street. There is a gate and post boxes. The entrance to the

individual garages is from the level of the courtyard. To situate the entrance to the main parking level, we took advantage of the natural gradient of Střední Street. At its lowest point we enter the plot to the first parking floor, which is already an underground floor in relation to the street U Červeného mlýna. For the sake of lightening the mass of the house and to save money on technology, we leave it open, naturally ventilated.

ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPT
For housing, the fundamental problem with such a large and intensive program is frequency and multiplicity. In working with the expression of the house, we focused on counteracting the sense of repetition, large scale, and anonymity. The architectural solution seeks to reduce the number of features of the dwelling units on the facade, i.e. windows and loggias grouping them into larger units and thus reducing the sense of their multiplicity. This allows the scale of the house to be manipulated into more pleasing proportions.
The depth of the loggias and their random mode add a distinct plasticity to the otherwise quite banal mass of the house. The colour and material differentiation adds to their depth.

DESIGN CONCEPT
Both the apartment and the terraced houses have a simple structural and technical design based on the desire to create an unusual impression by using the usual means of construction. It is a combination of concrete monolith and lime cement blocks. The parking deck module in the monolith transitions through a transition grid into a residential modulation. The structural design provides for phasing. The structural and operational design provides for construction in two phases.

VEGETATION
Vegetation is designed in several forms. Linear vegetation in the public space of the adjacent sidewalk along Střední Street. Planting of mature deciduous trees with umbrella-shaped crowns is proposed in the courtyard with the potential to cover the parking spaces below and make the courtyard environment aesthetically, acoustically pleasing. The gardens of the houses are conceived on rising ground with adequate planting. It would be aesthetically appropriate to accentuate the block break and view of the courtyard by vegetation the gable wall of the Ponavia apartment building with climbing vegetation.