Third place in the urban planning competition for the revitalization of the Černá louka area

Wild Urbanism
Culture is often described as a product, but we are interested in its definition in relation to the process of cultivation – growing the desired and gradually removing the unwanted. Culture is a process: it is the collective work of many generations of people who must discuss among themselves what and how should be cultivated.
We argue that cultural activity benefits from access to three different types of spaces. First, culture is based on play and exploration. It therefore needs space for discovery, a space for wandering without pressure to produce and perform. Second, culture requires places for interaction: shared spaces for exchanging new ideas. In these more stable spaces conducive to discussion, culture is still unstable and negotiated. However, it begins to grow and becomes recognizable and attractive. Third, culture needs – but also creates – types of spaces recognizable by all: theaters, museums, concert halls. These types, due to their stability, allow memories to connect and compare different places and subsequently their programs.
We propose that these three types of cultural spaces coexist at Černá louka simultaneously. The space for discovery is called WILDERNESS. The spaces for interaction are called CLEARINGS. The spaces for harvesting mature cultural projects are called ROOMS. By combining these three diverse spaces, we acknowledge and support the unpredictability of their interaction. For example, rather mundane programs in Rooms gain a hint of the unknown due to their location in Wilderness. How will listening to a precisely rehearsed concert from Wilderness turn out? How will art-indifferent kayakers react to the exhibition of contemporary sculptures visible from their tent? Will a cultural management student stay after school for a rock concert?
This proposal is therefore a kind of culture in itself – an experiment using public space. It cultivates discovery, where culture is created not only by professional artists but by all people from Ostrava and Europe. It is not an analytical solution with an ideal set of relations, but a schematic machine for designing, testing, and producing possible cultures. Each piece of it is merely a fragment of the forthcoming city...

Wilderness
A healthy, natural forest often grows for centuries. Cultivating Wilderness at Černá louka is therefore a commitment to a long and healthy future for this place. However, Wilderness primarily creates the primary state of the place: a natural habitat for local plants and animals, but also for the people of Ostrava and Europe. The diversity of activities and people instantly overturns the dynamics of isolation typical of cultural enclaves. The forest is a place that everyone loves, a place of meeting and rapprochement.
Unlike current urbanism, Wilderness does not create but rather erodes and blurs boundaries. The opaque and restrictive network of interconnected streets and sidewalks is rejected in favor of an undifferentiated terrain that absorbs all these activities (and more). This process can begin immediately: all areas belonging to the future forest can be cleared, and existing trees left standing. Asphalt can be recycled for roads and repairs in other parts of the city, concrete can be crushed and added to the soil. After the clearing, clover will be sown across the entire area, enriching the soil with nutrients while signaling the transformation of the territory. In the next phase, a nursery will be established on designated parts of the land, which will be a constant source of new plants for planting and study. In 2015, planting trees and managing the existing growing forest may become one of the cultural activities at Černá louka. Families who plant a tree during a visit to Ostrava may return to see it many years later.

Clearings
The undifferentiated Wilderness is a place of excess, a surplus of life, density; at the same time, by subtracting, it allows for creating a second type of space, Clearings. A clearing creates a common place, a place distinct from the shapeless context, a place that can become a collective space for discussion. These Clearings are defined both by the absence of Wilderness and later by the presence of "Carpets" – hardened terrain that defines the Clearing and provides flexible technical support (power outlets, control of light and sound, etc.). Most Clearings are adjacent to Rooms, ensuring the distinctiveness of the actions they support and the specificity of their space. However, some Clearings will be shared and will help connect individual Rooms into a larger whole.

Room
We call the buildings Rooms because they share the principle of enclosure. The interiors of many Rooms are either empty or occupied by one or two large objects that define the type of building (concert hall, theater, exhibition space...) and leave the remaining volume between the interior object and the outer simple envelope for circulation. This edge space simplifies access and creates flexibility in internal orientation. The connection of the interiors of the Rooms with other spaces on the site is precisely controlled. Externally relatively unremarkable Rooms have several large openings that connect the interior and exterior where the interior objects meet the boundaries of the Room. This arrangement not only reveals the interiors of buildings, which mysteriously glow from within like lanterns, but also allows for opening the interior spaces for presentations towards the Clearings and the Wilderness. For example, the stage of the Center for Modern Music faces the interior auditorium, but it can also open to the adjacent Clearing for an outdoor concert.

Cluster Ecology
Within the broader cluster of Černá louka, we envision the possible emergence of many smaller "mini-clusters": a cluster of Art, Music, Business, Education, or Recreation. All these entities intertwine, and many programs utilize or even require access to activities in other "mini-clusters". Wilderness mediates exchanges between them with minimal restrictions. This arrangement allows programmatically specific Rooms to share resources in any way and at any time, from the most common combinations (a school trip to the theater) to the most unusual (kayaking to the philharmonic).
We have employed two strategies to promote and simplify interaction among the users of Černá louka. First, Rooms should be accessible from all sides. This means that, whenever possible, larger public spaces are located on the ground floor. When this is not possible, access to a central courtyard or a loop of public circulation around the internal program is enabled. Second, we have hybridized the spaces of Wilderness, Clearings, and Rooms into two "nodes." This new type is a condensation of common programs for the entire cluster of Černá louka: restaurants, cafes, auditoriums, libraries, workshops, etc. These "Flowers" are intended as shared resources. They will be the most natural places for everyday conversations and interactions among visitors, residents, and creative professionals.

---

Jury Assessment: The project titled "wild urbanism," as referred to by its authors, is an experiment in utilizing public space for the interaction of various kinds of cultures represented by different users and various parallel activities. Discovering the unknown and unpredictable, confronting Ostrava and Europe. A machine for testing different cultures.
A healthy natural forest as a principle of uniqueness in architectural solutions, segmented into wilderness, clearings, and forest as a place of meeting and rapprochement.
A unique experiment with landscape and urbanism, an original solution with multiple interpretations of landscape, meadows, the phenomenon of black and Ostrava, and a non-hierarchical structure of pavilion arrangement.
A unique and phenomenal territory and space. The proposal comprehensively uncovers and addresses issues of landscape ecology and the Ostrava region, social and sociological themes, and creates an authorship architectural vocabulary of archetype, typologies, and clusters. The project as a lifestyle strategy.
From the beginning, the jury viewed the uniqueness and poetry of the solution positively, and later discussions among the jury regarding the positive interpretation of "happy life" emerged.