VII. Bohuslav Fuchs Prize - awarded projects

Plot of Land in Bašty
Markéta Horáčková (3rd year)
supervisors: prof. Ing.arch. Petr Pelčák, Ing.arch. Bohumila Hybská, Ing.arch. Zdeňka Vydrová

The proposed building is located on a narrow plot near the main train station in the city of Brno, between the busy Nádražní street and Bašty. This plot lies at the boundary of the city center and is also in close connection to the newly renovated Denisovy sady. According to the new urban plan, the area of the tracks is to become a city park after the relocation of the station. Therefore, a possible view of it from Bašty street is taken into account.
The aim of the design was to connect the edge of the city with greenery and pedestrian paths leading to Denisovy sady. The design respects the boundary between urban development and greenery and seeks to connect them. This is addressed by creating a long ramp that runs almost the entire length of the plot. The ramp flows smoothly into the existing terrain, uniting the area overall and ensuring its compactness.
The existing building designed by Ing. arch. Otakar Pořísky, situated directly at the beginning of the street and originally served as a city accommodation office and is now the headquarters of the travel company Čedok, was retained in the design. It clearly defines the street space while separating the busy city thoroughfare from the quieter environment of Bašty. Only its reconstruction is taking place. The second part of the addressed plot consists of a gallery building.
The restaurant and café are separated from the gallery by a direct staircase that leads to Bašty street. The shape of the ramp is partly projected into the very shape of the gallery.
The surface of the ramp is made of granite tiles that smoothly transition into crushed stone. Thus, the amount of paving stones decreases as one moves away from the existing buildings, seamlessly transitioning into sand. The point of transition is beyond the tree-lined alley. This fact emphasizes the boundary between city and nature.
In the area of Bašty street, car driving is restricted, transforming the road into a pedestrian zone.
Pedestrians can thus use the communication in its entire width, while cars can only move there at a maximum speed of 20 km/h.

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Community Center Zábrdovice
Res Publica IV
Bc. Martin Janoušek (5th year)
supervisor: Ing.arch. Vítězslav Nový

The addressed area is located at the intersection of several city districts: Brno - Zábrdovice, Židenice, and Husovice. The design stems from the strongest moments of the place - Tišnovka (the former railway route) and the Svitava river, and continues in the spirit of the previous urban design.
This consists of a solid block structure, preserving the route of Tišnovka as one of the dominant elements of the design. The proposed community center building is based on this concept and continues it, positioned at the boundary defined by the river and Tišnovka, linking to the building structure from the north.
The resulting building is significantly horizontal in mass, with the floor plan being an elongated triangle that has a narrowed edge at its southernmost part. The volume is compact, with the mass only carved out in the central section for an open playground, which seems to be cut out of the building from the western side.
The community center is a standalone structure designed on the edge of the new and old (Zbrojovka Brno, Premonstratensian monastery, and the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary).
Its ground floor opens up to the surroundings, inviting visitors to explore its interior, while the entire facade toward the river works with the principle of open and private spaces through the alternation of solid areas (with brick cladding) and glazed surfaces as well as perforated brick walls, while the facade toward Tišnovka is calm and rational.
The predominant functional elements of the building are club rooms, a children's and senior center, halls (with the possibility of opening to the exterior in summer), and spaces for meetings and creative activities, supporting community creation and growth, cultural activities, and study, complemented by a café and semi-private rooftop playground.

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Conversion of Zetor Factory - Engine Division into a Sports-Cultural Center
Res Publica IV.

Bc. Marek Petrík (5th year) 

supervisor: Ing.arch. David Mikulášek

The assignment was to convert the old three-nave factory of Zetor, where engines were previously manufactured, into a sports-cultural center. The building is located in Brno in the municipal district of Husovice. It is situated longitudinally next to the Svitava river and is close to Náměstí Republiky and Tomkovo Square. The building is divided into two parts - sports and culture. Both functions intertwine at a mini square, which also terminates the continuous axis from the direction of Náměstí Republiky. The original mass of the building has been cut multiple times. The width of the current building did not provide adequate lighting. By removing sections from the inner nave of the factory, the future courtyard allows for quality illumination from both sides. In connection with the Svitava river, the Sports Embankment is accessible - from the axis of Náměstí Republiky. To improve circulation and communication within the building, two passages through the courtyard are also designed. See the diagrams.

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Restart/mind/underground/system
Architectural Space
Bc. Kristýna Smržová (5th year), Bc. Andrea Šrolová (5th year)
supervisor: Ing.arch. Jan Mléčka

Utopia
city - stress, little “space”, hurry, unrest, noise, smog, pollution, traffic, commands, electronics
We are outside, tired, confused, depressed, discontented, stressed, we always have to do something, we do not live now and here, we are always playing something, we surround ourselves with trivialities.
How to be somewhere else and at the same time in the same place? How to isolate oneself from the city and all its stressful elements?
Underground - a completely different place, silence, little light, humidity. A world for calming, stopping, reflecting, a world without disruptive elements. Only a little light - calming. I am here and now.
Healing through space - spaces stripped down to the bone, pure experience. Space, material, color, acoustics, play of light, feeling.
To learn to perceive the world again without haste, without “embellishments,” without kitsch, without patching and lying, just as it is.
To stay underground, calm down, and then emerge to the surface full of new impressions and feelings. Rebirth, new energy, phoenix.

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Trip Home
Bc. Martin Vlček (5th year)
supervisor: Ing.arch. Jan Mléčka

It is not just a tiny house, it is a way of life, a style without which you do not want to live anymore.
To travel through the landscape, without depending on what is in front of you or behind you. Everything you need is with you in that small aerodynamic thing you have attached to your car. You travel with a mass that is just big enough to fit what you need to survive. Then you stop, unfold, and have space that only emerges at the moment you need it. You breathe in the air along with the place that has touched you enough for you to stay there for a while, only to be somewhere else the next day.

"I needed movement, not just some kind of peaceful survival. I needed excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice for my love. I felt an overload of energy inside me, which, however, could not find its application in our calm life."

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Pavilion U Buku
ZAN (1st year)
Jakub Formánek, Vojtěch Heralecký, Matěj Bednařík, Patrik Kučavík, Kateřina Vítková, Eva Machainová, Barbora Zámečníková, Beronika Šlesingerová, Kristýna Uhrová, Karolina Lysá, Hanin Al-Gibury, Ivana Lososová, Miroslava Panáčiková, Nikola Stibůrková, Kateřina Marečková, Adéla Šmeidlerová, Katarína Rábeková, Ivona Uherková, Markéta Mullerová, Lukáš Vrzgula
supervisor: doc. Ing.arch Jiří Palacký, Ph.D

In the first stage of architectural design education, we systematically apply a holistic approach that develops individual student talent in relation to the knowledge students have gained from previous studies. For this reason, inspiration comes from the entire spectrum of creative and scientific fields of human activity as well as from the study of living and non-living nature. This mixture of polarities is an excellent starting point for composing a series of tasks, which we individually modify in our seminar. Rather than a final aesthetic object, our seminar focuses on initiating and developing the conceptual creative process.
At the beginning, we focused on the reflection of human movement when designing space with regard to its variability over time. Time and space are two distinct filters through which we explore the world. The goal was to perceive static space dynamically, according to muscle tension, compression, concentration, acceleration, relaxation, meditation, dance steps, etc. The result was a conceptually designed space bordered by walls with openings.
In the second part, we dealt with the transcription of models into tectonics and searching for lessons, principles, and laws applicable in the structured world surrounding us. Together with the students, we sought lessons from objects, plants, minerals, animal constructions, etc. Through scientific sketches and photo analysis, we captured guiding spatial geometry and the discovered axioms that were subsequently translated into architectural forms and structures through paper modeling. This method is further developed in the education of higher years when addressing complex parametric structures at a 1:1 scale.
Modeling and sketching are tools that allow us in the end to rationally connect the outputs of individual tasks with conceptual ideas into a physical form - the building design in a specific location. By creating a partial segment and solving the method of spatial growth, we aimed at designing a wooden building of human scale with an emphasis on detail solutions.
In a similar manner, we address other topics in the foundations of architectural design. We are interested not in the external form, but the logic and purity of internal arrangement; diversity of forms is not our goal. Harmony of shape, space, and material is essential for us. In our seminar, we rather learn the notes and the playback of scales, much like students at a conservatory. The music itself comes later (J. Albers).

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Unification of Horizontals
Zdeněk Zedka (3rd year)
supervisor: Ing.arch. Jan Foretník, Ph.D.

The area in question is located near the Austrian borders southeast of the town of Mikulov in South Moravia. It is a peninsula, previously a baroque island with a hunting lodge, which was divided by the railway in the 19th century. During the analysis, we created a feeling map of the island and proposed a common network of paths and points that affected us.
My design is located in the northern part of the island amidst abundant vegetation of invasive trees and shrubs, which appear chaotic and inaccessible. They create an unwanted barrier that prevents the observer from seeing the pond and the overall panorama.
The concept was to create horizontal elements that function as guiding lines through the greenery to a designated spot. The installation consists of concrete elements that appear at times as pathways and at others as benches, with these functions intertwining variously. The overall footprint creates a network of paths that open toward the circuit road.
Concrete strips elegantly pierce the dense greenery, and like drops of dew, connect and eventually unite with the calm surface of the pond. They serve as guides and indicators leading a person to discover the beauty of an inaccessible place.
The objects are made of prefabricated blocks of sanded concrete with beveled edges. The sizes of the blocks vary: in the curved part, they have a cross-section of 500x250mm, at the water's edge 500x500mm and are anchored to concrete piles. The footprint length is 50m from the path to the shore.