Bc. Helena Pasáčková - Lower Center of Liberec

Functional Arrangement
The project consists of two main parts: the first is a functionally mixed urban structure with a predominance of housing, while the second consists of standalone civic amenities whose significance extends beyond the city's borders. In the ground floor of the multifunctional structure, rental spaces for services, commerce, and administration are planned, with parking located within the more enclosed blocks, thereby creating semi-private courtyards with front gardens and spaces for residents on their roofs. The upper floors mainly contain apartments, with a smaller number of offices. This part of the project is complemented by civic amenities of a local nature, including a community center intended for gathering all groups of residents. It also contains a larger space that can serve as a gymnasium or for organizing communal events, as well as a rooftop terrace/garden. The basement of the buildings is designated for parking and technical facilities.
The second part of the project – regional civic amenities – could include a concert hall (with a smaller recording studio), a Contemporary Art Center, a Tram Museum, and a Research and Educational Center for Nanotechnology, which would feature an interactive exhibition located on the ground floor (connecting to IQLandia) and a Museum of the Industrial Tradition of the Region (which would also contain a section on textile production, historically characteristic of the area in question).
The Contemporary Art Center would focus on new media and architecture, and in addition to exhibition spaces, would include a multifunctional staircase hall, artistic and audiovisual laboratories, a café, a media library, workshops for various artist and public workshops, a store for art supplies, and rental spaces for art shops/boutiques/studios/design studios, etc. The functional definition of this group of buildings is not fixed; should the need arise for a different civic amenity (e.g., business incubators, spas, etc.), their utilization can change.
On the edge of the addressed area, near the Regional Office, I proposed a smaller parking garage to replace the canceled outdoor parking spaces serving the Regional Office and the Research Institute of Technical Machines.

Building Structure
The area is designed without high verticals. This stems, as previously mentioned, from my analysis of the Liberec panorama, where I believe that any high-rise building (especially near the city center) would disrupt the typical Liberec silhouette characterized by uniformly high buildings with only the occasional church tower and mountains on the horizon. Another reason for proposing lower buildings is the desire to create a human-scale environment, with narrow streets and graspable building heights, a more concentrated structure where closer neighborhood ties can more easily develop.

Housing Structure
The structure with a mixed function on the ground floor is based on block construction but is significantly perforated or raised to ensure high permeability. It is a maximum of five stories high, with significant articulation towards the southeast and southwest, thereby creating a relatively large number of private terraces for individual apartments as well as communal rooftop terraces for the residents. The roofs of the top floor are greened. In the more enclosed blocks, there is parking in the middle of the block on the ground floor, surrounded by services, and the roof of the parking forms an internal courtyard for the apartment block, which is partially accessible to all residents of the building and partially features front gardens for apartments on the 2nd floor.

Civic Amenities Buildings
The civic amenities buildings are solo structures, the highest of which is the concert hall, situated at the front of the main square and also roughly in the center of these standalone structures. The other solo structures respond to it, rising towards it and thereby drawing attention to it.

Transportation
The proposal reduces automobile traffic within the area only to Tatranská, Mrštíkova, Kladenská, Nitranská streets, and a part of U Nisy street. Mrštíkova and Nitranská connect somewhat differently than currently, proposing their connection at the location of the current administrative building of the Transportation Company of the Cities of Liberec and Jablonec, which is moved to the office part of the Tram Museum. In other streets and spaces, car traffic is limited to necessary service and supply access.
Pedestrian, tram, and bicycle transportation is supported. For pedestrians, connections from the OC Forum (and thus also from Pražská street leading from Dr. E. Beneš square) to various directions (to the regional office, to Werk, as well as throughout the proposed structure, to the train stations, to Babylon, to Perštýn) are improved, and the path along the river is also important to the design. As for tram transportation, the project proposes a slight change in the route of the anticipated extension of the tram line towards Rochlice.

Greenery
The proposal creates various characters of urban greenery. An important part of it is the rehabilitation of the area along the river. The project assumes that in the future, the hot water pipeline currently running through a large part of the riverbed in the addressed area would be removed. The proposal supports the creation of a green corridor along the Nisa, which would feature a path for cyclists and pedestrians, gradually connecting Liberec with Jablonec nad Nisou. The river should no longer primarily be a barrier, but should become an urban element allowing residents to spend their free time pleasantly, facilitating easy movement along it and crossing it. On the right bank of the Nisa, from Košická street to the Regional Office, there is a nicely maintained park with mature trees. The proposal connects this with an expansion to the opposite bank between IQlandia and Košická street, from where it further curves back to the river through a "park courtyard" between IQlandia and the Nanotechnology Center and continues between the Contemporary Art Center and the riverside wooden stairs.
The greenery in the squares and larger courtyards has a linear character. In the main square, there is a tree-lined avenue complemented in the middle by a water feature. This avenue 'grows' from two strips of wood that 'pierce' the square, rising at places to create spots for sitting, lying down, placing a book, a shelter, etc., and then returns to the ground. In the more private courtyards, there is lower greenery, with most of the surface consisting of grass, while in the more public courtyards, paved areas prevail.

Construction Solution Scheme
The residential structure is designed as a skeletal infill system. The underground part is composed of white tubs due to a high groundwater level. The civic amenities buildings mostly have a skeletal structure, ribbed or coffered ceilings (concert hall), and in the case of the Contemporary Art Center, are supplemented with truss girders.

Flood Zone
The area is partially located in a flood zone with a Q100 flow, and for this reason, it would be necessary to develop a flood protection project by external specialists. The urban study presents a possible variant for draining water through an underground pipeline, as seen in the Water Management sheet, but the actual solution would require a specialized project.