Brno wants to start a competition in January for the design of a new city hall building

Collective of SIAL studios and 1st ČERNOPOLNÍ: CD PALACE

Brno – Brno plans to launch an urban-architectural competition for the design of a new city hall building as early as January. It is expected to last until June. The aim is to find a quality solution for a public building that corresponds to Brno's status as the second largest city in the Czech Republic. The new office should be friendly and facilitate quick processing of agendas online and in person. The competition will focus on the first stage of construction, where the departments of the city hall will be consolidated from 15 different buildings into one location. The city announced this in a press release following today's meeting of the councilors. Estimates of the investment costs for the construction will emerge from further project documentation.

"The goal is to create a functionally high-quality, comprehensible, and user-friendly office. An architectural competition is the best way to achieve this. The designated area for the building has already been verified by a volumetric study and follows the compositional principles of Brno's ring road. The project will thus contribute to the completion of the last part of the Brno ring and the development of valuable urban space,” said the councilor for urban planning, Petr Bořecký (formerly of ANO). The city also demands a proposal for a highly variable building that will be able to respond to future changes related to the digitalization of public administration, the development of information technologies, and artificial intelligence.

The building will be located adjacent to the existing city hall at Malinovského náměstí, near the central building authority. The location is well accessible by both public transport and individual car traffic. The office is intended to be comfortable for the public as well as employees. A key function will be the integration of service counters, the so-called front office, particularly for agendas related to resident registration, issuing ID cards and passports, vehicle registration, and driving licenses. The building will also include standard office workspaces for other departments of the city hall.

The first phase of construction will focus on departments that are currently located in various buildings around the city. This particularly concerns departments with counter operations and those housed in rented facilities. "In the first phase, approximately 550 employees should work in the building, but in the long term, the design is conceived to allow for the expansion of the facility and the concentration of a larger part of the city hall in one place. In the future, up to 980 people could work in the entire complex," added the secretary of the city hall, Oliver Pospíšil.