The children's hospice at Cibulka is expected to operate from 2026, this year a café will open

Prague - The children's hospice in the Cibulka estate in the Prague district of Košíře is expected to be completed in 2026. At the end of this year, a café will open in the first renovated building of the complex. Representatives of the Vlček Family Foundation told reporters today. The project to repair the heritage-protected building and complete the hospice building is estimated to cost around 500 million crowns at current prices. The Prague 5 municipality approved a change in the zoning plan in February that will allow for the construction.

The main phases of construction work will begin in spring 2024. In the building, which has been occupied several times by squatters in the past, there will be rooms for parents, spaces designated for therapies for sick children, dining areas, and a hall primarily serving as an educational center. The new children's hospice will be a barrier-free healthcare facility with shared spaces and 12 rooms.

"Children and possibly entire families will primarily come here for respite, so-called relief stays. Care for the child, usually provided full-time by one parent, will be taken over by professionals, allowing the family to have space to rest and recharge. They will have the opportunity to go on vacation with a healthy sibling, but of course, they can also stay here with the child," stated Ivana Plechatá, director of the Vlček Family Foundation. According to her, the proximity to the Motol Hospital, which specializes in treating children with cancer, is also an advantage.

The transformation of the former ruin into a modern complex for families has been tasked to the Petr Hájek Architects team, which won among 48 architectural studies. "Historic buildings are complicated, and operating a healthcare facility has specific demands. It was not possible to insert a hospital bed part of the hospice into Cibulka without significant intervention. Therefore, we decided to complement the historic buildings, which will house administration and services, with the construction of a new part of the complex that meets the care requirements for the sick in the 21st century," described architect Petr Hájek regarding the project.

The new building is partially embedded into the terrain and has a green roof. The children's rooms have terraces facing the historic buildings, and the shared spaces open to the garden. The architects also worked on the project in virtual reality, which they presented to reporters today. "We are verifying its future practicality and everything that cannot be gleaned from an architectural study on paper. We can perceive the layout of the future building, distances, room arrangements, and also the widths of corridors and doors through which the mobile beds must move smoothly," explained the project leader for Cibulka, František Brychta.

The opening date of the renovated complex is set for October 22, 2026, symbolically 200 years after the death of Bishop Thun-Hohenstein, who contributed to the greatest prosperity of the estate in the early 19th century. The gardener's house will be the first to open to the public by the end of this year, where the foundation will move in, and a café for the public will be located on the ground floor. A children's playground will be opened in the nearby garden.

The Vlček Family Foundation has assets worth 1.5 billion crowns, from whose returns it can finance its projects. Ondřej Vlček is the CEO of the global software company Avast, and his wife Katarína is a doctor working in the mobile hospice Cesta domů. In addition to establishing the hospice and simultaneously saving the devastated heritage site of Cibulka, the foundation's goal is also to raise awareness of pediatric palliative care and the needs of families with terminally ill children.