33 proposals were submitted to the architectural competition for the Albertov Campus

Prague - In the first round of the architectural competition for the completion of the Albertov Campus, architectural firms and studios submitted 33 proposals. The expert jury will select six proposals that will advance to the second round. CTK was informed about this today by the spokesperson of Charles University (CU) Václav Hájek. Two new research centers of CU, costing 2.5 billion crowns, are expected to open in 2022.

"The campus represents a crucial milestone for the development of science and research at Charles University, as it will provide Charles University with a modern university center focusing on biomedicine, mathematics, and global changes," said CU Rector Tomáš Zima.

The campus is the largest construction project at CU in the center of Prague in the last hundred years. The Biocenter and Globcenter will serve as research facilities for the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, the Faculty of Science, and the 1st Faculty of Medicine at CU. The Biocenter will focus on understanding living systems for human health needs, new biotechnologies, and biodiversity protection.

The jury will decide on the finalists of the competition from January 22 to February 29; the winning proposal will be presented to the public in the summer. "The overall interest in the competition is encouraging; a total of 190 entities registered for the competition, of which 59 were foreign. This is a big surprise even for us, as we expected that the total number of participants, given the complexity of the program and the brief, would not exceed more than 15 percent of registered competitors," said competition proposal reviewer Karin Grohmannová.

The assignment of the competition has been prepared for more than two years. It includes data for model types of laboratories and lists of special technologies requiring specific building backgrounds, such as large instruments, breeding facilities for experimental animals, or infectious spaces.

The project will be financed from the state budget. Altogether, more than 1,200 people should work in both buildings. According to Zima, the new spaces could attract top scientists and students from abroad to CU. The concentration of various fields in one place should facilitate collaboration among experts and enhance the synergistic effect.

Currently, there is a dining hall or a neighboring wooden building of a student dormitory on the construction site for the new centers.