VIII. Bohuslav Fuchs Prize - interview with the expert jury

Did you find any projects during today's evaluation that appealed to you with their processing, idea, or energy and strength of concept? Please describe how they differed from others?

Petr Klíma: Those three awarded works were the closest to me personally. I was genuinely struck by the design of the chapel and the surrounding space (note: project Interpreter of the Memory of the Landscape, author Bc. Norbert Obršál). Both the theme and – if I may judge – the way students were led proved to be very fruitful. I also highly value the study dedicated to four monastic complexes. It is another example of an inspiring and relevant assignment, related to the return of property to orders and churches (note: assignment of the studio of Assoc. Prof. Ing. architect Karel Havliš). It is a significant topic also because many of those buildings today have no functional use.
I am convinced that an important condition for a good result is precisely the assignment. A great project can hardly emerge from a poor assignment.


Could you compare projects and their processing (or the assignments themselves) here at the Faculty of Architecture at Brno University of Technology with the Prague school?

Regina Loukotová: It is currently incomparable with our school ARCHIP. We have three studios, three leaders, three assistants, and one assignment. We have been teaching in this way for three years, and I believe we made the right choice. Having a clear assignment and a clear leader – that is the foundation. In Mr. Mléčka's and Marek's studio, which has a very high-quality, strong studio with the assignment "Architecture of Scarcity," they also consult small projects. Why? On the other hand, there are several leaders - Ruller, Nový, Pavel, Sochor, Mikulášek - who have one common assignment, and it is unclear who consults with the students, who stands behind the project as an educator. We had a completely fragmented impression of that. For instance, with the assignment "Architecture of Scarcity," or in Ms. Ponešová’s studio, student cooperation and cohesiveness were evident. My recommendation is "a unified assignment and a clear leader." When one does this and another does something different, students do not collaborate, do not compete, do not support and inspire each other, and I think that is not good.
Regarding the comparison with the Czech Technical University in Prague, I hope the assignments phrased as "villa for a wealthy entrepreneur" have completely disappeared there. Unfortunately, we saw a surplus of such here. One thinks daily about how to teach architecture. One of the most challenging assignments for a practicing architect is a family house. Here, it is presented as a simple task for second-year students.

Petr Klíma: Even if a family house was assigned as a house for a specific person, their personality was ultimately not apparent. In the multitude, the proposals – sometimes similar to standard projects – blended. Moreover, they often concerned houses without surroundings, without context.

Regina Loukotová: Not only in student works is the issue of project presentation extremely important. This is similar at the Czech Technical University in Prague. There are excellent and original assignments that are subsequently presented brilliantly, but unfortunately, they are still in the minority. Today we saw studios – two, three, where their graphic presentation truly enchanted us.
It is clear that when I see student results, I essentially see the result of their educator. They lead them, grade them, devise the assignments.

Petr Klíma: The level of projects and their presentations varied significantly from studio to studio. We saw studios that are truly not good, and then studios that are excellent, where even the worst project is processed at a solid level. A key factor in this regard is clearly the personality of the studio leaders, who in the better cases can lead the students to extraordinary results.


From hand drawing and drafting on tracing paper, the work of designers has now shifted to the mouse, keyboard, and monitor. How do you perceive this change in student works? Is it a step forward?

Eva Eichlerová: During my studies and at the beginning of my practice, I drew by hand and liked this graphic processing. The creator's hand was seen in it; it was a part of the craft. Every drawing was an original, everything had its time. At first, it seemed that digital drawing would deny the architect's personality. However, in each project, the most important aspect is how it is grasped, how strong the concept is, the main idea, and at the end of the process, the real result – the building.
In student works, it is the same as in practice. We saw several projects here with a strong concept, beautifully graphically processed. In some studios, there is a sense of harmony even from this perspective; students incline towards each other both intellectually and artistically (studios led by architects Ponešová + Foretník, Professor Kolečko). Here, we had difficulty choosing one project; most of them were excellent.
Students are skilled at using a computer as a drawing tool; it is not an obstacle for them to express themselves.
But just as in practice, we saw projects displayed in an eye-catching manner, where even polished visualizations could not help to cover the deficiencies in the design.


Did you miss any theme here? What assignment would you, for example, give to the students?

Petr Klíma: I think there were enough themes here, and their range was quite diverse. It would certainly not hurt if some projects reacted more vividly to current events and current thinking about the landscape and the city. I also missed an experimental approach, or rather, greater courage to experiment both in the assignment and in the execution; the courage to give up the safe territory of proven practices even at the cost of possible mistakes.


What are the weaknesses and strengths of students here?

Please evaluate the individual aspects of the submitted works, from work with analyses and concepts to urbanism, mass composition of the design, technical and construction aspects, ending with the final graphic processing, including visualizations.

Regina Loukotová: The result of the studios is primarily the result of the work of its leadership. And it starts with a quality semester project assignment. Only then does the work of students follow, who should be inspired to work collectively and supported in it. Even if they work on an individual assignment, they should sit together to discuss projects. And it is important not to be afraid. Projects are still moving here on a certain and secure platform. As if the word experiment meant to make a mistake. But where else should mistakes be made if not here? In school. About 80% of students here aimed for a certain certainty. The remaining 20% didn't fully experiment either, but at least they took a slightly different path. For example, they processed an interesting problem in an unconventional way. Essentially, no one here put their neck on the line. No one brought anything controversial.
But there are also current themes, utilization and modification of public spaces, sustainability, management of natural resources, management of energies. That was somewhat apparent in the topic of Architecture of Scarcity. We saw projects here that touched a bit on gardening or growing crops within the city. That is a direction that is still not fully explored in architecture, although it is well initiated at many schools.
Another weakness is the models. Even the nice ones we saw today were worthless. The most important aspect of a model is that the student can imagine how the given space looks, how it interacts with the landscape, and so on. Here, 50% of the models were glued to a flat A4 format. As if context and the surrounding landscape didn’t exist. Most house models were glued to flat paper. No terrain is flat. We didn’t see working models, we didn’t see stages of design, we didn’t see sketches. I know that sketches are not often displayed, but it is important to document the design process. However, that is not the students' responsibility. The teacher should lead them to bring working models, to work with drawing and with various materials. The bad visualizations we saw were truly unsuccessful.
Now for the good aspects. In some projects, the graphic processing was truly exceptional and sensitive. Even in the final ten works, there were two projects that were artistically outstanding. Otherwise, here, the artistic techniques are very rarely reflected in the presentations. You surely have painting, drawing, modeling here. There has always been a very strong artistic component in architecture faculties. Unfortunately, this aspect is fading from the education of architects.
Analyses were often well processed, but the actual design was often subsequently weakened. Except for pre-diploma works. Analyses are an undeniable part of every project, but one should not overanalyze. Perhaps the hardest job for an architect is to translate analyses and impressions onto paper with a pencil. Some people subconsciously avoid that painful process and think they will make up for it with a mountain of analyses. We tried to decipher and not assess such projects because it is necessary to finish this analytical part in time. However, this is not a task for half a semester, but rather for a quarter of it, so that during the subsequent period, variations of the design can arise, and then those are brought to final presentation.
And what about the construction part of the project! We really missed that here, especially the architectural detail... We saw one project that had well-developed sections, and then we appreciated one project for bus stops on the cycling path, which also at least in hint dealt with detail. But the idea about materials, construction, relationships, and connections was hard to find in the projects. In 90% of the works, the construction and structural parts were completely absent. Previously, this was a mandatory part of the submission. It is essentially what the architect deals with daily in practice. And they say, "God is in the detail." And we are at a technical school after all!


Are students able to perceive the context of the place and respond to it, or possibly throw it out?

Eva Eichlerová: The awarded projects show that students even in lower years are sensitive, open, and under good guidance are very capable of responding to the surrounding context. The best projects are a sensitive immediate reaction to the given conditions of the site. I also perceive an acceptance of cultural and economic appropriateness. This is also one of the reasons why projects that deal with smaller buildings or densifying existing complexes were selected.
Unfortunately, we also saw a large number of proposals in which it was unclear where they were placed; these were anonymous buildings that could stand anywhere. In the lower years, where the majority of assignments were family houses, we did not find a distinctive project that would manifest a reaction to the construction site or the user’s personality.

Petr Klíma: It was closely related. It was precisely the awareness of the context into which the building is inserted, from which it derives, to which it responds, or against which it defines itself, that was one of the conditions for selection and a reason why that particular work was chosen.
Fairly often, there were projects among the submissions that did not account for the surroundings, and the drawing ended immediately behind the proposed object or the addressed area. This was also true in the models. However, this was not the case everywhere. There appeared to be some projects (including urban ones) that took broader relationships into account and worked with the surroundings.

Eva Eichlerová: Not only students, but even some graduates upon entering an office do not know how to work with the situation on a larger scale. Understanding the context is initially the most important aspect of the project. And that is what we sought in some projects.

Petr Klíma: Even small projects can have a strategy present. Such projects can initiate some local change, and the creator of the project can have a role, among others, as a strategic planner. And this is even in such a micro-scale, as we could see today in the project of Tasovický mill (note: project Strategy for Tasovický Mill, author Bc. Martin Surovec).

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