Lesy ČR want to announce an architectural competition for their headquarters in July

Hradec Králové - The state enterprise Lesy České republiky (LČR) plans to announce an architectural competition in July for the design of a wooden headquarters in Hradec Králové. The competition will consist of two rounds and its conditions were approved today by an international jury. The construction could be completed in 2020. This was stated by LČR spokesperson Eva Jouklová. The cost of the building was previously estimated by the enterprise to be approximately a quarter of a billion crowns. Lesy ČR owns half of the forests in the country and the enterprise reports annual profits in the billions of crowns.

According to the vision of Lesy ČR, the administrative center should be an exemplary showcase of the use of wood in construction and at the same time a suitable promotion of wood as a sustainable raw material. The project should also stand out for its low energy consumption and should utilize all renewable energy sources. According to Lesy ČR, there is currently no similar wooden administrative building for about 200 employees in the Czech Republic.

"Once the conditions are approved by the Czech Chamber of Architects, we can announce the competition for the design. We expect it to be in July. We anticipate great interest from both domestic and foreign architects," said LČR General Director Daniel Szórád, who is also the vice-chairman of the jury. The jury was chaired by Danish architect Dorte Mandrup-Poulsen, and the mayor of Hradec Králové, Zdeněk Fink, is also a member of the jury.

The new wooden headquarters is intended to replace the current inadequate building made of 1970s panels. The building, which was formerly the headquarters of the East Bohemian State Forests, is considered statically unstable by LČR, lacks insulation, has no air conditioning, and most of the offices do not meet today's standards.

Along with the construction of the wooden headquarters and the planned renovation of one of the newer buildings in the Lesy ČR complex in the New Hradec Králové district, the project also includes the construction of a parking lot and a public park. The jury will assess both the economic and energy aspects of the building.

The results of the first round of the competition are expected to be announced by the jury this October. Five designs will advance to the second round. The three best designs should be published by the jury in February 2017, and negotiations will begin with the competition winner afterward. Then LČR would announce another competition for the project and construction supplier and begin working on zoning and building permits. If everything goes according to plan, construction could begin in mid-2019 and be completed the following year.

Lesy ČR has been based in Hradec Králové since its establishment on January 1, 1992.