Can we take the DNA of a successful law firm and transform it into a modern, open and airy space? How do we combine teamwork with complicated or discreet meetings? Our solution reflects the dynamic and flexible nature of the contemporary world.
We turned the old cliche, that barrister’s chambers have to have high pile carpets, leather club chairs and an understated lobby, on its head. We drew our inspiration from the client’s work and from its key output – a contract. In our case a contract with design. A contract with a refined space for lawyers, who need focus rooms and teamwork spaces and who often work from home, but need frequent access to modern technology, which is mostly cloud-based.
The building site is located directly over a metro station, right next to one of the city’s major radial roads, Evropská, which connects the city centre to the airport. The site has an elevation difference ranging from 7 up to 14 meters and is immediately surrounded by heterogeneous development, with a neighbourhood of family villas followed by mid-rise apartment buildings and even a socialist housing estate further away.
The sports hall is located in the small town of Nový Hrozenkov, nested in the valley of the Bečva River, which flows through the Vallachian landscape in the eastern corner of Czechia. The architects wanted to bring contemporary architecture that would fit in to the town while introducing something fresh and original. There are more stages of the project; besides the sports hall, revitalisation concerned the main school building reconstruction, new entrances, technical equipment, changing rooms, sports hall facilities and a reconstruction of a famous fitness gym located on the ground floor. In addition, plans include revitalising the surrounding public areas and schoolyard and outdoor school playing fields.
The reconstruction of a terrace house for the needs and comfortable urban living with the current standards for a family. The same terrace house design repeats in a few streets, using pseudo-mansard roofs, partial prefabrication, and materials from the early 1990s.
The terrain difference was used to the advantage in the original design. The street-level floor with small windows disappeared into the terrain. The entrance part of the house reminded a poorly lit basement. Fortunately, the end position of the terraced housing has a small garden with mature trees. The garden was difficult to access from the house due to the height difference. In addition, the main rooms were oriented in the direction of the sun but facing the street. The internal layout corresponded to the division of the house into separate apartments on each floor with a common entrance. Low clear height in the interior (2,5 m) defined its atmosphere.
The original canteen and dormitory buildings by the architect Karel Prager are only the torso of an unfinished university campus on the banks of the Vltava River. The canteen itself was never fully used as intended. The 1980s building, built using a demanding lift-slab construction method with its deep central square disposition, had an indisputable architectural quality at the time of its construction. However, a radical change was necessary to accommodate new needs of the Faculty of Humanities.
Tags: Czech Republic, Prague Comments Off on New Headquarters of the Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic by Kuba & Pilař architekti
In 1892, a Vienna-based company Brill, Schreiber and Co. founded a hosiery factory in Rožnov. The textile production of the later Loana factory finished in 2010, and since then, individual buildings of the factory complex have been adapted to a new purpose. The factory’s location allows for a partial yet significant urban opening of the complex to the surrounding town. Its new function already mixes light production with administrative offices, shops, services and housing.
Three houses and a yard form the maintenance area of the Golf & Ski Resort in Ostravice. At the project’s beginning, many considerations were raised about the role of architecture and urbanism in the field of purely pragmatic purpose-built facilities. Today’s hectic world bound by economic criteria usually does not leave much space to design these buildings other than by following the most economical architectonic, urbanistic and material solutions. Approaching the brief the other way round became both a clear philosophy and a challenge to our design.
Premek´s land looked like a nice peaceful meadow under the forest but the whole thing looked easier than it actually was. The land lies on the border of the third and fourth zones of the Beskydy Protected Landscape Area. Even though there are original buildings from the 1970s all around, we had to make a great effort to build this house. The orientation of the plot was not quite ideal either but nothing we could not handle.
The two-storey building completely from reinforced concrete will allow parking up to 200 cars on three levels. On the plan it forms a triangle with one convexly curved side, it follows slope of the land and respects the terrain. The layout contains parking spaces with a ramp and two communication cores. The facade from the north consists of road barriers with ventilation functions.
The house lies in a pleasant wine cellar lane with limited access for construction equipment. We had to abandon the original reconstruction plan after the actual condition was discovered. The new building respects the footprint and shape of the old house.
The house could be conceptually divided into several layout and structural parts. The bedroom, bathroom and toilet occupy the brick part – originally a living area. The glazed living room stands on the site of the former goat sheds and is structurally a steel structure. The superstructure is made of wood and houses a sauna with a relaxation area.
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