2025 Laurus Awards Announced

The competition serves as a platform for sharing ideas among future landscape architects and educators across the Czech Republic and Slovakia. FA CTU submitted the highest number of projects this year, followed by students from MENDELU and CZU. Entries were also submitted by students from BUT Brno, UMPRUM, and the Slovak University of Agriculture (SPU) in Nitra. The winning works were selected by an international jury consisting of Julia Backhausen-Nikolić, Barbora Hrmová, and Lukáš Grasse. The ceremony was attended by representatives of the schools, professional organizations, and sponsors. In addition to diplomas and symbolic wreaths, the winners received a financial prize and the book Ivar Otruba, Landscape Architect, donated by the Ivar Otruba Foundation.

In the Landscape Gesture category, the winning project was Growing through by Zuzana Purmová and David Šmíd from the Sitta Studio at FA CTU. Designed for the international festival Les Jardins de Métis in Canada, the installation uses concrete objects in direct contrast with live willow growth. It changes constantly over time, demonstrating how the impacts of insensitive human intervention are gradually reclaimed by the environment. The jury praised the strong, clear concept and noted it was the most convincing nominee due to its atmosphere and clean graphic presentation.

In the Small Scale category, Josefína Jírovcová from FA CTU succeeded with her project Křížem krážem, supervised by Till Rehwaldt and Klára Concepcion. The author focused on Malé náměstí in Liberec and its surroundings, which suffer from traffic congestion and poor pedestrian accessibility. The design breathes life back into a neglected park and a Way of the Cross through new axes and sensitively chosen materials. The jury highlighted her ability to work with detail and create a complex, well-thought-out whole that brings a cultivated atmosphere to the environment.

The Medium Scale category was won by the collective project Dust we are and to dust we shall return by the team of Johana Kratochvilová, Vojtěch Bartek, Sabina Nogová, Tereza Jančová, Gréta Oravcová, and Marek Mitáček from ZF MENDELU. The jury especially appreciated the emphasis on recycling and the project’s phased implementation. The Large Scale category was led by a landscape study of the area between Lednice and Charvátská Nová Ves titled Beyond the Edge of the Axis by Aneta Kubištová, Anna Sovová, Viktorie Pšenicová, Terézia Bónová, and Alise Teilane. The project stood out for its clear, detailed analytical section and the use of storytelling to present a complex landscape solution.

The Special Prize of the Czech Association for Landscape Architecture (ČAKA) was awarded to the project The River That Never Disappeared by Terezie Jančálková, Klára Bábalová, Eliška Oherová, and Veronika Čaban Tomek from ZF MENDELU. The commission praised the comprehensive approach to revitalizing a river in a historically burdened industrial environment and the depth of its social and community aspects. The authors received tickets to the Urbanscapes professional conference to present their work. Photos from the ceremony can be viewed in the Life at FA gallery.