Faculty of Architecture has new associate professors

In her habilitation thesis, Klára Salzmann focuses on the topic of landscape planning with special attention to the function of water in the landscape. "The task of landscape planning is to find the optimal use of natural resources while maintaining its biological and productive functionality. The exploitation of the landscape has been going on for several thousand years in the form of a permanent struggle between man and the natural environment. It is the water in the landscape that has undergone the greatest changes in an attempt to exploit as much land as possible," explains Salzmann. A major theme in landscape planning is the attempt to merge natural and technical infrastructure to allow more and more people to coexist and interact with natural organisms. An example of such a multifunctional network can be green infrastructure that connects the pathways of water, people, animals and plants in the landscape.

The habilitation lecture of Marek Novotný dealt with the method of microphotography applied in construction. It is mainly used for waterproofing materials such as synthetic films and asphalt waterproofing. The method is an important source of information on the properties of these materials, providing data on their watertightness, the effect of UV radiation and other degradation processes, as well as on their defects and functional failures. At the same time, microphotography makes it possible to estimate the residual lifetime of waterproofing materials.

Ing. Klára Salzmann Ph.D. graduated in landscape and garden architecture at the University of Horticulture in Budapest and completed her doctoral studies at the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra. She has worked professionally, among others, in the Office of the Chief Architect of Bánská Bystrica, as a manager of landscape projects for the European Capital of Culture Pilsen 2015 and as an authorized architect for landscape architecture in the Czech and Slovak Republics. As part of her design activities, she has participated in many spatial studies, landscape plans and landscape concepts. She is active in the Czech and Slovak Chamber of Architects, a member of the working group of the Government Council for Sustainable Development of the Czech Republic, cooperates with the Ministry of Regional Development and the Ministry of Culture. As a teacher, she worked as the head of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Czech University of Agriculture, as a teacher at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen and at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, where she was responsible for the preparation of the study course Restoration of Cultural Landscapes within the Care for the Environment programme. Since 2015, she has been teaching several courses at the Faculty of Architecture of the CTU in Prague within the Department of Landscape Architecture.

Ing. Marek Novotný Ph.D. graduated in Civil Engineering with specialization in building insulation and building physics at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the CTU. He continued his specialization studies at the Institute of Forensic Engineering, VÚT Brno. He completed his doctoral studies at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava. He taught externally at the Technical University in Liberec and at the Faculty of Civil Engineering of the CTU. Since 2009, he has been working internally at the Faculty of Architecture of CTU as an assistant professor at the Department of Building Construction, expert guarantor and lecturer of several courses and supervisor in the Ph.D. programme. He is professionally active as a forensic expert and chartered engineer. He regularly publishes in professional journals, presents at professional lectures, is the author of professional books and textbooks. As part of his design activities, he has implemented a number of large-scale projects in the field of building insulation and physics – the piazzetta of the National Theatre, the tunnel between the buildings of the National Museum in Prague, construction of airports, shopping centres and others.

Both will be presented with their appointment decrees by CTU Rector Vojtěch Petráček at a ceremony in Bethlehem Chapel on 21 June 2022.