The craft is alive and the high seats are standing. FA celebrates student achievements

Designblok is the largest contemporary design and fashion show in the Czech Republic, this year it was held from 5 to 9 October at the Benedictine monastery Gabriel Loci and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. The exhibited works by students of the Jaroš–Bednář studio are part of the extensive Bohemian Perfection project, which aims to make visible, revive and develop traditional folk crafts and their products with a direct link to the localities where they are created. The students had the opportunity to meet the craftsmen and heritage figures and to better understand the story behind the products.

"This is a great success for our department, the studio and the students involved. Along with the National Design Award, which was won by our student Vojtěch Veverka last year, it is the next highest award that can be won for our work in the Czech Republic. It is even more valuable that this year the jury was composed only of foreign journalists, foreign designers, without the participation of journalists from the Czech Republic or Slovakia," says MgA. Jan Jaroš from the Department of Design, FA CTU.

Among the exhibited projects was, for example, a surf into snow made by Petr Brancuský using the original technique of making ash skis. The author teamed up with Jasanka, a company that produces traditional wooden skis, and designed a surfboard with a construction of ash and cherry boards with non-slip oak pins. Other exhibits included a head ornament made of blown glass beads from the Podkrkonoší region by Roman Koubek, clothing models from Zuzana Šimůnková's original blueprint, and a cradle made of wicker, for which Tereza Horičková won the 2022 Olověný Dušan Award.

The Building of the Year is a Czech national public building competition, organized since 1992 by the Foundation for the Development of Architecture and Construction. The investor, the town of Libčice nad Vltavou, entered Three High Seats into the competition and cooperated with the Department of Architectural Design II of the FA CTU, which focuses on design-build projects in which students design and implement the project.

"The prize was awarded to an exceptional project that innovates and presents a modern concept of teaching architecture students in a very significant way. Students have the opportunity to learn about the entire construction process from study to implementation," said the jury of the 2022 Building of the Year Special Award.

Three High Seats – Bench, Silo and Chair – are new excursion sites in a forgotten acacia grove between Libčice nad Vltavou and Tursko. Their concept works with different geometric shapes, capacity and function. The Bench is the largest, observers sit side by side and in good weather they can see all the way to Mount Říp. The Circular Silo offers an intimate space, the Chair has the gentlest staircase, and is safe for children and the elderly. Each structure is made up of three parts – a concrete foundation slab, a steel support structure with a ladder or staircase, and a wooden viewing platform with a railing and a bench seat. Their height varies between three and five metres. All wooden elements are made of larch.

Most of the construction work was done by the students themselves with the assistance of professional craftsmen, they also cooperated with the Higher Vocational School and the Secondary School of Industry in Volyně. "We give our heart to the project. To build something is far beyond the normal scope of study, it is a passion for architecture and for Libčice," says the author of the concept, Tomáš Kodet, a student of the Master's programme at the FA CTU