Works of our teachers in the finals of the Czech Architecture Award

The Czech Architecture Award is a competitive showcase of the best projects built in the Czech Republic in the last 5 years. In total, 241 projects competed for the award this year. The finalists were selected from 31 nominated projects by an international jury consisting of Gilma Teodora Gylytė (Lithuania), Joakim Lindmarker (Sweden), Winy Maas (Netherlands), Taba Rasti (Spain), Oliver Sadovský (Slovakia), Maike van Stiphout (Netherlands) and Deyan Sudjic (UK). The jury awarded the main prize to Lukáš Ehl, Tomáš Koumar, Ladislav Dvořák and Ladislav Šašek for the design of the Litomyšl Footbridge.

The award of the Ministry for Regional Development of the Czech Republic for promoting quality construction through architectural competitions was awarded to the SOKEC project, co-authored by Štěpán Kubíček, Martina Buřičová, Jan Novotný and Jonáš Krýzl from the CARAA architectural studio. The social and cultural centre was built in the building of a dilapidated sokolovna in the centre of Hrušovany u Brna and, according to the jury, is "an example of an appropriate procedure for preparing public investments, where its implementation was preceded by an architectural competition." The Ministry of Regional Development appreciated the restrained but representative appearance of the building, the appropriate scale of the building reflecting the surrounding buildings and the connection of the interior with the exterior towards the street and the garden, which forms an important part of the project.

Among the finalists, the jury included the extension of the loggia of a prefabricated house in Prague by re:architekti studio of Michal Kuzemenský. "At first glance, the inconspicuous project is a quality example of minimal intervention that creates maximum utility value," said the judges, who appreciated that the project was created "through an exemplary process of consensus-building among the apartment owners." They said the balcony extensions act as "a natural part of the development of the building, with the new layer sensitively respecting the tectonics of the original apartment block."

The Three Resistant Movement Memorial, the work of Klára and Tomáš Hradečný and their team of former students from the FA, was awarded the President's Prize of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. The memorial was created on the grounds of the Mašín family farm in Lošany and is intended to preserve their memory. "Having the old farmhouse sprayed with concrete is not only a radical application of a proven technical solution used for ruins, but also a solution that emphasizes the horror and beauty of the story at the same time. It is a remarkable innovation in the approach to the care of a monument, creating impressive spaces and abstract sculpture that moves us and makes us think," the jury said. We write about the project here in the news report.