Studio Achten–Pavlíček–Sýsová

Vision

The skyscraper not as a symbol or gesture, but as a response to population pressure and the erosion of urban value in the city center. Shenzhen is transitioning from large-scale office development toward a hybrid urban organism — a vertical city structure combining work, living, social infrastructure, and civic space, reflecting digitalization, demographic shifts, and new forms of labor. Students are asked to respond architecturally to these emerging conditions.

 Site

Futian Central Business District, Shenzhen — part of the former golf driving range site.

 Program

The project must combine:

• Housing (mix of ownership/rental, short-term/long-term, flexible typologies)
• Work (innovative workspaces — production, creative labs, research centers)
• Urban infrastructure (culture, services, education)
• Vertical public space — publicly accessible shared spaces distributed throughout the building

 Tower Typology

Requirements:

• Minimum height 200 m
• Eliminate the conventional centralized core

Redefine:

• Vertical public spaces
• Programmatic mix through height
• Relationships between public and private domains

Environmental and Structural Strategy

• Design an environmentally responsive façade
• Address energy efficiency, microclimate, and public benefit
• Mitigate urban heat island effects
• Rethink conventional structural systems

Vision

A project that activates the region through a single key building/infrastructure:

• A hybrid center for logistics, energy, community, and technological ecosystems
• Architecture as a catalytic object initiating a new territorial transformation
• Activation of the regional axis (planned Poohří High-Speed Rail Corridor)
• Acting as both an energy and social catalyst
• Transforming brownfields into platforms for long-term development

 Site

ČSA Open-Cast Mine, Most Basin, Czech Republic — a large post-extraction landscape undergoing transformation, with planned flooding and conversion into a new water-based territory.

 Program

Students may focus on one or more of the following:

• Multifunctional logistics-economic hub connected to the high-speed rail corridor
• Community campus — research, education, living laboratories
• Landscape manufactory — production combined with landscape regeneration
• Renewable energy hub + pumped-storage water system using extreme terrain differences

 Typology

Open. Students may propose any building type or hybrid structure that meaningfully activates the region and supports the stated vision.

 Environmental Strategy

• Pumped-storage hydropower / water retention as a vertical landscape mechanism
• Visualization of energy flows and storage systems
• Phasing strategies and long-term transformation scenarios

Please come talk to us if you are interested to do your diploma project with us. Check out earlier graduation projects in the gallery or DSpace. We look at complex and non-typological assignments.

Revitalization of the former city slaughterhouse in Hradec Králové

The main hall as a cultural, creative, circular and self-sufficient infrastructure of the city

Students will develop an architectural study that answers the question: How can the main hall of a former slaughterhouse function as a long-term sustainable, energy-self-sufficient and socially open space that connects the circular economy, culture, education and community life?

The project is based on the principles of adaptive reuse, circular economy and the values ​​of the New European Bauhaus (NEB) – sustainability, inclusion and beauty.