garden restaurant with view-tower in malešice park

A single-phase open project architectural competition in which our design won 3rd prize.

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The proposed complex consists of a restaurant, a building for the park administration and an observation tower. It is formed by two solitary masses forming a right angle. Visually, the arms of the building are connected by a wooden pergola above the outdoor stage. The overall horizontal composition of both buildings is graduated by the slender mass of the observation tower located at the highest point of the area, on the edge of the existing grove.

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At the intersection of the two main axes of the park, where the linear energy of the flow of space peaks, we find ourselves in a kind of dead end. We are filling this unused potential of the site with a newly designed area with an observation tower and a restaurant. The building is at the imaginary interface of two worlds, a modern city park and a natural piece of forest. By dividing the site into two separate volumes (a restaurant with facilities and an administrative building), we create a natural "courtyard" - a bay of nature in the city, peace in the hustle and bustle, a stop in the rush. The restaurant building on the south side thus forms a line that ends the park in the north and continues the existing promenade along the west-east axis of the park - it behaves a bit like a park and a bit like an urban one, i.e. lively. Visitors stroll along this line, ride bicycles or sit in the shade of the covered "colonnade" and have a snack. On the contrary, towards the forest area, the visitor's activity slows down and offers quiet outdoor seating in the "courtyard", in a semi-intimate space between the building and the forest. This space is dominated by a lookout tower, which seems to have emerged from the depths of the forest to the edge, but still belongs to it to some extent. With its shell, it refers to the pine trunks and is in a certain dialogue, communication with them.

The interior of the restaurant, thanks to the considerable amount of glazing and the use of round wooden columns, visually transitions seamlessly into the exterior – the outdoor seating of the restaurant – and through the body of the observation tower, it visually connects to the natural backdrop of the forest trunks in the background.

The observation tower itself rises from the background of the other buildings in the forest and forms the central element of the entire area. The material and elements used reflect the spirit of the place, supporting and developing the space of the man-made forest.

The Park Administration building forms a separate building in the northern part of the complex and, with its perpendicular orientation to the restaurant, supports the intimacy of the space of the semi-enclosed natural “courtyard” ending with a covered outdoor stage.

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