design of multifunctional buildings with housing - competition study

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​Our concept of the pair of blocks emerged from four similarly important pillars: basic mass stratification, resolving the medium scale of subdivision, defining the characters of public space and turning the local context into materialization.

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When developing the design of blocks 9.01 and 9.02 Žižkov City, located between the Freight Station and the Olšanské Cemetery, we are not entering an area that could be called a tabula rasa. This significant Prague brownfield is very thoroughly designed by the Urban Planning Study with elements of the regulatory plan from the Prague IPR workshop. We see two key impulses for the area being solved on the horizon: extending the tram line along the northern edge of the NNŽ and adapting the historic station building to new functions, including revitalizing and making its ground floor accessible. In the part of the site we are solving, the US allows the building level to reach a height of around 40 m in limited and framework-defined positions. This gives the two proposed blocks an interesting spatial dynamic. We work with the placement of the towers so that their position always signals one of the important points of the block: a corner or a break in its perimeter.

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We do not want to evoke the average, human scale of the block by presenting a hit parade of facades creating the illusion of a growing city. We work with fragmentation. We build a jigsaw puzzle from spatial units – blocks with an edge of approximately 12 m. By layering them and moving them front to back, we create a spatial game.

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The public space has a significantly different character on each side of the block. We then consistently adapt the typology of the parterre to this. The main boulevard with a tram on the west side has a complete commercial ground floor. We place a mix of social functions and commercial areas in the lively, pedestrian shopping street Jižní nákladová, which borders the NNŽ. In contrast, we conceive the north-south streets perpendicular to the NNŽ as residential, with semi-public front gardens and housing lowered to the level of the sidewalk. The publicly accessible and passable areas of the courtyard are a world unto themselves, where we direct quiet and relaxing community functions connected to intensive greenery.

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From the surrounding context, we borrow the element of masonry (NNŽ) into the concept of materializing the design, and the proposed omnipresence of climbing greenery refers to the closely adjacent Olšanské cemeteries.

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The chosen mix of principles brings a distinctive, memorable and dynamic silhouette. The expression refers to the local industrial footprint and the content of the blocks combines the residential function with typologies enlivening the parterre. This is our view of a functional modern city 15 minutes away.