for Urbanity with TARI-Architects, Local, Bianco Architects, Sara Simoska
Arhitektura & Grupo H
Client: Penda
Real Estate
Competition project
Czech Republic
We propose a distinct main idea in response to the competition guidelines, one that consists of a strategic approach , aimed at changing the paradigm of self-referential projects and that embraces a more collective and synergic dimension of architecture: -ego + synergy!
We selected 5 young architecture
firms in the European scenario that along with us, will constitute a special
design team, able to respond to this important challenge in an innovative and
original way! Each firm stood out in many international competitions, earning
numerous awards and prizes. The complex will be divided into six buildings,
each of them designed by one firm, with its own identity and past experiences, able
to be part of a greater whole. As Aristotle said “the whole is greater than the
sum of its parts”. Distance and different nationalities are not weaknesses, but
the real strengths of the project! As for the Funen (Amsterdam) or the Vila
Olimpica (Barcelona), this strategic approach provides a team of different
architects able to transform divergences, different aspirations and requests
into synergic actions.
GREEN HEART FOR THE CITY
north-eastern part of the City, is located within a distinctive urban fabric
characterized by numerous courtyard blocks. The design starts from the existing
building placed in the southern part of the area: the empty boundaries facing
the adjacent streets will be built up in order to re-define the typical closed block
of the surrounding fabric, outlining a closed courtyard that would become the central
green heart of the project. The continuous facades of the complex will be
interrupted to ensure a permeable ground floor, that can become a public garden
accessible and freely used by the neighbours, contributing into making the
entire project seen as a recognizable residential complex in the city. The
courtyard will be a public garden that is how ever privately owned and managed
by the commercial activities placed at the ground floor of the complex and
facing towards the adjacent streets and the courtyard itself. This solution
will not only provide a comfortable green space for the residents, but also it
will decrease the managing costs, making the apartments of the new residence “blok
šesti” more appealing.
regular courtyard but a public garden where it is possible to meet and
socialize not only with the other residents of the buildings, but with the entire
neighbourhood, to play with your kids in the playground areas, to do different sports
in the basketball field or in the open air gym, to relax while reading a book
or having a drink in the cafeterias, or to simply cross through the courtyard.
This is the way to make the complex become a new piece of the City!
composed by six buildings, each of them assigned to a different architecture
firm, that present particular features: the corner solution, the relationship
with the main street, the connection with the new central garden, with the
surrounding residential and public buildings and with the near public park. All
these characteristics inevitably required a “tailored” design, that with the
sensibility and unique background of each firm, will generate six special buildings
that together define a recognizable residential complex, one that stands out
from the homogenous urban context.
distinguishable place aims to ease the process of identification of its own
inhabitants , empowering the sense of belonging not only of the residents of
the complex but also of all the neighbours, and, at the same time, promoting a
regenerative process of the whole area.
