New Eden - House of Prague 10

BRAND NEW EDEN. Building an apartment building with a cultural center in such a spatially and operationally complex situation is a complex task on several levels. Our proposal enters the place with the ambition to correct historical mistakes and the effort to supplement the offer of functions and spaces that will lead to the gradual transformation of the housing estate into the desired city address. Our primary goal is to create a place that will become a destination. The destination for the walk, the destination of the meeting. The design works with the free structure of a nearby panel housing estate, reinterprets this structure on a micro-scale and at the same time uses a terrain step to create a number of new urban spaces. The building is a unique form of rental housing in Prague, where the emphasis is on creating a helathy and diverse community. The building also has the ambition to become an icon needed to build a relationship with the place.

The project “Brand New Eden” respectfully combines all important functional elements required by the competition, while adding vibrancy & new lifestyle to the area. Urbanistically, the proposal respects not only the position of the original Eden house, but it also connects, at a micro-scale level, to the line of the panel houses. Additionally, car traffic is efficiently solved in order to leave space to public functions, greenery, pedestrians, and cyclists’ routes. Architecturally, the building uses the required cultural and multifunctional services as a smart urban connector on the ground floor, therefore providing a vibrant public life platform between inside and outside. These spaces are varied, accessible, inspiring, and provide social interactions between tenants and passersby. The jury appreciates the emphasis on the green areas, which are further enriched through the footbridge connection to the southern green belt. Concepts of community involvement, diversity, and accessibility are emphasized at best in the housing typology proposal, which allows for shared spaces of interaction in balconies and passages at each floor. This audacious move might actually be the typological solution to Prague housing issue, providing a new and fresh idea, still in respect with the historical and cultural uses of the Czech citizens.

The area of the New Eden has the potential to become a new civic center for Prague 10. The area is well connected and has great public transport accessibility but appears fragmented and hard to understand as a unified space. To revert the situation three main strategies are proposed. First, to create a civic plaza by unifying all the public spaces. Second, to improve the connection of the area to the city by transforming Vršovická street into a boulevard and a transport hub. Third, to increase forestation and biodiversity by weaving together the new square, the boulevard and the railway park through an open botanical promenade. Instead of demolishing the existing building we intend to refurbish it. This decision is supported by several considerations concerning economy, speed of construction, sustainability, identity, and memory. First, demolishing an existing building to replace it with a new one with a similar function would take more time and be more expensive than refurbishing the existing facilities. Second, refurbishing an existing building is more sustainable given the reduction in energy consumption, waste, pollution and CO2 emissions it implies. Third, the existing building is part of the living memory of the neighborhood. Restoring its more memorable elements like the big glass windows, the main performance room, the underground curved auditorium, and the restaurant will help to give carry on the memory to the place.

The authors of this proposal responded to the comments from the first round in delivering a project changed dramatically. In this project, the jury especially appreciates the sustainable approach to preserve the existing house and to adapt it to the current conditions. It can offer to the locals some kind of nostalgia, it uses a memory of a current situation as a value and keeps the urbanistic footprint of the cultural house. At the same time, the project also shows the difficulties that arise from that approach. Although the striking termination of the row of buildings along the Vršovická street creates the right urban conclusion, the space surrounding the cultural center cannot be upgraded to the desired extent. Besides the existing volume of the cultural center, it is a bit too large for the desired use, which is why additional enhancing functions should also be integrated to further upgrade the existing site. The ecologically sustainable approach of the residential tower is also appreciated, but its economic implementation is questioned critically. Architecturally, the apartment building is beautiful, but would need much improvement in layout and space efficiency of the whole building, as well as in particular apartments. The ratio of housing to other areas is compared to the other projects in lower range.

The "New Eden" townhouse reacts to three different urban contexts – Vršoviská street, where the proposal emphasizes the street line, further it defines the square by the Eden shopping centre and completes the urban structure of the Vlasta housing estate. The proposal connects the platform of the Municipal Office with the square in front of the shopping centre. The building's floorplan generates a wide range of apartments: from individual, family to larger scale shared flats.

The jury values the urban and volumetric concept of the proposal, creating three faces towards the Vršovická boulevard, the Vlasta housing estate and the shopping square. The newly created public space south of the crescent volume with the sloping park is convincing. However, the choice for the alignment and design of the public space towards the boulevard are problematic. On the ground floor, various public functions and entrances are strategically situated to animate the public spaces around the building. But the articulation of the passage seems random and doesn’t form a logical continuation of the pedestrian route along Uljanovská. The fact that this important pedestrian route is not emphasized enough in the building’s layout (no logic position in plan and reduced height) makes the presence of the building on the site as a barrier and even more massive than it actually is. There is appreciation for the treatment of crescent facade with balconies and bright sun shades that ensure a lively presence towards the southern side, but the jury questions the choice for the repetitive bare concrete facade that adds to the massiveness of the building. The solution of placing the cultural and community center on the first floor in the so-called piano nobile (instead of the ground floor) is not evident to all jury members. The greatest feature of the proposal lies in the richness and quality of the housing typologies that it can accommodate, all which are cleverly solved in the building layout. The apartments can house different ages, professions and family structures, making the building home to a varied community, benefitting from the roof terrace as important meeting point. The presentation drawings of the individual apartments show a great empathy and affinity with designing for the people.

The proposal focuses on creating attractive urban spaces to positively revitalize the area, transforming and redefining its current conditions. The conceptual approach of the project embodies the idea of a building that is oriented towards the future, a city within a building, an urban condenser that is always open and active for culture, entertainment and more. To achieve this, we envision a compact building, in scale with the surroundings, with the programme stacked vertically to minimize the soil occupation and to optimize the amount of surface deidcated to green space and to social interaction. The culture house is equipped with a communicative glowing facade that floats above the height of the square, achieving active ground floors. As a reaction to the grey surroundings, we propose an architecture with a light materiality and a clean shape, provided with generous terraces filled with greenery. The building has been designed with an approach that integrates sustainability, technical installations and structure, favouring the use of passive systems, of renewable energy sources and of the latest systems for building monitoring. The landscaping design divides the space into functional zones to make it easily readable for the user and to create the impression of a space that is both familiar and user-friendly. The new vegetation planting supports the overall urban concept and at the same time complements the building with its lightness and color.

The jury appreciated the efficient and simple concept of creating one compact building that fits well into the existing urban planning, the open ground floor on all sides allows free passage and variability in use. However, the architectural design of the exterior of the proposed building was perceived negatively. The ostentatious distribution of the oversized volume of the "floating glowing façade" for the cultural functions is in contrast to the lightweight residential building on the upper floors, the building‘s appearance is ostentatious in regard to its function , the proportion of the area for the cultural function is oversized at the expense of the residential area. The interior space for culture again appears too ostentatious in contrast to the character of the residential building and to the composition and spatial arrangement of the proposed flats (predominantly small, duplex flats).

In designing New Eden and modifying it for the second round of the competition, we are responding to the most important current and future needs of a modern city. Our focus is on supporting active community life, openness and barrier-free access to all external and internal spaces, maximum (multi)functionality and smart long-term solutions. Our overriding goal is to make residents in and visitors to the newly created urban zone feel comfortable and safe, as well as providing an agreeable easthetic experience. For the buildings' operators, our goal is to guarantee the buildings' flawless, practical, variable and economically and environmentally sustianable operation.

The jury appreciated the clear urban concept with an understanding of the place, respecting the original structure. The two separate buildings integrate well into the existing urban design, allow free passage through the area and have clearly separated functions. However, the strictly separate functions pose risks for future development and the use of the building for a cultural function. The residential building interferes with the property rights of the neighbouring apartment building, which would likely be resolvable, but with concessions in the proposed design and at the cost of considerable effort and time. The original cultural centre is replaced by a new building on the existing site, but with no obvious historic legacy. The architectural design and operational layout of the cultural centre is generous but was perceived as not very successful. The large empty glazed volume around the mass of the multifunctional hall is difficult to use for the announced activities. The proposed flats have an inappropriate spatial arrangement, being narrow and deep.