Reconstruction of the former prison in Uherské Hradiště

The grounds of the former courthouse and prison bear memories of the totalitarian 1950s and the suffering of the prisoners. The upcoming restoration provides an opportunity to reinterpret the significance of the site. To create a new identity for the whole site and to become a modern democratic institution with a historical memory. The proposed transformation is represented by an extension based on the historical composition of the building and two filing rooms that complete the whole composition into one harmonious whole. The ground-floor glass extension symbolically opens the building to its surroundings. The complex is co-created by five courtyards, each designed for a different purpose and function. The two front courtyards - the court of justice and the museum courtyard - are open to the public. The inner courtyard is for contemplation, the western probation service and the eastern protected service entrance for the judiciary.

The concept of the five courtyards is clear, functional and consistently polished. Overall, the design fulfils the ideas of a modern institution with an emphasis on friendly communication with the citizen. The capacity solution is realistic and gives users the assurance of comfort and further development compared to the conditions in which they operate today. The overall architectural design, materials and detail of the public realm are refined, proportionate to the traffic and sensitive to the listed building. While the additions to the file rooms are monumental, their infill allows the designers to use an abstract, minimalist form that is acceptable in relation to the historic building. The strict symmetry of the design honours the original concept of the prison site and does not indulge in compositional speculation. It is questionable whether the entrance areas of the court and museum should be so strictly identical and subject to the dictates of classicizing symmetry. The treatment of the Court of Remembrance is sensitive and, although schematic, gives a satisfactory idea of contemplative character and the right approach for further elaboration. The neglect of the memorial courtyard, which does not offer a direct connection between the museum courtyard and the site, can be seen as a disadvantage of the chosen solution (represented by the museum foyer). In particular, the jury appreciates the well-set, viable operational scheme, which can be expected to be adaptable (this will have to be reflected, among other things, in the building design). A major contribution is the uniform design of the entrances from the courtyard area, which will ensure the natural infill of the open space - the courtyard, the permeability of which, in the opinion of the jury, should be set so that it is permanently public and freely accessible (not a closed place with a regime that makes the area a closed and impenetrable part of the city.

Existing building with partial, non-disturbing additions, new building of the offices to Velehradská Street. Replacement of the enclosure wall with service buildings with a new ground floor extension along the perimeter of the northern courtyard. Connection of the memorial courtyard to the north courtyard via the "Path of Evil and Tears" corridor.

An original concept of the perimeter fence wall bringing new functions to the city and giving a stronger potential for the use of the courtyard. The idea of a permeating museum axis was considered by the jury to be one of the strongest aspects of this proposal. With sensitive additions, the authors let the listed monumental building stand out and humanise it with subtle gestures. The jury considers the design of the public entrances and some of the operational links in the building to be inadequate. The design provides an original solution for the outdoor exhibition areas that would suitably serve the purposes of the museum. It allows the historic building to stand out and treats it sensitively, although more dignified entrance areas could be achieved through the addition of public functions. The proposal is one of the economically sound proposals. Capacity understates the layout and operational design of the justice institution. The concept of meeting rooms located on top of each other with insufficient foyer and problematic accessibility appeared to be the weakest point of the proposal. Also, the common filing room for the court and the public prosecutor's office is operationally separate from the court building, which was assessed by the future user as a problematic solution. The publicly accessible interior spaces, in their attempt to fit into the existing footprint of the building, are not up to current standards and many of the meeting rooms are not up to the size of the building programme. The form of the extension of the filing room to ul. Velehradská.

The institutions are located in separate wings of the historic building with their own entrances through the west and east courtyards. The museum is entered through the northwest courtyard. The entrance to the county courthouse is dominated by the new addition. The clerk's offices are located underground in the west of the east court. The north courts are designed as a resting park with a series of openings in the north part of the enclosure wall.

The operational solution is seamless, the placement of filing rooms in the underground courtyards is logical and feasible. A positive feature of the proposal is the desire for a clear dominant entrance to the courthouse, creating a new clear entrance to the campus in place of the original one now used by the school. The jury particularly appreciates the balance of the design, which in all respects meets the requirements of the brief, largely preserving the listed form of the building. The main weakness of the design was the unconvincing architectural expression of the main entrance. The combination of the sloping wall in contrast to the rounded entrance is form heavy to the historic building.

The concept of the proposal is ground floor additions to the public areas and meeting rooms for the courthouse and museum, which are located in the northern courtyards. The historic building itself is not affected by the renovation. The entrances use all sides of the enclosure wall. From the west side, the court is accessible from Velehradská Street, in the middle part the museum is accessible from the north and from the eastern part, from the Political Prisoners' Street, the prosecutor's office is accessed. The filing rooms of both institutions are located underground.

The strong concept of ground floor additions is a clear addition to the courtyard areas. However, the jury did not find the composition of their subdivision, which fragments the northern courtyard into several smaller atriums, convincing. These atria are not interconnected and counteract the monumentality of the historic courtyard. Instead, visitors are given glimpses into the narrow gardens, where a certain opacity is reinforced by the intention of the dense, impenetrable greenery. The jury also criticised the design for the poorer legibility of the presentation.

The design completely places all the necessary operations, which are beyond the historical building, in the underground floor. This lowered floor creates one common, generous entrance for all institutions and the museum. The proposal leaves the service supply and entrances from level 1 at ground level. The illumination of the underground spaces is addressed by light-gathering joints that create a distinctive compositional element in the courtyards. The main entrance to the courtyard is oriented from ul. Politických vězňů. On the northern and eastern sides, there are additional openings in the fence wall providing access to the courtyard.

The jury appreciates the intention to preserve the original expression of the building without the need for an extension. However, the authors do not sufficiently present the way of using the space thus obtained and thus the justification of a financially and technically demanding solution. The jury perceives the placement of the illuminated office joints in the memorial courtyard as problematic. The jury also points out the complicated feasibility of the technical solution based on the tight all-perimeter envelope of the chapel wing, the cells of the solitary confinement and the wide undercutting of the central wing of the historic building.

Jednotlivé bloky historické stavby jsou doplněny předsazenými přístavky, do kterých jsou umístěny provozní části jednotlivých institucí. Podle představy autorů by přístavky měly být polotransparentní abstraktní extrudovanou mříží, která má být jednotícím architektonickým prvkem. Jednací síně soudu jsou umístěny do podzemí v části pietního dvora a jsou prosvětleny rastrem světlíků. Tyto světlíky jsou ozvláštněny skleněnými stélami, jako připomínky popravených. Severozápadní dvůr je zamýšlen pro kulturní akce a exteriérovou expozici muzea. Za tímto účelem je zde navržen kolejový systém posuvných lavic a element lávky svobody. Objekt samotek má být zachován v současném syrovém stavu neomítnutých cihel a rozrušených zbytků omítky. Návrh se zabývá úpravou náměstí v ul. Politických vězňů, ze které je také nájezd do podzemní garáže.

Porota oceňuje čitelné a funkční provozní schéma a snahu autorů o vnesení kulturní funkce do severního dvora. Logika analytického přístupu rekonstrukce předsazením nových, kontrastních objektů je principiálně správná, porota však považuje za problematické vlastní architektonické řešení. Místo deklarované polotransparentnosti, působí spíše těžce. Rovněž proporce přístavby na východní straně je rozsahu, kdy východní křídlo téměř celé zastavuje. Fasády, i přes snahu o jednotný princip, ve výsledku působí nekonzistentně a to zejména u monumentálního vstupu z ulice Politických vězňů. Porota nepovažuje za vhodnou symboliku „světlíků svobody“, které v pietním dvoře přivádějí světlo do soudních síní. Velmi problematicky je hodnocen zájezd do garáží rampou v místě důležitého propojení ulice Politických vězňů s dnešním autobusovým nádražím.

A new layer of communication node is added to the historic building, which connects all the facilities to be located. The entrance to the museum is through the north courtyard. The court, prosecution and probation services share a common entrance from the south and west courtyard. There is a common service entrance to the east. The circulation hub is L-shaped, with a diagonal vestibule at the museum entrance. The filing rooms are located underground beneath the memorial courtyard and under the annex in the west courtyard. However, the documentation lacks a floor plan of 1PP to document the operational layout and their functionality. The north courtyards are proposed as a quiet park accessed by new openings around the perimeter of the enclosure wall.

The architectural design is refined, the materials used appropriately complement the architecture of the historic building, the concept of the connecting node is legible and generous. This is the only proposal that addresses traffic with only one traffic entrance. However, the clarity of the concept is reduced by the ground floor diagonal and the front extension of the museum entrance. The authors justify this with a new layer, referring to the terror previously present here, which "does not belong". However, the jury considers the main problem to be the obscuring of the façade of the school's courtyard building by the connecting corridor. The solution of the northern courtyards is schematic and does not give an idea of their use as an urban park. This is particularly the case in the north-eastern courtyard, which only provides access to the commemorative courtyard. Also, the small openings in the perimeter wall do not provide sufficient indication that there is a large urban park behind the wall. Sustainability issues are not documented in the proposal.

It places the institutions in each wing of the historic building. The area deficit of operating rooms is solved by ground-floor extensions behind the walls of the east and west courtyards. The foyers are located here and are connected to the public entrances from the north. Parking is designed to be capacitive, underground. Filing space for the court and prosecutor's office is in the underground facility in the northwest court. The public exterior spaces of the north court and memorial courtyard are designed based on a detailed analysis of the historic footprints that are variously inscribed in the rendering of the surfaces. The cell block is reconnected to the historic building by a subtler connecting neck at ground floor level with an extension as the museum foyer. The competitor submitted an additional panel which, after discussion, was not presented to the jury for viewing.

The proposed operating scheme is functional. The extensions hidden behind the walls of the side courtyards are unobtrusive and logically develop the areas linked to the entrances. The orientation of the entrances from the north courtyard is also positively evaluated and provides a viable infill to the space. The off-site location of the courthouse clerk's office, on the opposite side of the site, appears problematic. However, it would be solvable by reorganizing the layout of the underground structures and garages. The jury did not commend the approach to the design of the parterre, which relies on the abstraction of transcribing the various historical traces into a series of surfaces and graphic markers. Without seeking to justify a form appropriate to the new function, such an approach appears formal and does not adequately justify, for example, the need for the extensive paved area of the north-east courtyard. The composition of the flower beds in front of the museum entrance and especially the 'ornamental' form of the articulation of the memorial courtyard is far from the jury's view of the idea of a contemplative environment. Here the authors have assumed a return to the traced original form of the courtyard and indicate the later layers (playgrounds) by a marker in the surface. This is at odds with the intention of the 1950s prison setting and the tragic events are set in the courtyard against a different 'backdrop' to that in which they took place. The jury appreciates the high level of sophistication of the design.

The design adds the service buildings of the northern courtyards and completes the new eastern wing of the courthouse. The northern enclosure wall is fragmented and the courtyard is conceived as a sculpture and museum. The memorial courtyard is filled with black gravel and symbolic "craters". Filing rooms are located underground under the east and west courtyards. All the courtyards are connected in a north-south direction by passages. The design addresses sustainability in detail.

The design is thought-provoking, architecturally sound. The perforation of the northern perimeter wall opens up the potential for continuity with the area of the current bus station, which is to be reduced in these locations. It thus connects the courtyard to the surrounding area the most of all the proposals, which in this case can ensure the concept of the courtyard as a public, permanently accessible park. The jury finds the operation of the court to be a major problem, with the new passageway crossing the ground floor and requiring multiple entrances. Given the need for a secure gatehouse, such a solution is unworkable. Also, the east wing creates a narrow street, the meaningfulness of which depends on this passageway. The layout of the court annex is not satisfactorily designed, the common areas of contact with the public are small, and the overall design is cramped. The jury praises the well-crafted design and the good legibility of the presentation.