Taking advantage of adjacent vast unbuilt space, we create continuously rising silhouette, opening views and gaining solar insolation. Series of stepped, inhabited and greened tower tops resembles Prague‘s terraced gardens.
This allows combining two living styles: urban and “green” suburban. Such a combination directly affects appearance of complex: from adjacent north and west streets, it has flat “mute” enclosure. Character changes as it faces open space toward south - porous, green, variable height, it connecting to the park at the ground.
We crossbreed two opposite urban planning strategies: “towers in the park” and the “dense low rise city block”, which taken from surroundings of the site.
Towers give required density, while leaving room for recreation at the base level, but are rather “hermetic”. Beloved low-rise neighborhoods give a sense of human scale, privacy and connection to the street level.
Changing height, together with adding cantilevers aims to create striking but organically Prague’s silhouette.
The result design is a vertical “stack” of neighborhoods, creating variety of typologies ranging from row houses to penthouses and remarkable intermediate forms like two-story apartments and double height studios.
Master plan derived from a Prague’s traditional courtyard building, but instead of hermetic perimeter, we use a chessboard structure to achieve porosity and break down the scale. Spacious courtyard include both private dooryards and communal public park, clear zoned one from another. Courtyard represent kind of “secret garden”, protected from urban noise, invisible from the street. Courtyard space is taking into composition different scale, views, containing visual surprises for the residents and visitors.
Project offers some wide gradient of level of privacy, belonging to one’s lifestyle, that customer can choose. It ranges from “urban extravert” spaces to quiet introvert private spaces.
Important, that complex is not a single building, but a set of many, arranged in checkered pattern. Therefore, there are many ways to optimize and modify the structure. Each building have a terraced top with cantilevers, containing penthouselike apartments and ground-floor units with dooryards. Following checkers, houses are alter in height, providing volumetric “pockets” cour d'honneur. Small garden between each building provides the outdoor space with some seclusion and privacy from the urban streets.
Despite of its visual diversity, complex consists of very few repeatable elements, arranged in practical rational way. There no reason to decorate or use exclusive materials, sober facades emphasizes form, derived from its contents. The repetition is the strategy to achieve cost efficiency solutions, while keeping high quality, using prefabrication. This does not limit variety of apartment layouts though.
Represented sketches represent the “Higher version”, but same principles and strategy, as we tested, can apply to achieve desired GFA within restrictions.
We see great opportunities for further development to work with identity and individualization on smaller scale of façade elements, such as windows, bay windows, balconies, etc., which contribute to the ‘personality’ of each unit.
Beloved low-rise neighborhoods give a sense of human scale, privacy and connection to the street level
Project offers some wide gradient of level of privacy, belonging to one’s lifestyle, that customer can choose. It ranges from “urban extravert” spaces to quiet introvert private spaces
