Prague, September 23, 2022

On the 13th and 14th of September, an expert committee session focusing on the approach methodologies of the registered teams took place. The committee session was a part of the Competitive Dialogue Procurement Procedure for the revitalisation of Vrchlického sady Park, new construction of the tramway line Muzeum – Bolzanova and the reconstruction of the New Terminal Hall of the Prague Main Railway Station. Out of the 26 entries, the committee selected five architectural teams which are advancing to the next phase of the competitive dialogue.

In June 2022, the competitive dialogue attracted 26 architectural studios from the Czech Republic and abroad, out of which 24 entered their approach methodologies and portfolios, which came under the scrutiny of the committee in September. During the two-day session 5 out of the 26 enrolled teams were selected for the next round of the tender procedure. The selected teams will introduce themselves to the public at an open session on October 7th from 7:00 PM on the campus of Prague’s CAMP. The introduction to the broad public will be held under the auspices of the representatives of the contracting parties and the expert committee.

The advancing architectural teams:

West 8 Urban Design and Landscape Architecture B.V.

The landscaping studio West 8 was founded in 1987 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands by Dutch landscaping architect Adriaan Geuz. Currently, the studio consists of an international team counting more than 70 architects across three branches in Rotterdam, Brussels, and Philadelphia. In cooperation with additional studios, they penned the linear park Madrid Rio, in the Spanish capital following the Manzanares river. The park came to light by veiling several busy roads. The studio transformed London’s Jubilee Gardens near the London Waterloo station. Among other things, they have been involved in the design of the Rotterdam Centraal station and the winning competition design for the new main station in Brno.

Henning Larsen Architects A/S

The Danish studio was founded in 1959 by Henning Larsen. Today it has more than 750 employees. In 2013 the studio was awarded the Mies van der Rohe Award for its Harpa concert hall in Iceland´s capital Reykjavík. Two years later they designed a new town hall for the Swedish city of Kiruna, which is in the process of being transported in its entirety three kilometres to the east due to an expanding mining operation. The studio was involved in the transformation of Remiseparken in Copenhagen, for which they won the Danish Landscape Prize in the past year.

Chybik + Kristof + Civitas

(Consortium of Czech architectural studio Chybik+Kristof Architects & Urban Designers and American landscape studio Civitas)

Ondřej Chybík and Michal Krištof founded the architectural studio Chybik+Kristof Architects & Urban Designers in the year 2010. In three short years, they won the tender for the Czech pavilion for Milan´s EXPO exhibition. They are currently drawing up projects for a multifunctional hockey arena in Jihlava, a skyscraper in Ostrava, or the revitalisation of Mendl Square in Brno.

The president of Denver´s Civitas company is the world-renowned landscaping architect and urbanist Mark Johnson, whose long-term focus is the sustainable development of cities. Together with his team, they completed 500 projects in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. In Brno, he cooperated on an urban study of a new district known as Jižní centrum.

re:architekti+baukuh+YellowOffice

(Consortium of Czech architectural studio re:architekti, Italian architectural studio baukuh studio associato and Italian architectural studio Yellow Office di Francesca Benedetto)

The Czech architectural studio re:architekti was founded in 2011 and its partners are Michal Kuzemenský, David Pavlišta, Ondřej Synek, Jan Vlach, and Jiří Žid. Their focus lies on public buildings. Currently, they are working on a project for a new school for Uhříněves district, or revitalisation of the Velké kino (The Great cinema) in Zlín. They prepared a conceptual study of the revitalisation of the entire transport hub at Prague´s terminal metro station Černý Most.

Italian architectural studio baukuh studio associato was nominated in the year 2017 for the Mies van der Rohe Award for the “House of Memory” archives in Milan. The Italian studio Yellow Office di Francesca Benedetto focuses on landscape architecture and urban planning. Both studios were involved in the competition-winning design for the new library in Milan this year.

Miralles Tagliabue EMBT S.L.P. + OCA architects Prague, s.r.o  

(Consortium of the Spanish architectural studio Miralles Tagliabue EMBT S.L.P. and the Czech branch of OCA architects of the Spanish architectural studio OCA Arquitectos Barcelona)

Miralles Tagliabue EMBT is an architectural studio founded by Enrico Miralles and Benedetto Tagliabue in 1994 in Barcelona. Currently they are globally active and have offices in Paris and Shanghai. They designed the Santa Caterina market in Barcelona, the public spaces of Hafencity of Germany´s Hamburg and metro stations in Paris and Neapoli.

OCA architects Prague is the Czech branch of the Spanish architectural studio OCA Arquitectos Barcelona. It consists of a group of young architects, urban planners and designers currently participating in many competitions throughout Europe. In Prague, they are the brain behind the design of the currently constructed extension of the Kongresový palác (Prague Congress Centre).

How do the contracting parties and expert committee reflect on the session?

Chairman of the expert committee Ing. arch. Jaroslav Wertig shared his thought about the submitted methodological approaches and their ratings: “It isn´t entirely common to assess in a single competition such a multidisciplinary assignment and look for teams which will create a functional city space, redefine an important but problematic park, implement new transportation solutions and find an overarching urbanist approach respecting context, continuity, and community. It is less common that a roster of star architects and young local studios are peers in a competition. It is entirely uncommon that a committee consisting of such a diverse spectrum of expertise matches up. That´s why I´m very grateful, that the committee was able to achieve consensus and select five different, but high-quality approaches.”

Ing. Ondřej Boháč, Director of the Prague Institute of Planning and Development, added: "It was great to see the diverse approaches of the competing teams to the assignment, which aims to transform the gateway to the city and build on the upcoming transformations of Wenceslas Square, Florenc, Masaryčka and Těšnov. Prague needs Nový Hlavák like salt."

Ing. Jan Šurovský, Ph. D., Member of the Board of Directors, and Technical Director of the Dopravní podnik hl. m. Prahy – Povrch closes: "The competitive dialogue is a guarantee for us that a high-quality design of the planned tramway line will be suitably integrated into Vrchlické Sady and at the same time will fulfil the required transport function. The submitted approach methodologies have shown us that the teams take the task as a challenge and strive to meet the expectations of all contracting authorities."

Next milestone for the competitive dialogue will be the assessment of the architectural concepts in December 2022. The expert committee will choose three teams that will continue in the competitive dialogue and will develop their final designs in the first half of the year 2023.

Detailed information about the competitive dialogue and its schedule can be found on the website www.novyhlavak.cz, where we will introduce the individual teams.