Opening the inner block

České Budějovice, like many other large Czech cities, is dealing with an influx of new residents, for whom large parks of apartment buildings are being built on green meadows. The task of cities, in conjunction with architects and urban planners, is now to find another solution to the situation, and that is to jointly select abandoned places in integrated development and thus breathe new life into them by designing suitable functional units that, on the one hand, will help solve the housing crisis and, on the other hand, make the given place attractive for existing residents. One of such places is the space in Štítného Street that we are dealing with, now used as a large free parking lot in a dilapidated inner block. At the same time, the location itself is exceptional, not far from Lanna Street, connecting the main railway station with the city center.

In my proposal, I try to attract people to the inner block just by the appearance of the front building, which disrupts the line of the surrounding houses and sharply enters and thus invites passers-by inside, into the inner block. Inside it, visitors will find a market where they can go for fresh vegetables directly from the growers, meat from the butcher, crispy pastries from the baker, or just come and sit in a quiet environment with a cup of good coffee. Permanent stands can then be supplemented with folding ones for regular weekend markets. All this takes place under the windows of three point apartment buildings, in which there are different sizes of apartments from basic to slightly above standard.

The structural system is chosen as a masonry of ceramic fittings based on underground garages consisting of a monolithic externally insulated bath with reinforced concrete columns, horizontal monolithic concrete structures tensioned on one side and on both sides. The slab above the garages is designed as a driveable.