Challenger

The assignment of the project is based on international student architectural competition of an Innovation center of Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. The effort to synergistically strengthen the importance and value of the surrounding universities is eligible. The goal is the get representative space for communication with the public. More accessible area of the courtyard should help with the connection to the main premises of the city center, which is also planned to be humanized. Our goal is to connect science and innovation with the public realm of the city. Therefore we are leaving boundaries of the university campus. The new matter integrates and revives the space that has been neglected and has no relation to human scale. The levitating form is associated with the knowledge that came from outer space as an innovation to human being.

Current situation of the Bratislava city center suffers from high amount of car transit. Even though it has greenery in its center, it is not connected nor has any relation to the people due to the parking chaos and priorities that has been set long time ago neglecting new way of thinking about urban life. We are trying to revive projects that has been here for a while but never been finished, such as outer and inner city circuit. These infrastructure projects are very important to decrease the concentration of the transit and private mobility in the city center. Which would help to humanize the space and make it more pleasant for its inhabitants. By making these drastic changes we are creating new education district completely without vehicles and noise to create an atmosphere where students can learn in harmony.

The Challenger is spaceship like building which is mainly one floor converting partly to second floor. It has multifunctional spaces, library, lecture halls, presentation centers, start up center, workshop centers as well as staff facilities. Building levitates on five cores. The construction is made of Vierendeel steel frames. The Challenger is conceived to transmit as much light as possible, but at the same time to remain some level of privacy. The facade is made out of translucent concave glass shaped verticals. The idea of the inner space is to be as much open as it can be leaving only fewer private spaces. The roof is made out of solar panels which are rotated in certain angle to create natural air circulation. We choose the materiality of our building to be as sustainable as it can be by picking materials that can be re used as building would serve it’s years and be deconstructed.