SmíchOFF/ON
urban planning
project detail
The new concept covering the entire Smíchov – jih area is based on an idea to implant an urban tissue into it able to skin over the areas vacated by the railway. It connects with the surrounding block structure at all street axes, the altitudinal plane homogenously relates to the precedent of the existing development.
It does not put itself on the map but accentuates vistas to the existing landmarks – Hradčany, Vyšehrad, Karlov, and the Zlíchov Church. It searches for a new relation to the river. At first sight, the design looks conservative sticking to the block urbanism of the 19th century. The real effort, however, is to upgrade this time-tested model, to boost its strong features and solve aspects where it fails from today’s perspective. To promote the strong features: universality and timelessness of the grid, liberal environment of same rules and equal chances, possibility to tune the intensity up to reach the expected “urban quality” of life, legibility and comprehensibility of defining individual spaces. The reviewed aspects: hygiene (insolation, daylighting, noise), pushing greenery out into parks, traffic and parking. Traffic should be the substantial generator of life in the new part of Smíchov. That is the most complex transit terminal in Prague established by relocating the long-distance and commuter bus traffic from Knížecí between the rails and Dobříšská (street) with a large-capacity P&R, and connecting it with the railway station, the metro, and public transport bus and tram lines at Nádražní (street). The traffic serving the entire newly developed area is designed along the perimeter; parking is provided in the underground parking garages. Instead of the previous concept of a central park as the main urban space, the study evenly distributes greenery to the adequately modified profile of new streets. At the same time, it establishes new connections with nearby existing quality recreation zones (Paví vrch, the embankment and Císařská louka). The central urban space is the new pedestrian boulevard between the new Terminal South (Jižní terminal) and Knížecí. The urbanistic study was approved in May 2014 and accepted as groundwork for the development of the alteration of the Land Use Plan. The following non-anonymous competition for invited architects for the design of the selected blocks organised by SSD in cooperation with IPR showed that although the return to the block city has been a commonly shared trend, making it viable through particular modern architecture is a tough proposition. Twelve local and foreign studios submitted their designs in January 2015. The design by Kuba Pilař studio won as they dared to confirm that if a complex picture of a city is to be developed, blocks must be broken down into pixels – individual houses and different architects let design each of them. The project of individual blocks has currently been in preparation and works to define public spaces have been under way.