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Competition

PROJECT DESIGN FOR SENOVÁŽNÉ SQUARE IN ČESKÉ BUDĚJOVICE

We have designed České Budějovice’s Senovážné Square as a beautiful and liveable square with a park, a place which connects with its history and invites visitors to come and spend their time there. To do this, we have re-organised the space, added smaller-scale interventions and supressed the cumulated monumentality of the existing buildings. Our design responds to both the history of the place and the current issues and users’ needs. The design connects to the neighbouring park around the former town walls, defines the individual locations, articulates the spaces, and offers a new topology to the users, with places for relaxation as well as exploration. We emphasise the square’s function of a ‘transferium’, but also that of the town’s new ‘living room’.

The main space in front of the museum is designed as a square planted with trees forming a grid pattern, which provide shade and improve the users’ experience. We open up the forecourt of the museum, with the existing catalpa trees remaining its dominant feature. A lawn surrounding the museum separates the building from the large expanse of the square. Along the newly uncovered streambed of the Mlýnská strouha, the design adds irregularly planted vegetation to create a link with the wild-growing plants that form a green belt along the stream. The place of the future gallery is planted temporarily with aspen trees – fast-growing and shorted-lived trees whose fine leaves are in contrast with the large-leaved species used in the square itself.