<translation>Shopping Center Letmo</translation>

Current State
The building is located on the edge of the historic core of the city of Brno. The street front here creates a boundary between the compact development of the urban center and the wide circular "Ringstrasse," specifically positioned near the main railway station. The lot was built in the 1980s with an administrative building of the Vítkovice Ironworks according to the design of Jaromír Kurfürst from Brnoprojekt in Brno, Alena Šrámková from Prague, and Jiří Suchomel from Liberec, who primarily addressed the unconventional envelope. The then-uncommon, ecological double facade was also contributed to by specialist Václav Žemlička. It was a progressive building with a load-bearing steel structure and a glazed double facade. In the post-Velvet Revolution era, the building was hastily adapted for very low-level commercial purposes, deteriorated over time, and this infamous era tragically ended in 2002 with a fire, which claimed the lives of two firefighters and a croupier. Protracted property disputes followed, which were only resolved in 2011 by the new owner, whose intention was to build a shopping center here.

Urban Planning Solution
The main mass of the building remains unchanged compared to the original design. However, the entrances from the street level are addressed entirely anew. Notably, from the side of Josefská street, by demolishing the protruding entrance with the escalators’ exit, the building has been brought closer to the street space. In the released area, a slightly recessed piazza has been created, which now forms the forecourt of the entrance to the building. This intervention aimed to reformulate the complex space of the open urban block and the interrupted street front of Josefská street.

Spatial Solution
A fundamental task in adapting the building was to find a key to new vertical connections between the individual floors and to organize the interior space in a way that would provide maximum retail space while allowing the movement of a significant number of people. The peculiarity of the building is the fact that it connects three levels of the ground floor – the "underground" ground floor of the underpass below the station, the level of the busy Nádražní and Benešova streets on the ground floor, and Josefská street on the first floor. The spatial and optical connection between the individual floors is addressed by inserting a central atrium with escalators. Through structural modifications, we made the former technical floor at the first basement level accessible, which visually opened to Nádražní street and is now home to a supermarket. Another important element of the design is the retail display windows, which seamlessly transition from the street-level ground floor into the interior of the building (the building has no entrance doors). Most of the above-ground floors are characterized by a central atrium with retail spaces around its perimeter.

Facade
The original, very sensitively composed, double-skin facade was unfortunately almost completely destroyed due to long-term deterioration. Moreover, while its prominent glazing was well-suited for an administrative building, it was less appropriate for new commercial use. Therefore, the decision, also supported by the investor, that it would be necessary, together with the change in the function of the building, to radically change its facade, was logical. In considering a new facade, we relied on the historically proven principle of puncturing a compact mass with window openings. We endeavored to reinterpret this principle anew. We found it essential for the windows to enable genuine connection in both directions. Thus, they should reveal a part of the life inside the building while offering unique views that would positively influence the building's utilitarian purpose. We chose a solution where the window takes on an expressive shape. The interaction between the individual windows, suggesting a perception of their mutual movement and emotions, is intriguing to us. We also applied the specific geometry of the windows when shaping the openings that connect the individual floors within the building.

Technical Solution
Facade is a double-skin ventilated facade. Its outer face consists of the StoVentec system on stainless steel anchors with a self-cleaning coating StoLotusan Color featuring a non-wetting (lotus) surface that does not retain dirt.
Windows are organically shaped, with concealed frames. The facade extends to their outer face. The windows consist of triple glazing without coating, with a maximum strip width of 1.8 meters. The strips of glass are joined at a sealed joint with a visible width of 50 mm.
The Ground Floor enters the interior at both Josefská street and Nádražní street and consists of glazed walls with structural glazing and a load-bearing structure from the inside.