Kaplicky Internship 2020 was won by ČVUT graduate Vojtěch Rudorfer

Prague – The winner of the 6th edition of the Kaplicky Internship competition for emerging architects is Vojtěch Rudorfer, a recent graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at CTU in Prague, with a project for a hangar for a research airship in Spitsbergen. He gains the opportunity to undertake a three-month paid internship at the renowned London studio of David Chipperfield. The competition, which commemorates the legacy of architect Jan Kaplický, is organized by the Bakala Foundation in collaboration with the Design Museum in London and the Kaplicky Centre Foundation.

This year's Kaplicky Internship competition attracted a total of 47 students and recent graduates of architectural programs from Czech universities. Seven of the best projects on an open theme advanced to the second round, which took place on September 24, 2020. The international jury included Ines Gavelli and Matt Ball, representatives of the David Chipperfield Architects studio, as well as Deyan Sudjic, former long-time director of the Design Museum in London, architect and university lecturer Michal Kohout, ARCHIP rector Regina Loukotová, and Petra Ross, winner of the Kaplicky Internship 2016. Honorary jury member is Eliška Kaplický Fuchsová. Due to the current situation in the Czech Republic and abroad, where most of the jurors are based, this year's presentations of the final projects took place online.

The winning project is the design of a hangar for a research airship by Vojtěch Rudorfer, this year's graduate from FA CTU in Prague. He submitted his diploma project, which he developed in the studio of Mirko Baum and Vojtěch Hybler. He designed a hangar for the airship with scientific and technical support in the town of Ny-Ålesund on the Norwegian Spitsbergen, where one of the northernmost and most important stations for polar research is located. In his project, he had to deal with extreme Arctic conditions, and the jury particularly appreciated the project's thoroughness and thoughtfulness.

"I was very pleased to hear Vojtěch's presentation of the airship hangar project in Norwegian Ny-Ålesund. Vojtěch applied research-based and collaborative approaches to the project, which correspond to a very specific program aimed at facilitating the path to a sustainable future," assessed the winning project Matt Ball, Associate Director at the David Chipperfield Architects studio. "The thorough elaboration, precise execution, and very simple and elegant presentation contribute to the project being an overall highly sophisticated design."