Results of the Competition for the Family House with Residential Attic

The competition titled "Family House with a Living Attic", organized by VELUX Czech Republic, s.r.o., has announced its winners for the fifth time. Students from secondary technical schools of construction from all over the Czech Republic presented their visions, and the best projects were awarded last week at the Písecká Brána in Prague.

"We are very pleased with the growing interest of students and schools in participating in the competition. Over the five years we have been organizing this competition, student works have increasingly shifted from the construction processing of the given object towards creating individual designs. We are also delighted to see that in most projects there is a noticeable effort towards good lighting concept processing, which was one of our main goals of the competition assignment,” stated Ing. Jana Mašatová from VELUX during the awards ceremony at the Písecká Brána in Prague.
The aim of the competition organized by VELUX is to support young future architects and builders with a focus on creative building designs, where roof windows are used as the main source of illumination. The public can assess the quality of student works on the theme of living attics at the exhibition in the Písecká Brána until July 26, 2009. The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports took patronage over the fifth edition.
A total of 177 students from 22 secondary technical schools of construction (SPŠS) across the Czech Republic entered the competition. A specialized jury composed of Prof. akad. arch. Martin Rajniš, Doc. Ing. arch. Karel Havliš, and Ing. arch. Klára Bukolská from VELUX selected three winning projects, which they found to exhibit a high level of architectural and graphic design, optimal solutions for attics and roof windows in terms of ensuring optimal lighting and ventilation. The jury also decided to award special recognitions.

First place was awarded to the project by Jakub Červenka from SPŠS in Valašské Meziříčí. The judges appreciated the simple elementary shape, correct scale, and thoughtful placement in the terrain in the winning design. “The project has a good level of interiors. The house is properly lit, and the illumination corresponds to the functional use of the rooms. The connection of the interior with the exterior is also sensitively addressed. The approach to the house over the footbridge is pleasant,” the jury stated in their evaluation. For his victory, Jakub Červenka received a prize of 15,000 CZK.

Second place and 9,000 CZK went to Jan Plíva from SPŠS and OA in Kadaň, whose project was evaluated by the jury as follows: “The house has a simple primary shape, enhanced by the use of a single material and a clear lighting concept. It is a simple, even ‘provocative’ idea.”

Third place was awarded to Filip Rašek from SPŠS Arch. J. Gočára in Prague 4, who impressed the jury with the simple shape of the house and restrained use of materials. “The house has a cultivated layout and good, even above-standard lighting of the interior,” the jury justified their choice. Filip Rašek received 6,000 CZK for his design.

“I was surprised by the scope and often high level of the submitted designs, both in graphics and documentation, which often exceeded the conceptual and artistic level of the project. I was surprised by the excessive decorativeness and shapely exuberance, indeed extravagance, which we often see today in designs of Czech catalog production. A better inspiration could be Czech architecture before World War II,” assessed this year’s competition by prof. akad. arch. Martin Rajniš, a jury member, architect, educator, traveler, and former head of the studio at the AAAD in Prague and the Technical University in Liberec.
Doc. Ing. arch. Karel Havliš, another jury member and head of the Department of Design at the Faculty of Architecture of the Brno University of Technology, added: “We appreciated projects with a clear and simple concept, as complexity rarely has a synergistic effect. I see the orientation of spatial design towards simple concepts and a connection with architecture as a path that secondary schools should pursue.”

In addition to the four winning projects, the jury also awarded three additional special recognitions to the following students: Martin Lisner from SPŠS in Hradec Králové, Lukáš Matoušek from PSŠ in Letohrad, and Jakub Zmítko from SPŠS also in Hradec Králové.

Students from any year of secondary technical schools of construction could enter the competition from October 31, 2008, to December 30, 2008. The first three designs from each registered school, or proposals awarded a so-called wild card selected by a jury composed of representatives from the school and VELUX, progressed from the first round to the nationwide competition.