<translation>Looking Back at the ModulARCH 2015 Workshop</translation>

From April 23 to 25, a student workshop focused on the extreme possibilities of modular architecture took place in Brno as part of the ModulARCH festival.

The workshop addressed a specific controversial location in Brno - the Centrum shopping center. Students and recent architecture graduates worked under the guidance of Chilean architects Sebastián Irarrazaval and Ximena Garcia Huidobro on a vision for another tower in Brno.

The Centrum shopping center is a functionalist building in the very center of the city designed by architect Vladimír Karfík. Originally, it was supposed to be the first Brno skyscraper with twenty-three floors. Ultimately, only eight were built. In an academic exercise, students explored how to revitalize this problematic site, specifically through creating additional purposes, the establishment of public spaces in the upper floors, or integrating another building through the existing structure. All of this was done using modular architecture.

The final presentation was completed by five groups, who after two days of work and consultations presented visions for the new skyscraper. Viktor Cojocaru and Petr Šťovíček opened the building from the west side and created a new public space on Pohořelec street that rises to the sixth floor. There, a public garden was established, facing new apartments and office spaces. Kamila Vystrčilová and Josef Králík created a new grid structure on the existing building, into which they inserted separate modules and floors. In their work, they utilized the idea of two towers - a tall and slender one and a shorter one. Petra Holasová and Julie Čeřovská worked with the idea of the main façade of the building, which they unified and connected the existing building with the new tower at the front. David Zatloukal and Matúš Peklanský created a rising modular structure with numerous gardens and public spaces. They visually connected to the existing column system and lightened the building at the ground level. Ganna Iermolovych and Abayomi Omishore started from the existing cores, to which they attached individual containers with residential functions.

Thanks to the guidance of both architects, it was possible to create large-scale projects in a very short time, which can serve as quality visions of how to work with modular architecture as well as how to approach the idea of another tower in the historical center of the city.

Students also learned what to expect from modular architecture and how they can modify and utilize it. According to Sebastián Irarrazaval, there is practically no typology or place that would not be suitable for modular architecture. He would be attracted, for example, to the idea of a modular church. The festival may explore this idea further in the coming years.

The ModulARCH festival is organized by the civic association ARCH FOR PEOPLE in collaboration with the Vizovice company KOMA MODULAR, which is a leading manufacturer of residential modules in our country.