Embassy of the Czech Republic in Addis Abeba

FAST VUT - Faculty of Civil Engineering, Brno University of Technology, Department of Architecture

Project idea

The proposal of the atelier work is to design an Embassy of the Czech Republic in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The building consist of: administration (offices, consular and visa building), accomodation (residences, flats) and representative (ballroom, wellness). The workers‘ flats, the administration and the representative parts form one building. The flats of the local forces, the residence, the wellness and the consular and the visa building each of them form it’s own building. The whole area is designed to be suitable for bussiness meetings, important events and for comfortable living for 41 people. The public area is desinged barrier-free.

The area cover 13,304 m2 and is situated in the city on Bole Kifle Ketema Kebele Street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The surroundings are not rich in green spaces, but there are several trees and bushes. On the West is a problematic school area, where the black buildings were built. The area is seperate by the main road on two parts. First part consists of the Embassy and her area and the second part consists of the area for local forces. The buildings in the area are situated 10 metres from the border for safety. Only the consular and visa buildings are situated closer to the border for better access for visitors. The visitors cannot leave these buildings, so the area is highly secure.

Project description

The Embassy is divided into 3 parts. All 3 parts are connected in the middle by the atrium, which has access to ground floor and to the first floor. In the first floor we can find parking and TFB (technical facility of the buildings). One part consists of the worker’s apartments and the residence, second part consists of the administration and the consular building, the visa building and the ballroom form the third part of the Embassy. The wellness ,designed as a small version of the Embassy, is situated in the northwest of the area. The shape of the building has been created from the internal lines of the Czech Republic flag. The Embassy divides the area into 3 parts, 2 of them are for views and one of them is the main, the representative. The buildings have 1 or 2 floors at max. On their facade, in front of the windows, was placed shade sliding panels. These panels shine in the tricolour of the Czech National symbol and they are considered to be the main architectural element on the Embassy. Another main architectural element is the atrium. The atrium goes throw 2 floors, from the first ground floor to the first floor, in the representative part and inside the atrium is a ramp enriched by flowers. The building of the local forces has a block shape and the apartments are situated consecutively.

There are 3 entrances. One entrance leads only to the Residence. The main entrance splits into the entrance to the parking behind the building, entrance on the ramp which leads to the ground parking and it has also a stop before the Embassy and than it goes all the way back to the exit.
The main building has 3 floors. The ground floor is split into 2 parts. The first part under the representative part consists of ground parking, TFB and a room for drivers. The second part under the accomodation part consists of stores and TFB. The main entrance to the Representative part is connected on the entrance hall made by the atrium. Others parts such as lounges, toilets, ballroom, dinnig room, food store and store for internal equipment are connected to the atrium. Administration part, where the office sections are, is also connected to the atrium. The office sections also have toilets and kitchen. The third and last part of the building also connected to the atrium consists of the workes‘ apartments: 3x apartment 2+1, 3x apartment 3+1, 2x apartment 4+1, 2x courier apartment 1+bk.
The residence has 2 floors. In the first floor is the representative part with lounge, dining room, kitchen, toilets and guest room. In the second floor is housing witch kitchen, living room, bedroom, two childrens’ room and two bathrooms with toilets.
The consular and the visa building both have waiting room with toilets, conference room with serving hatches. Behind the serving hatches are archives with 3 offices, toilets for employees, showers and kitchen.
The wellnes part is divided into 3 parts: dressing rooms, showers with toilets, swimming pool and gym.
The last building consist of 4 apartments 2+bk of the local forces, utility/laundry room and gym.

Technical information

The design mainly uses a monolithic skeleton system formed by RC columns and a slab. A longitudinal wall system is used at the Accommodation Part. Cement-concrete blocks of lost formwork are used as filler masonry. The façade is designed as double-walled ventilated. Steel trusses were used to bridge the large span above the social hall.

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