Embassy of the Czech Republic

FA VUT - Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture

Project idea

I forgot to turn on ortho in CAD..

Project description

The project is representing the beauty of Czech landscape by its mass and its shape. Its picturesque mountains and valleys are the elements I tried to perpetuate in this work. I tried to make things clear for everyone just to understand what does the Czech Republic look like. We are a country in the middle of Europe surrounded by another 4 countries. That’s the reason why I’ve also split project’s land into 4 parts divided by embankments. Private part used for apartments complex, semi-private part for residents, semi-public part for the representative of the embassy and then public part for consulate and visa interview offices. Always according to what is typical for the section. One of embankments is located infrot of the main entrance into representative part of the embassy that cars use to drive around by to drop passangers right infront of the main entrance and then drive back to make the arriving into embassy as dignified as possible. The next entrance leads into consulate and visa interview offices. The whole area of the project is public for it’s staff and diplomats just as it works for us Czechs as we are part of the Schengen zone.

The Czech embassy should represent Czech Republic in Ethiopia as a polite and respectuful country.
The first impression of the embassy has to be clear in the way that this object is not being used as a fort but as diplomatic facility.

On the first floor of the embassy is located the representative part of the embassy for diplomatic guests. Then there’s a consulate and visa interview office created as one section together. On the second floor are located sections of indiviudal offices A/B/C/D. Partition of individual offices is possible by dividing the space by mounted partitions. The upper skylight in offices creates the feeling of the galery that exhibits the Czech Republic as a country itself.
The apartments part of the building contains apartements and residences. Floor under the apartements is used for garages and the technical background including HAVC of the building. Another technical background including HAVC can be located under the roof of the buildng. The representative part of the residence on the first floor is the most open part of the building as the opposite of the private part for a residents of the building.

Technical information

The whole construction of the project is built from the layered reinforced concrete being compiled by local sand and gravel creating a different color schemes and structures of the individual concrete layers. Concrete as a brutalist material seems to be heavy, insistent, which is the reason why I chose it as the main material. On the building are being used security windows and doors that include a numeric code or a fingerprint access only as the response to the buildings secure terms that requires locks on almost every door. In case of having keys to every single door of the building would only make things difficult for its staff.
The electric energy in the building is from the public electricity network, solarwindows energy then comes from backup power system. Rain water is being collected in the underground tanks located in the semi-public part of the projects site. This water is being used for technical systems and watering garden in the drought.
For heating, cooling and air exchange are in the building also included HAVC systems for the staffs and guests comfort in the building. There’s also used a moss on some walls and the wall in the representative hall includes the waterfall.

Co-authors

Supervisor: Ing. arch. Jiri Marek