The City of Brno is preparing to launch an architectural and urban planning competition for the design of a new municipal building, which was approved by the Brno City Council at its meeting last week. The competition will start in January and end in June this year. Its goal is to find a high-quality architectural and urban design for a public building that will match Brno’s significance as the second largest city in the Czech Republic.
The city’s intention is to create a modern civic office that will be comfortable for both the public and employees. The key function of the new building will be the integration of counter workplaces, the so-called front office, dealing with the registration of residents, the issuance of identity cards and passports, vehicle registration and driving licenses. The building will also include standard office workplaces for other departments of the municipality.
“The preparation of this building is an important step towards improving the functioning of the city office and cultivating public space in the historic center of Brno,” said Brno Mayor Markéta Vaňková. “We want to design a dignified office that will serve the citizens and employees of the city well.”
The new building will be located in the space behind the existing municipality building on Malinovského náměstí, on the Brno Ringstrasse. The location is very accessible by public transport and car. The construction should follow the urban concept of the Ringstrasse and contribute to the revitalization of this part of the historic city center.
The architectural competition will focus on the first stage of construction, which will bring together the departments of the municipality, currently located in 15 different buildings around the city. This will particularly affect departments with counter-based operations and those located in rented buildings.
“In the first stage, approximately 550 employees should work in the building, but in the long term, the design is designed to enable the expansion of the building and the concentration of the majority of the municipality in one place. In the future, up to 980 employees could work in the entire complex,” said Oliver Pospíšil, Chief Secretary of the City of Brno. Estimates of the cost of construction will only come from further project documentation.
“The city’s goal is to build a functionally high-quality, understandable and friendly office, and an architectural competition is the best way to achieve this,” explained Petr Bořecký, Brno city councillor for spatial planning. “The designated area for the city hall building has already been verified by a volume study and follows the compositional principles of the Brno ring road. The project will thus contribute to the completion of the last part of the Brno ring road and the development of valuable urban space.”
The city also requires a design for a highly adaptable building that will be able to respond to future changes due to the digitalization of public administration, the development of information technologies, and artificial intelligence.
