News: 10 architecture firms – seven from the UK and three from the Czech Republic – have been selected via an international design competition to create housing designs for a development on the outskirts of Prague.
UK firms Duggan Morris, Eldridge Smerin, Coffey Architects and John Pardey are among the winners of an unusual competition launched for a variety of housing designs as part of The Oaks – a €400 million (£320 million) luxury residential scheme in the Czech Republic.
10 architecture studios were selected from a long list of 100 studios from the UK, Sweden, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
The other winners of the competition, organised by Malcolm Reading Consultants, included Czech firms ADR, AI Design and Cigler Marani, as well as UK-based Hall McKnight, Haptic, and McGarry-Moon Architects.
The development by Czech property firm Arendon Development Company will be built on a 140-hectare former hunting estate, to the south east of the Czech capital near to the D1 Prague-Brno motorway.
A range of different dwellings will be built, including terraces, semi-detached townhouses, apartments and stand-alone houses, together providing 220 new homes.
Arendon CEO Robert Davies said that the designers' schemes, which will start on site next year, would be "highly marketable".
"As we did our research it became clear to us that Czechs value well crafted, contemporary design, both local and international," said Arendon CEO Robert Davies. "Also, we were aware of a rich tradition of new residential communities in the country from the inter-war period, such as the Bata development in Zlin. We felt, therefore, that here in Prague there was an opportunity to showcase good residential design, both from the Czech Republic and from across Europe and give young designers a leg up along the way."
An overall masterplan for the development, which also includes a golf club, hotel, and spa organised around a "village centre", has already been created by US firm Edward Durell Stone Jr and Associates – the architecture practice originally founded by the Modernist American architect that continued to be led by his landscape architect son until his death in 2009.
The scheme is due to start on site in 2015, with the first occupants expected to move in the following year and a total building schedule of five years.