The university campus of the future and the pavilion for the Slav Epic. Students exhibit summer semester projects

The exhibition is a diverse exploration of teaching and, thanks to the teachers – prominent personalities in the field - a comprehensive view of current trends and approaches to design. The students addressed themes that resonate in contemporary Czech architecture and design.

Such an assignment was the exhibition pavilion for the Slav Epic, a theme for the students of the Chalupa studio. The location of Alfons Mucha's monumental work has been discussed for many years, yet there is no consensus among the professional public or political representation on the location and form of the exhibition hall. "Alfons Mucha himself imagined "a hall in a semicircle, built without any great expense, which would be enough to provide shelter against the weather and, of course, as fireproof as possible" and suggests a place "somewhere on Petřín", says the head of the studio Ing. arch. Marek Chalupa. In their projects, the students checked a total of five places in Prague where the exhibition hall could stand.

How to plan and build a public space in a sustainable way was solved by landscape architecture students in the Trevisan studio, who worked on the design of the surroundings of the Faculty of Humanities at Charles University in Prague's Libeň. The assignment was to create a living university campus that would become an organic part of the city and a new centre of academic life. The students worked with the site's connection to the Vltava River and its historical footprint, as well as biodiversity and nature conservation. "In the project, I am connecting the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, which are based on the site. A student park is being created with a main direct avenue connecting the campuses of both faculties. The green space with a water feature invites students from different disciplines to meet and engage in a natural dialogue," says student Viktoria Fedrselová.

While some students examined real-life assignments, others worked in the realm of concepts and visions. The theme in Florián's studio was to create a virtual house for the metaverse – a universal virtual world without any physical limits. "My project explores the scale and especially the extremes of what places inhabited by humans can look like in virtual reality – from the very personal to the complete erasure of individuality – the boundaries and limits of human and non-human existence and their convergence," describes studio student Kristina Vorobyeva.

In the Jaroš studio within the Department of Design, the students worked with the task of creating a set of home power tools with a stylish unifying friendly morphology, friendly colours and functional ergonomics. "The assignment aimed, in light of advancing technology, to shift the perception of the established typology of tools and give them new contexts and visions," explains studio head MgA. Jan Jaroš. Student Veronika Válková designed a combination of a drill and an ORTHO screwdriver. Thanks to the circular spirit level, it ensures that the drilling is always perpendicular to the object. The sliding ruler on the top is removable, so it can be used for small measurements or to get an idea of how deep one should drill.

The exhibition of studio projects can be visited until 5 June 2022. The Faculty of Architecture of the CTU is open from Monday to Friday from 6.30 a.m. to 10 p.m. and on weekends from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Entrance is wheelchair accessible and free of charge.