Jana Moravcová will lead the Department of Urban Design. Winter semester also with two new studios

Jana Moravcová takes over the head of the Department of Urban Design from Professor Jan Jehlík. Her priorities are research and creative cooperation between the state, cities, and the private sector. She will apply her 19 years of professional experience and previous teaching activities at UMPRUM in Prague. "I am convinced that the Department of Urban Design of the FA CTU is based on quality foundations. Based on the principle of continuity, it can be further developed towards the now indispensable interdisciplinarity so that its graduates are competitive not only locally but also internationally," she says. She will present her concept at this year's Inventura Urbanism conference, which takes place at the FA in September.

Pavel Hnilička, the new head of the studio at the Department of Urban Design, wants to focus on the relationship between humans and the environment and to seek out tasks that stimulate discussions about solutions to problematic places. "On the practical side, I want to guide students to honest craft and teach them the basic ABCs of design. I want to immerse myself in solving architectural and urban design problems, and instead of passing on ready-made and given judgment and opinion on how to design, I would like to guide the students to think for themselves, stimulate their minds, personal involvement, and engagement," he adds.

Assoc. Prof. Marek Tichý will head the Design Studio at the Department of Architectural Design III., former assistant of the Suske-Tichý studio. As head, he wants to focus on complex topics requiring the study of place, its history, and connections, mostly in environments protected or otherwise valuable for their historical or natural context. "I want to use the form of seminars or workshops to discuss the place and its potential. Discussants will be invited experts from the large interdisciplinary teams I have worked with during my previous practice, in addition to students. They will comment on the assignment for the students from their point of view, providing them with a glimpse of their expertise as the semester progresses, first in preparation and later on completion of the work," explains Marek Tichý.

Ing. arch. Jana Moravcová

She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the CTU and completed an internship at ENSA Nantes. She has worked in offices in Prague, Rotterdam, and London on projects of all scales. From 2007-2022, she worked at the Architecture Studio 2 at the Prague UMPRUM, where she taught Dynamic Urbanism since 2019 and is a professional guarantor of urbanism teaching. She runs her own architectural and urban design studio Norma architekti, which she founded in 2011, focusing on housing and leisure. Together with Ivan Kroupa and Tomáš Zmek, she designed the Mikulandská Technology Centre for UMPRUM. As the leader of a 30-member international team, she won first place in the most prominent domestic urban planning and landscape design competition for the Metropolitan Park Soutok. Based on the competition she won, she is working on the Dvorce residential district project in Tábor. Between 2015 and 2022, she was the head of the Norma Space Gallery. She regularly sits on juries of architectural and urban design competitions. She also engages in curatorial, educational, publishing, and production activities.

Ing. arch. Pavel Hnilička, Dipl. NDS ETHZ in Architektur

He studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the CTU under the guidance of Ladislav Labus and Alena Šrámková and did postgraduate studies at ETH Zurich under Dietmar Eberle. In 2003, he founded the studio Pavel Hnilička Architects + Planners. He deals with the design and construction of buildings, land use, and regulatory plans. One of the subjects of his interest is the relationship between theory and practice in design. From 2007 to 2010, he taught at the Department of Urban Design at the FA CTU. From 2012 to 2014, he prepared new Prague building regulations at the Institute of Planning and Development of the City of Prague, for which he was awarded the Czech Architecture Award for outstanding contribution to the field. From 2014 to 2018, he was the Vice-Chairman of the Czech Chamber of Architects. He co-authors the publication Density and Urban Economics, comparing the relationship between population density and public infrastructure costs.

doc. Ing. arch. Marek TICHÝ

He graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the CTU. In 1993-1994, he studied at ENSA Nantes; after his studies, he worked in Nantes and Paris in studio 3A. From 1995-2001, he worked in the SEA studio (Ecological Architecture Group); in 2002, he co-founded and ran his own office, TaK Architects, which has long been dedicated to the context of contemporary and historical architecture. The search for an authentic architectural expression, a balance between conservation and the requirement for contemporary and functional buildings, is presented in his work and profile exhibitions, lectures, and publications. He is the author of the reconstruction of the former Electrical Works building in Prague, for which he received a final nomination for the Czech Architecture Award 2022. Other projects include the Old Town Gate, Pinkas Palace, and the reconstruction of the Volman Villa. He has been teaching at the Czech Technical University since 2005.