Landscape and Building Merge in New Czech Forestry Commission Centre

Written by Yiling Shen

A design team under the direction of Chybik + Kristof has won the international competition to design a new administrative center for the Czech Forestry Commission in Hradec Králové. The project focuses on a symbiotic relationship between the building and the adjacent forest, where the natural landscape outside begins to mingle with the office spaces within.

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Ondřej Chybík, a founding partner of Chybik+Kristof, explains that the inspiration for the design came from their initial site visit, where they explored the adjacent Hradec forest after visiting the current headquarters of the Forestry Commission. They noticed a stark difference between the hot indoor offices and the cool environment of the forest, which led to their design philosophy of creating a space where the workplace relates to and is reminiscent of the forest in which it sits. “What we sought to do was create a transparent, yet intimate and highly presentable working space. Having this concept in mind, we opted for a radial office layout relying on a central courtyard from which the building penetrates the wooded areas and the wooded areas penetrate the building,” he says.

The two-story central courtyard holds a visitor’s center, meeting room, library and cafeteria, forming the social center of the overall design. It is lit by roof skylights and the supporting columns are used to remind visitors of tree trunks within a forest.

Extending radially from the courtyard are five ‘fingers’, each representing an independent administrative unit. These office areas are designed with the architects’ intent of ‘workplace as forest’ in mind. It uses a modular system to create an open space with sub-centers that hold central staircases, storage areas and kitchenettes. By segmenting the ground floor plan into the five sections, it ensures that all areas receive sufficient amounts of sunlight during the day.

An integral part of the design is the nature trail that surrounds the building. Beginning on the roof of the building with a presentation on sustainable forestry, the trail continues with a slide that takes visitors down to the courtyard. It then takes the visitor on a winding path outside, around the other five sections of the design. The five sections will provide different local forest experiences such as spruce, beech and fir, pine and birch, and oak and hornbeam forests. Over the years, these surrounding forest experiences will grow and change, with the trees acting to cool the building.