Into The Forest

The natural and the artificial mingle to become one in the new administrative centre of the Czech Forestry Commission

- Ondrej Chybik & Michal Kristof

A project designed by a team under the direction of the Brno based studio Chybik+Kristof has recently won the international competition for the new administrative centre of the Czech Forestry Commission in Hradec Králové. The winning proposal is a two-storey building on the edge of an existing forest that uses wood extensively as construction material – as requested within the competition. The concept is based on incorporating the forest landscape into a five-finger building to create new relations between the inside office and the outside forest landscape. A nature trail surrounding the building allows for exploration of the different forest ecotypes, designed by Tomas Babka and breathe.earth.collective.

In summer 2016, a public two-round international architecture competition was announced, looking for a design for the new administrative centre of the Czech Forestry Commission that should substitute the existing insufficient headquarter buildings on the south-western outskirts of Hradec Králové – a place next to one of the most sought-after forests in the Czech Republic.

More than forty architectural firms from the Czech Republic, Spain, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, France, United States, and Netherlands took part in the competition with its international jury consisting of Dorte Mandrup-Poulsen, Dietmar Eberle, Miroslav Šik amongst others. Five of these teams were selected to complete their proposals in the second round. The winning entry presented by Chybik+Kristof in collaboration with K4, Ivo Stolek, Jan Stolek, Tomas Babka and the breathe.earth.collective prevailed by its unconventional approach which, according to the jury, makes the building an open public institution rather than an administrative building, fulfilling the vision of a future-oriented environment.