Two years ago, employees of the state-owned Lesy ČR were supposed to live in a dignified and largest wooden building in the republic. Plans to build a new headquarters, whose floor plan resembles a branching tree and was supposed to replace the outgoing directorate as of 2020, were destroyed a year before the planned opening due to the bark beetle disaster and with it declining profits. “We are delaying construction indefinitely,” company spokeswoman Vera Zhuklova said at the time.
Click to enlarge Project of the new headquarters of the State Foundation Lesy ČR in Hradec Kralove.
| Photo: Courtesy of chybik-kristof.com
In the end, the uncertainty has reduced to three years, and the managing director of the state-owned company, Jerry Groda, is now talking about reviving the project, which at that time was based on an investment of about half a billion crowns. Higher energy prices, and therefore the current high price of wood, are on the table for the revived proposal. It was the increase in timber prices that helped the state-owned company fill its coffers with 4.7 billion crowns in the first half of this year.
“Our current headquarters are in a semi-dilapidated and unsustainable state. Economically and energetically, it is already unbearable. In addition, we are disturbed by the statistics,” Groda said of the board building from the 1970s.
Project of the new headquarters of the State Foundation Lesy ČR in Hradec Kralove.
In the summer, the residence is unbearably hot, but in the winter it costs a lot of money to warm it with gas. That’s why the director searched for Grod in the staircase and pulled out the winning design from the workshop of architects Ondřej Chybík and Michal Krištof.
“It is a timeless project with a large proportion of wood. Its active passivity is also a plus. I think we will not be ashamed of it. On the contrary, I can imagine that it could be an architectural model for other buildings in the Czech Republic,” added the director.
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However, the original design of the new headquarters is based on legislation in force in 2017, plus it has an expired building permit. “We have discussed the whole thing with the Ministry of Agriculture. This has given us the green light. We are now updating the entire project. But we definitely want to stick with the original proposal,” he added.
Project of the new headquarters of the State Foundation Lesy ČR in Hradec Kralove.
If all goes according to plan, Lesy ČR wants to obtain a new building permit by the end of this year. The state-owned company then wants to start construction next year.
The new headquarters will be located in Hradec Králové on the same site as the current headquarters. However, Groda does not want to anticipate the cost of the new building, which at one time was supposed to cost half a billion kroner, even in relation to the current situation in the construction market.
The winning architects based their design on the symbolism of the tree, and the future area will be part of the forest. “We asked ourselves, what actually forces us to work in an extremely hot indoor area, and when is it best to take a laptop among the trees and work in a peaceful environment?” The two engineers described the birth of a new idea.
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