Repurposing of city owned buildings

Transcript

[Music] and we're back for more infrastructure this time repurposing of City owned buildings with Kristof hanslick welcome on stage and let's discover this [Applause] topic hello everybody oh this is working cool um my presentation will not be as polished as the one you've seen before uh it's beautiful it was beautiful and I completely admire what the ladies do

here uh I'm will be touching a similar topic uh though um it might be a little more abstract and and on the other hand a little more um like real in the same time uh I want to describe a project we uh started in the year 2016 so it's like eight years ago uh you might have heard 20 minutes ago about uh the lengths of uh uh processes that that happen in in Czech Republic or in Prague uh especially so uh the project is it's

called campus hika it's in the very Center of prag uh and we managed to create 8,000 M square meters of public space out of uh let's say thin air out of nothing uh and if you if you had some time if you haven't been yet being from prag or CH Republic or if you have some time this weekend I've strongly recommend going there this is the website uh obviously without the GI on it um but what you can find there is uh um lecture Halls cafes Cinemas stuff rainwater flushed public toilets the first

ones um and uh it is in the very center so over there you see the one one of the gates to the uh to the oldstone this is the Czech National Bank obviously on purpose because it's kind of connecting to this topic here uh and this is it uh basically six uh six buildings kind of stuck to each other uh in the very Heart of the City uh so who are we Architects yes uh nobody really knows what we do uh we don't

either but uh we try to pretend you see the naked girl on the on the on the picture there we don't we don't really build buildings we uh come up with ideas and uh uh speculate and sometimes I uh I want to I try to um compare it with with us with doctors because people can relate to doctors not to Architects and we approach City or buildings uh as the doctor is the human body you know we don't you're not afraid of cutting in and uh obviously as long as it's standing as long as the patient is ambulant we say it's a

success um and uh you might have noticed our our office is called call call like collaborative Collective so say collaboration is a is a very uh important uh Topic in the sense in architecture especially and I would say it's uh would be the very safe in the it business uh um basically uh you need to be prepared to step over uh borders uh of your industry you need to um be able to understand that there is a semantic gap between between people

people don't people use the same words but sometimes they don't really understand uh what they are talking about um um I said eight years ago uh eight years ago uh there was a big topic Smart City you know it's like it iot everything running and uh we said smart city is not about uh smart benches you know there's U all respect to some to the very person who managed to place anything in the public space you know uh L as ladies said just before me it takes years and an incredible amount of energy to actually change something in public

space but what we say we don't care about smart benches we the the smart city is about smart people um and year 2016 you know uh uh the the time in uh uh in it flows exponentially the time in building business does not you know um and we are talking about extraneous in mimo uh uh bodies uh the city on one hand is very physical the same as buildings are on the other hand the city is very abstract it's uh it's an

interplay of of many um many players many buddies many uh who have different relationships and stuff and now uh the example of of Campus hska is actually two buddies going getting together after about 650 years of living in the same flat the city and the university one of the oldest universities in in Europe being based in Prague for 650 years has never ever had a an official relationship to the city the University was founded by the king the city has its own governance uh the city takes care of

of uh like um uh gymnasiums high schools and stuff University is governed by State uh they don't meet you know they they go like this and they don't even like talk they have no uh no place to talk about uh to talk together and but there are different opportunities so this is this is the building you know with all the stars uh just behind me is the gate to the Old Town that's the National Bank everybody should be interested in yes um so it's just there um and uh as I shown the uh the

bench um it was a time 2016 was a time when uh we might have all opinions about the politicians who were back then in in power but uh they were actually single people for example rud Bova who managed to convince uh the politicians to talk to universities those 650 years of of Gap being crossed closed uh some people obviously refused refused to get out of their gaps some people were for example the The Faculty of Arts back then uh led

by the first woman Dean uh uh in those 650 years uh was where so the faculty was able to actually look out look ahead and um take a chance Taking Chances very important um Okay so how do people uh um approach buildings uh so this okay we want to collaborate yes we want to work together near City uh we we are based in the very center we have no space maybe you have some buildings maybe you have some space you could give us not very simple to give just like that public space to to

someone uh legal problems um but the city does not have empty spaces and if they have empty spaces they uh look like this you know it's uh 8,000 square m of space cut away from power from heat from water from from anything and uh okay one one on one hand it was empty on the other hand it was full of pigeons and UHA in check SW it's the the guys with machine guns uh running around uh were actually playing there or headed as a playround so you see those uh it's bullets it's like painball but but with

the proper proper bullets proper guns um was funny you could find tons of these brass uh uh bullets but no spots on the walls you know they don't miss they always like hit the thing um so uh for many people uh um completely uh a dead end you know you don't you can't oh I'm not I'm not going there uh it's it's full of pigeons and stuff so but then it's uh Architects you need uh because we are trained to think speculatively yes we might seem to be

informed but still we are naive and we we look out and we have the freedom to ask slly questions yeah silly questions very important um because because our all our work is in the future and all we do is we put different uh people different Industries together to um to achieve something uh this is basically describing the the State of Affairs in CCH Republic worse than Camaroon [Music] uh basically uh this is what we have to work with uh to get a building permid is it's about 2 years time and the windows of opportunities are very short open

only for very short um we are from prag uh you live in I live in m so all my childhood was about nuda but this time it's not it's not Yan nuda but Pablo Neruda some people might know it's a it's a Chilean poet um and in one of his PO poems was a thing he described as a mold principle uh because mold is the time when when death comes back to life you know when when when you have the rten Apple it's it's actually blooming with life again died but now it's coming in um looking around or other places I mean you can

throw a party any like party of your life Lifetime on a field somewhere so uh sometimes s you don't need to have everything polished and and beautiful to actually start something um obviously we saw this opportunity so we had to start now um but now me 2016 and if uh if your general projects project takes 10 years so you look in 2026 and how will the world look like in 202 six so you don't know we we're almost there not yet two more years uh so you look 10 years back and

you said ah it was the iPhone 1 uh man the world has changed you know in 10 years between this so we we did not really know how to start a project how whom are we designing it for um if we said we are designing it for for the future of 10 years uh so the urge was uh was there we have to start the project now okay where am I yes and you need some determination um because you have generally no budget uh if you don't have an institution you don't have money uh if you if you think of a future

institution basically sometimes you have to start and uh clean out the pigeon shits and uh obviously the determination of the dean of the faculty of Arts back then she found 500,000 crowns 2000 20,000 to clean out the first two or three spaces Cafe Kids Corner and and a pub or or Concert Hall yeah and then you talk but you need to know how to talk to the city and the philosophers in the faculty of Arts don't really but uh we do because we do stuff in public space a little bit first month uh you can get almost anything from the city

for free uh obviously if you're not running a commercial business um almost instantly not really difficult you ask and they give it to you you know no politicians involved um after that you can prolong it for five months five more months maybe six but I was not sure uh still no politicians involved and unless you you you can't earn no money there so so you have six month keys from a building or from space that's empty yeah it's pretty good um within those 6 months of 2016 there was about 200 events that happened

place where documented and uh in the very in the very end printed out in a book of this like this thick um and obviously if the one hand one leg you're standing on is uh the city it's all fine the other leg you're standing on is the University uh the city is politicians the university is Academia um the politicians need to be elected again obviously the only one enemy they don't want to to to deal with is the students so because the students you know they all do they do all the crazy things we don't understand but we love them it's our future so uh suddenly the momentum of things that were

happening the whole summer and and stuff in uh in campus H empty space was so big that ah there comes the first lease and obviously you know it's the city is getting involved it can't look that bad so first million of crowns it's like 40,000 years um obviously not an investition not refurbishing just maintenance it's a different budget you know we have budget for maintenance and oh money money for investment very difficult um four years later uh totaling of in totaling of uh 80 million crowns that's about

three million EUR we had 8 8,000 square meters of infrastructural very simple but usable usable space you think electricity in every in every room there was a light bulb obviously some rooms nicer than others but usable um the general square meter renovation in Czech Republic is 50,000 per square meter it's €2,000 per square meter we managed to spend like 400 per square meter and uh what we got a courty chart living Courtyard with a cafe in the very very center of Prague

uh like uh Cinema co-working space uh two galleries uh again rain water flush public toilet it's raining outside so it's it's um it's good news 6 minutes but um that's a cool party place all all sorts of um interesting program is happening there but there is another principle behind it you know um university of 14th century uh the only accessible part of a university in 14th century when the Char University was founded was the gate you know behind that no no no no no knowledge is power you're not you're not allowed 19th

century stuff was getting better uh it was the lecture Halls that you could actually enter uh for public but nothing else um and we tried to convert it so the university for 21st century it's not about elected students you know it's not only about researchers but it's about public space and and the role of university is to educate people people of all ages uh genders and everything um and we try to minimize the closed space so it is an infrastructural space like streets roads uh switch for example that the city is um city owns and supports

but it's the university who curates this space um yes curated public space obviously um it's all sorts of uh beautiful ideas uh it's good to have University on your side because nobody really tries to discuss things with University because the power of University show me another institution in in this era that has uh such a long history and track record of being you know the one um okay little more pictures toilets yes rainwater fles toilets I love them

um and where are you going yes so after I'm missing the logos interesting um after 650 years um the university actually started talking to the city and the city to University 5 years after 2016 uh these two extraneous buddies managed to uh managed to found a common legal body whatever that means but now they have a company legal body that they uh they can support again

legally and um it runs yes uh to conclude the lecture this is henka number four the one I was talking about but then this is the Czech National Bank yes uh we here at a sort of fintech event I'm looking at the hia number two it's very similar story the house is empty and for last two months I think it belongs to the city so um maybe one someone in in the audience might have an idea what to do uh in an empty

building right next to the Czech National Bank I'm just trying to uh direct your thoughts um and as I've said that uh we are Architects we build buildings I'm missing pictures there again I tried to I wanted to show you some real stuff we do well you can go to c. CC um we build buildings sometimes but sometimes we uh work on a more in a very abstract level to convince um to convince the multiple players in public space we work with so this should be it if anyone had any

questions [Applause] [Music] [Applause]