New Kutna Hora
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The financial center of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, the city of Kutná Hora spent the 14th century growing into a distinctive, genuine fabric of Gothic character. The cultural flowering of the city, underwritten by its mineral wealth, gave rise to an exceptionally valuable urban complex, which has survived to this day without suffering any major damage. New jobs are coming to this town, bringing with them the resources needed for its growth and creating demand for a measured development of existing neighborhoods and even for new, suitably designed urban areas. The purpose of our analysis was to define the principles to be applied in the development of Kutná Hora, a valuable urban unit of global stature that must respond, in a measured fashion, to the needs of the modern world. In our analysis of the city zones, we define five distinctive areas based on the walking distance to the city center, which ranges approximately from 7 to 24 minutes. Around the city, about a ten- to twenty-minute walk from the city walls, there are suitable areas for new urban neighborhoods. Not breakaway self-sufficient satellite towns, but genuine city-begetting areas, whose inhabitants will regularly walk to the city center to use the services it provides. The high density of the surrounding architecturally valuable urban units (Perštejnec, Bílany, Přítoky) located near Kutná Hora does not provide space for new satellite towns. Such development would be bound to spoil the local landscape, which has taken a long time to evolve its distinctive character. We recommend that new residential areas in Kutná Hora be built within the existing villages in close vicinity of Kutná Hora or in new urban neighborhoods within walking distance of the center. |
The area that we studied, known as Na Rovinách, is a fifteen-minute walk from the city walls and an ideal place where to situate a new urban neighborhood. First, however, an access route must be provided through what is now a forest – by creating a forest park. Conceptually, our solution consists in adopting an urban structure that is natural for the local landscape. As a matrix for a basic density calculation we availed ourselves of the structure of the gothic village of Malešov, which we gradually adjusted according to the local conditions, the construction schedule and current construction techniques. In the resulting structure we designated several types of buildings according to their use and function (noise mitigation buildings, towers, apartment buildings, mews, family and row houses). A public open space contains a large square, a modest-sized shopping center and a community and children’s center. The resulting design retains the qualities of the benchmark as well as its orientation towards the sun and the landscape. The result is a residential complex with a rather intricate inner structure that offers a unique sort of life within its bounds while keeping its ties to the historic center of Kutná Hora. location: Kutna Hora, Czech republic
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