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ISSUE N°12, JUNE 2020
INTERNATIONAL NEWSLETTER
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Dear Friends,
As we all adjust to the new “not-so-normal”, we hope you and yours are in good health. We have been closely following some of the measures being taken in response to COVID-19 by cities across the world, and are pleased to share some of our own initiatives and observations, as well as a few nuggets of other planning news from Prague.
Stay safe and keep in touch,
The International Relations Team, IPR Prague
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IPR Prague adjusts to COVID-19
While the Czech Republic and the City of Prague have been implementing measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 and to help alleviate some of the economic impacts, we here at IPR Prague have slowly been adjusting in ways of our own.
- Management meetings move online. As is the case in much of the world, many of our meetings have moved online. We spoke to Marcela Handrychová, Special Assistant to the Director, about what it’s like to take management meeting minutes for an online meeting while her two boys try to do their homework in the background—see the Spotlight section below. We also increased the frequency of the management meetings to twice a week, in order to stay on top of the rapidly changing situation.
- Weekly internal newsletter. Our communications department took the lead on a weekly newsletter to bring us the latest news about IPR Prague’s planning activities, as well as important information about new rules at the workplace and a plan for our return to the office. However, we are also using this as a chance to get to know our colleagues a bit better. We’ve been sharing recipes, favorite music, movie recommendations, and other ways to feel closer to the people we normally spend most of our waking hours with, all in a short, attractive newsletter format.
- CAMPing online. Our Center for Architecture and Metropolitan Planning (CAMP) was quick to move online, with a series of lectures and discussions available to all. See the video, below, for an online chat with Jeanne Gang, founder and leader of Studio Gang, an architecture and urban design practice in the United States. You can check out some of the other lectures here.
- Staying in touch. While some of us have seen a number of our business trips cancelled this year, we are trying to rise to the challenge of staying in touch during these trying times. From disseminating and participating in a host of international webinars, to tidying up our English webpage and keeping it up-to-date, we are doing what we can to keep in touch.
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City of Prague establishes the Prague Development Corporation
In April, the Prague City Council approved the creation of a new organization called the Prague Development Corporation (PDC), to be funded from the city budget. Starting on June 1st, the PDC will focus on the professional administration of Prague’s real estate assets. The objective of the PDC will be to initiate, coordinate, and potentially build urban housing projects on land owned by the city. Eventually, the PDC’s work may expand to include other projects in the public interest. The intent is for the PDC to bring projects to a certain stage of the approvals process, after which construction will commence through a variety of different means, including cooperation with the private sector.
“The development of housing on Prague’s brownfields is key to resolving the housing availability crisis. This is a top priority for the current coalition government in City Hall. The city needs to focus on three things when it comes to housing: constructive communication with the private sector, the construction of cooperative housing projects as soon as possible, and the administration and reconstruction of the municipal housing stock,” notes Prague Mayor, Zdeněk Hřib.
You can read the full article here.
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The revitalization of Vrchlického sady, complete with a new tram line
A major revitalization is planned for Vrchlického sady, the park referred to as “Prague's Sherwood” in a nod to Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest. The area will also be served by a new tram line. Located directly in front of Prague’s Hlavní nádraží, or the city’s main train station, the park will be revitalized by a contractor selected by IPR Prague through a competitive dialogue process.
Vrchlického sady has long had a poor reputation for being neglected and unsafe. The improvement project will be realized together with Prague 1, the park’s administrator, and the Prague Transport Authority, the administrator of the future tram line.
“It became clear in the preparatory stages for the new tramline through Vrchlického sady that this space needs to be addressed as a whole. The individual components—landscaping, transport, the social and urban fabric, and heritage protection—are closely linked. Therefore, the best way to select a new solution for the area is a process in which all key stakeholders address the park and tramline together, as a whole,” said Ondřej Boháč, director of IPR Prague, explaining the decision to proceed with a competitive dialogue.
Click here for more information.
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IPR Prague helps plan the future of the Baba functionalist settlement
The Prague City Council has commissioned IPR Prague to organize a tender for a conceptual study addressing the future development of the Baba Settlement. The study of this historic, functionalist villa settlement will focus on improving the public realm while preserving the site’s historical elements, and will protect the area from uncoordinated interventions.
The Baba Settlement, a housing estate in the Dejvice section of Prague, is made up of functionalist villas developed during the “First Republic” era. It was built as one of six European modern housing estates under the “Werkbund” initiative in the late 1920s and early 1930s. These estates were designed as modern functionalist developments that were financially affordable for large segments of the population. The Baba Settlement is one of the best preserved examples of functionalist architecture, as similar estates in Vienna and Germany were damaged during the Second World War. The Baba Settlement has been designated an urban heritage zone since 1993.
So far, none of the projects for the improvement of the Baba Settlement have been coordinated, nor have they followed a comprehensive conceptual approach. “A coherent approach is very important in urban planning, and this is especially true in the case of the Baba Settlement. Planned projects need to be coordinated so that they do not disturb the historical value of the site. A conceptual study is a suitable tool for determining next steps,” said Petr Hlaváček, the deputy mayor responsible for territorial planning. The team will be required to include an architect, a transport engineer, a landscape architect, and a water-management specialist.
More details are available here.
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SPOTLIGHT ON MARCELA HANDRYCHOVÁ, ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR
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For this issue of the newsletter, we reached out to Marcela Handrychová, Assistant to IPR Prague’s director. For the last three years, Marcela has been the director’s right-hand woman, making sure that he knows what he needs to know, and gets to where he needs to be. From her behind-the-scenes perch, Marcela has a special insight into the everyday happenings at the institute. We spoke to her about life in her position before COVID-19 upended the world, and what the adjustment to COVID-19 has meant for her work.
Tell us about your typical day, pre-COVID-19. What were you juggling, what sorts of surprises could arise?
I don’t know if any of my workdays were or are “typical”. My work has a lot of variety and I often end up dealing with ad hoc assignments.Often I will plan to do/finish/write something specific, but then first thing in the morning, I’m surprised by a completely different request, which needs to be completed right away. I was a production assistant at my previous job, and in some ways, my job now is quite similar. I often have to adjust quickly to unexpected situations. In any case, every day I make sure the kitchenette and coffee maker are ready to go, and after turning on my computer, I check the director’s calendar as well as my own. Most days, I end up preparing background documents for meetings, I arrange or coordinate the director’s meetings, and I work closely with other sections at IPR as well as with City Hall.
Your position can be quite stressful. How do you manage to keep a cool head?
It helps to tell myself that what I do here is not a matter of life and death. Yes, sometimes I do get stressed, but I enjoy my work, I like my colleagues, and this helps me stay relaxed.
How has COVID-19 changed the nature of your position?
Well, the state of emergency due to COVID-19 didn’t force only me to stay at home—it also grounded my two children, who from one day to the next stopped going to school. And since it wasn’t a school vacation, we had a lot of schoolwork to complete. For instance, during the twice-weekly online management meetings, where I am responsible for taking minutes, I was also solving mathematical equations, figuring out the parts of speech of a sentence, or choosing which picture to use for a geography report. And when my boys weren’t studying, they were disturbing me, for instance, with the rustling of the space suit they decided to create out of bubble wrap…
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CAMP is back!
With the easing of COVID-19-related restrictions in the Czech Republic, CAMP reopened to the public on May 25th with the continuation of its "Two Pragues" exhibit. This map-based installation takes visitors through two centuries of Prague’s development. Using historical city maps and aerial photographs, residents can discover what their neighborhood looked like in the 19th and 20th centuries. The concept is easy – choose a time period that interests you and compare it with another time on CAMP's panoramic 25-meter long screening wall, using a mouse and keyboard. For instance, visitors can probe parts of Prague damaged by bombs on an aerial photograph from 1945, or witness the construction of the numerous communist-era housing districts on the outskirts of the city.
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