FORMAFATAL

Spa Cellularium, Praha

Architects Dagmar Štěpánová and Martina Homolková have filled the complexly shaped space in the new MPP building in Prague’s Pankrác district – a space with no straight walls, vertically traversed by inclined columns – with circles and a light-and-shadow play involving a grid of vertical bands. Combined with daylight, the dark tones and smooth plaster surfaces significantly emphasize the playfully modeled space, while the nurses room and doctor’s offices have been kept in light hues that do not distract visitors. The outer shell of the doctor’s office is clad in vertical steel bands that gradually fold down until they are flush with the smooth surface of the integrated door. The motif of a vertical grid is reiterated in the spa area, where each of the three main rooms is lined with clear glass bars. The choice of color defines the room’s purpose: the sauna is red (fire), the cryosauna blue (ice), and the air-flow room is gray (wind).

The sophisticated interior design of the Education Center at Prague’s Rudolfinum was assembled by architects Pavel Nový and Vít Svoboda of Studio 0,5 using a noble golden color that references the refinement of classical music and the handcrafted details of musical instruments. Their plans called for a rhythmically articulated space in which visitors pass through various rooms with a distinctive and unique atmosphere. The rooms’ connection creates a certain analogy to the rising and falling of music, and their diversity allows for undisturbed relaxation as well as a concentrated contemplation of music and the conveyed information. The architects have succeeded in creating a contemporary setting as an autonomous world that reflects the architecture of the building, its ties to the Czech Philharmonic, and – above all – the wonder of music. Their design reflects a contemporary view of the world of music and aims even further by using its aesthetic impact to draw all visitors into the program currently in progress.

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Mj Lk Architekti

Montessori Preschool

Unlike home, preschool is where we are alone for the first time, away from the security of the family, a place where we form independent relationships with “strangers,” often for the first time in our lives. This is the vision of Mjölk Architekti, who designed a two-story reinforced concrete annex to a Montessori preschool in Jablonec nad Nisou. The annex is connected to the school’s larger historic building, with which it contrasts in both form and material. It is a simple rectangular structure with several protruding portions, entirely clad in a stainless steel mesh. Inside, the building is vertically divided into a ground floor and three mezzanine levels, arranged around a staircase and a mirror, above which is a large skylight. On the mezzanines are spaces for the children to spend their time, each with a different shape and atmosphere offering different forms of stimulation.