The Czech town of Zlín is the site of a social, industrial and architectural experiment begun by Tomas Bata in 1894. However, his shoe-making factories that were once the town’s driving force no longer operate and so the social and commercial structure of the town and its suburbs are in decline. Responding to the New Local Manifesto a layer of facilities is laid over and interwoven into the residential neighbourhoods where seven housing typologies are afforded dual functions of work and domestic life such the House of Drink, where both production and consumption are combined.
The New Local Manifesto
Rethinking Fun
•Urban leisure is redefined by bringing small funscapes into the immediate loci such as pools, lakes, mountains and theatres.
New-life Patterns
•Local amenities allow repose to be constantly integrated with everyday working life, taken in small regular doses rather than concentrated holidays.
•This becomes an essential model for the future of carbon conservation.
Community
•The proximity of home and leisure reintroduces the social aspect of Ba?a co-employees and mass housing through neighbourhood synergy.
Pleasure and Inspire
•The new interactions for Zlín can become a model for the resurrection of a dying suburb.
•The suburb may be unable to sustain its future existence in a conservationist and fuel deficient world.
The Illustrated Landscape
•The function of the built form depicts the design as a narrative. The Moravian Mount spirals around the house to allow a procession path to accent and decent.
Bata's Suburbs
Plan 1:1000, House typology distribution plan
Plan 1:500, Landscape plan of the Letná suburb
1:50 Green House [Skleník] Greenhouse, allotments, cultivation
1:50 House of Drink [Hospoda] Distillery, house of consumption
1:50 Moravian Mount [Kopec] Exercise track and lookout pavilion
Model 1:200
