Wettbewerblicher Dialog | 09/2026
SuperMost – SuperStudio – Creative Hub Most: Transformation of the Former Municipal Library (CZ)
11 
©Kuehn Malvezzi
1. Preis
Architektur
Landschaftsarchitektur
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Verfasser:
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Mitarbeitende:
Transsolar Energietechnik GmbH
Energieplanung
Erläuterungstext
SuperMost is continuing the story of the public library building by transforming its distinctive spaces into a school and arts centre that makes the most of their potential. A House in House is being created to harmoniously blend the old and the new: new façades are added to the courtyards and a multifunctional wall to the interior, relieving the restored existing facade of its thermal role and achieving a climate-responsive, naturally ventilated building arranged in concentric rings around the courtyards.
Opening up the base for public use and linking it to the park creates a fine-meshed connection between the building and its urban surroundings. This provides the city’s residents with meeting places that bridge the gap between indoors and outdoors, work and leisure, and art and everyday life without displacing existing uses, such as Ponte Records.
The Growing House embodies flexibility in the use of its spaces throughout the day and across the seasons, extending up to the roof, where a planted pergola shades the courtyards and a garden opens the ZUŠ towards the sky.
HOUSE IN HOUSE
The intervention follows a house-in-house principle. A new sculptural and mineral wall is inserted into the existing open-plan structure to form buffer spaces between the inside and the outside, negotiating climate and use. The buffer spaces act as inhabitable thresholds that work with seasonal differences rather than neutralising them, providing circulation, an informal extension, a seasonal room, and a spatial reserve.
The new interior envelope is a continuous shelf, taking the form of a thick, inhabited wall that integrates doors, windows and niches, as well as services, ventilation and acoustic layers. The existing façade becomes the outermost layer. It is treated panel by panel: the slender aluminium profiles are retained and restored where possible, and the double-glazed units are replaced with new high-performance glazing of an equivalent size and tone. Now that it is no longer the only thermal barrier, the existing façade is free to remain as it is.
The school programme is organised around the two courtyards, which act as the spatial and climatic cores of the house. Open to the sky, they bring daylight deep into the building and, acting as air wells, passively supply the classrooms with fresh, cool air in the warm seasons, without mechanical air-conditioning. In winter and summer, the building is compact and protected, while in moderate mid-seasons, it opens up and extends.
ZUŠ
SuperMost regenerates the former library as an institution for learning, art and collective production. The school programme operates as an independent and protected environment, spanning from the ground floor to the roof.
At its centre, the existing ramp leads to the ground-floor foyer with gathering zones and direct access to the courtyard. The three core departments (dance, visual arts and drama) are located on the ground floor, arranged like individual houses around a public square. They are directly accessible from the foyer, enabling them to be used for special events and by the public outside school hours.
The programme is organised vertically. The dance department occupies the ground floor with large column-free halls and direct access to the schoolyard. The drama department is located on the first floor, facing the south-east. The visual arts department comprising studios, a ceramic workshop, multimedia and audiovisual rooms, occupies the second upper floor, benefiting from its proximity to daylight. Artist residencies and the related cultural programme are situated on the first floor towards the double-height chandelier space, forming part of the school's everyday life.
The main entrance is located on the west façade via the existing ramp; the accessible entrance on the south side. Delivery and secondary access are at level −1 on the east façade, with a direct connection to the staircase.
GROWING
The former Most City Library is treated as a relational field to be curated, reassembling landscape, memory and novel uses. Time is a material to work with: like a landscape, the building is allowed to grow and change, to age and adapt over time, and to be appropriated and reappropriated.
The house-in-house principle applies this logic spatially. Each layer of the existing renovated façade, the new super wall, the courtyards, and the shed roof mediates between inside and outside, conditioned and unconditioned spaces, and the school and the city. The surrounding topography is drawn into the building via the ring of landscape, the loggia and the courtyards. On the roof, the living wall and bamboo pergola complete the arc.
The new super wall extends to the roof, where it continues as a living, vegetative frame. Rooted in a light, breathable perlite substrate and guided by bamboo, a natural canopy of climbing and growing plants provides optimal shading for the courtyards throughout the year: There are evergreen groundcovers such as periwinkle and creeping spindle; perennial climbers such as wisteria; annual climbers such as beans; fruiting climbers such as vines and kiwis; and climbers with autumn colours such as Virginia creeper. The roof accommodates a terrace for the school between the planted walls, and photovoltaics are integrated around the perimeter.
PUBLIC ACTIVATION
The loggia façade opens up towards the park to the north-east to activate the building with public functions. The colonnades receive public programmes that can be accessed independently during the day, in the evening and at weekends, and are not dependent on the ZUŠ. At the core, the existing hall will have a generous double-height entrance to invite the citizens of Most.
The studios and offices of Ponte Records are organised across levels −2 and −1 along the east façade, freeing up the western corner of the loggia for a spacious café. The creative hub is situated above the café on level −1, along the west façade, with a direct link to the public functions below. This allows Most’s creative community to work, produce and install in rental spaces without interfering with the school.
The building's public life is emphasised by a continuous ring of landscaping wrapping around the building with each side having its distinct character. To the north-east, the urban loggia opens the building up towards the park. To the west, pine gardens and water basins frame the school entrance. To the south, canopy trees provide shade and shelter. To the east, a tree grove creates an intimate retreat that connects the two schools.
BREATHING
The building is allowed to breathe with the seasons. In winter it draws inwards, while in spring and autumn, it opens out towards the roof, surroundings and park. The passive, layered climatic strategy involves the shed structure filtering sunlight and shading the interior; the courtyards driving cross-ventilation and stack cooling, and the super walls regulating humidity and temperature on a room-by-room basis. Mechanical systems only supplement where necessary.
Its future beauty lies in its ability to absorb life, learning, maintenance and gradual transformation continuously, rather than being completed once and for all. The programme model — comprising fixed school use, community tenancy, short-term rental and open public space — is designed to evolve within the stable framework of the existing structure. SuperMost starts a new chapter: a Growing House for Most.
Beurteilung durch das Preisgericht
The team has developed a strong and coherent house-within-a-house concept that convincingly unites the respectful treatment of the existing structure with an innovative programmatic and ecological approach. An “inhabited wall” encircles a compact inner core zone that wraps around the two courtyards. Between the existing façade and this new inner wall, a generous semi-conditioned space emerges – a buffer zone that not only provides access to the inner core but also accommodates different programs (exhibitions, recreation, informal meeting areas, creative corners, …). The materiality of the inhabited wall (clay, felt, wood), as well as its porous spatial condition (niches, openings), transforms the wall into a performative interface that enriches the quality of both the core and the buffer zone on multiple levels, including the regulation of acoustics and humidity. The house-within-a-house principle makes Supermost a breathing organism in dialogue with the changing climatic conditions of the seasons. In the context of Most, it establishes a promising ecological approach that could become a groundbreaking reactivation strategy for modernist heritage in the face of increasing climatic challenges. The organization of the functions is clearly structured: the existing ramp provides the main access, while the existing entrance level becomes a mediating central “square” with collective school programs (drama, dance studio, exhibition, gathering). The two upper levels accommodate the two schools, integrating the artist residences along the double-height gallery. The lower levels (the base) strongly improve the relationship to the adjacent park by introducing a café and a generous foyer. On the roof, an “educational” garden enriches the pedagogical spectrum of the school. The building is embedded in a landscape ring that manifests the project’s synergetic approach: the orchestrated encounter of architectural, landscape, and energy design impressively merges spatial and atmospheric values with programmatic challenges, demonstrating a high level of resource awareness. The indoor climate is managed through a passive, multi-level climate strategy. The pent roof filters sunlight and shades the interior, whilst the courtyards provide natural ventilation and a chimney effect; meanwhile, ‘superwalls’ regulate humidity and temperature in individual rooms. Mechanical systems are used only as a supplement where necessary. The commission finds this approach highly convincing and viable in terms of achieving optimal operating costs.
©Kuehn Malvezzi
©Kuehn Malvezzi
©Kuehn Malvezzi
©Kuehn Malvezzi
©Kuehn Malvezzi
©Kuehn Malvezzi
©Kuehn Malvezzi
Ensemble
©atelier le balto / Kuehn Malvezzi
Plan 1:1000
©atelier le balto / Kuehn Malvezzi
Roof
©atelier le balto / Kuehn Malvezzi