OSTRAVA STEPS INTO UNCERTAIN TIMES WITH A CLEAR VISION OF ITS SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT

It will serve as decision-making basis for politicians, officials, designers or developers. The spatial development vision works with as much information as can currently be obtained about the city. This will ensure that its future development is not based on unrealistic plans, but on long-term and sustainable principles. A number of experts from various professions participated in its creation.

The Vision of Ostrava’s Spatial Development follows up on the Strategic Plan of Ostrava’s Development, it develops its priorities and strategic objectives and places them to the city space. The Vision is based on data and information. According to urban planners from the City Spatial Planning and Architecture Studio (MAPPA), the first step is to get familiar with the city, understand it, and find out where its strengths and weaknesses are. Therefore, the City Studio collected, analysed and processed all available data about Ostrava for almost a year. Both historical and current data were provided by a number of institutions from various fields. These data have now become the basis for a continuously updated and supplemented database with which MAPPA will work. The Vision of Ostrava’s Spatial Development is a tool for the city management to rely on when deciding on the direction of investments, awarding projects, preparing architectural competitions, regulating private construction and the like.

“Cities are always carefully considering what to invest in. The economic crisis is only exacerbating the need for prudence. In order to spend money as efficiently as possible, it is necessary to have a good plan and the right basis for decision-making. Ostrava already has a plan for its development, and it knows its priorities. Thanks to the Vision of Ostrava’s Spatial Development, it now also has a tool that will help evaluate specific plans in practice and, if necessary, direct them so that they have the greatest possible impact for the city. We will be able to answer questions about which locations and which projects to target as a priority,” said the Deputy Mayor Zuzana Bajgarová.

Ondřej Vysloužil, director of the MAPPA city studio, also commented on the Vision: “We have created a tool that will effectively help us in the development of Ostrava. As an example, we know where Ostrava’s unused or non-functional areas are. Based on the data and the whole methodology, we can look at a specific place and analyse its needs and underlying influences. We will have substantiated arguments for recommending which plans would be appropriate to implement there and which, on the contrary, could be harmful.”

The City Studio presents the Vision to the public in the form of an exhibition. The exhibition consists of twelve large-format canvases and accompanying illustrations that show selected data about the city, the way to work with them, and the principles for Ostrava’s development which follow from the data and make the city vital, habitable and sustainable. Due to the current restrictions related to the coronavirus epidemic, the exhibition will be gradually presented online via short videos, which will be published on the MAPPA’s Facebook profile.

“Ostrava has a number of qualities that we wanted to draw attention to. From the point of view of transport, it is, for example, the easy access to expressways for almost all inhabitants. Other cities do not offer such a luxury. Another example can be seen in the city’s nature. We have an unusually varied mosaic of naturally valuable places, which is made up of both pieces of original nature and places that were created by human activity. However, the exhibition primarily aims to show the basic principles that Ostrava should follow in its further construction development. This is the only way to protect the values we have here and make full use of the possibilities they offer,” added Ondřej Vysloužil.

Pavel Řihák, architect and urban planner of the MAPPA City Studio, followed up: “There is one main principle that ties all twelve canvases together – the need to direct investments inside the current built-up area, instead of expanding the city into the landscape. This will lead to the creation of a compact city, more intensive use of internal spatial reserves, removal of barriers, improved use of brownfields and reduction of urban sealing. It will enable Ostrava to grow and at the same time preserve its accessible and high-quality nature.”

The Vision of Ostrava’s Spatial Development is not a closed document. The city is a pulsating organism and all its parts are interconnected and transforming. And as the city does exactly that, the Vision’s topics will become more precise. It will be complemented by growing knowledge and it will respond to new challenges the city will face.

The City Spatial Planning and Architecture Studio is a contributory organisation of the City of Ostrava. It was established on 1 July 2019 and it has been headed by its director Ondřej Vysloužil since October of that very year. It is Ostrava’s main conceptual workplace in the field of architecture, urban planning and city design. One of the Studio’s first tasks was to create the Vision of Ostrava’s Spatial Development.