72. Printed architecture: On foot through the city

Vladimír's bookshop Serius and the PLAC association, with financial support from the Czech Architecture Foundation, cordially invite you to the 72nd lecture in the Printed Architecture series, which will take place on Wednesday 25 March at 6.30 pm.

As part of a special event dedicated to topics from the anthology Pěšky městem (Walking Through the City), the organisation Pěšky městem, which has long been working to improve conditions for pedestrians in Czech cities, will present its work. It focuses on planning and modifying public spaces to make them safe, clear and pleasant for everyday movement. A significant part of its work is devoted to the vicinity of schools, where it helps to introduce school streets and implements traffic modifications using the principles of tactical urbanism.

Every year in September, it organises a nationwide campaign called Walk to School, which motivates children and parents to be active and helps reduce traffic congestion in front of schools. Last year, 585 schools and nurseries from 371 municipalities across the Czech Republic took part in the event, and the challenge won the prestigious Mobility Action Award from the European Commission.

Since 2002, the organisation has been helping Prague schools improve the traffic situation in their neighbourhoods through the Safe Routes to School programme. This programme has already contributed to the transformation of more than a hundred locations at dozens of schools towards greater safety and the promotion of sustainable transport. Petra Syrová and Květoslav Syrový will visit Jablonec to explain how the organisation works.

Mgr. Petra Syrová

She graduated from the Faculty of Law at Charles University and subsequently worked in legal practice. After the birth of her first child, she began volunteering in initiatives that drew attention to the poor air quality in Prague and the city's barriers, especially for parents with prams or people with limited mobility or orientation. Her volunteering gradually grew into systematic work for the Prague Mothers association (now the Pěšky městem association), where she coordinated projects aimed at improving conditions for pedestrians and supporting safe routes to school for children. She is currently the chair of the Pěšky městem association. She is responsible for managing and representing the organisation, fundraising, impact monitoring and advocacy activities. Her work is based on the belief that cities should be places where residents can live healthy and happy lives. This includes a diverse range of transport options, with active and sustainable forms of mobility, such as walking or cycling, being the natural choice for shorter distances.

She pays special attention to children, for whom the urban environment is formative. She considers the opportunity to get to know their city through their own experience — on the way to school, while playing or meeting friends — to be key to the youngest generation developing a relationship with the place where they live and caring for it in the future.

Ing. Květoslav Syrový

As a member of multidisciplinary teams, he designs transport solutions for public spaces, parks and transport terminals. The basic principle of his studio is the approach: "Transport infrastructure is always only part of public space and landscape — not the other way around." He is the co-author of extensive territorial studies of large development sites, particularly in Prague (Komořany, Palmovka, Nové Dvory, Libuš, the Prague-North terminal in Letňany, etc.) and Liberec (Papírák), as well as detailed plans and implementations (public transport terminal in Mnichovo Hradiště, design of a pedestrian zone on Mariánské náměstí in Prague or the Hot Spring Colonnade in Karlovy Vary, Petrské předměstí in Planá, squares in Liběchov and Plzeň, etc.). Currently, paths are also being implemented in parks in Prague's Jižní Město, Jičín, and Ostrava-Poruba. For more than a year, he has been intensively involved in calming central Prague in his position as deputy chairman of the Transport and Public Space Commission of Prague 1, and since 2006 he has been a member of the Prague Cycling Commission. His favourite projects are Safe Routes to School and School Streets, in which he emphasises the safety of children near schools, preferably by calming or eliminating car traffic.