A setting that is prevalently neutral, with alternating points of colour in the lively tones of yellow and red, where the intensity of the natural light penetrating through the glass roof is enhanced by the internal façade, built using Seves’s glass blocks.
Lively colours and quality of light are the distinctive elements of the evocative project by Eva Jiřičná for the new University Centre in Zlín in the Czech Republic.
The building is structured around a covered central plaza delimited by two separate volumes, each composed of 4 storeys, with classrooms and facilities for the students and spaces for use by the teaching staff.
The first volume is built by subtraction, as it were, as a “void”, configuring itself as a gallery looking out over the public area below, whereas the second is characterized as a “solid”, identified by a continuous curvilinear façade consisting of Seves glass blocks with the format 19x19cm, interrupted by flat yellow and red glass panels.
Key opposing concepts for architecture, solid and void, concave and convex, light and shade, closure and transparency, are all balanced in this scheme, demonstrating how technology and aesthetics can harmonize in a single whole, providing different foreshortened views at each vantage point and visual attractions where reality and perception are confused, thanks to the multiple reflections produced by the glass roof on the façade and by the individual blocks and the coloured bands on the floor.

With a significant presence, to the tune of 12,000 units, Seves is once again showing its capacity to act as an active interlocutor in projects in every part of the world, thanks to its ramified structure, with an Head Office in Florence, 25 production plants (ten in Europe, eight in Asia and seven in the Americas) and a commercial network covering all the continents and over 120 countries.
The structuring of its catalogue into the product lines (Design, Technology and Basic), together with its “Tailor Made” service, enables it to respond precisely to architects’ specific demands, catering for various scales and types, from spa centres and buildings for shopping that stress unique characteristics to railway stations and community structures where there is also particular attention devoted to the technical requirements.

In this specific project, the architect used glass blocks belonging to the Technology Line and named 1919/10 30F (SHS), with wave glass design and transparent finishing. In this way, the need to respond to specific acoustic insulation requirements but above all to those of resistance to fire (obligatory requested by law in some public spaces) has been satisfied, while at the same time achieving the desired aesthetic effect, to endow the space with brightness, transparency and lightness.
The Technology Line, in particular, offers glass blocks in the catalogue with characteristics of resistance to fire that comply with protection levels equal to classes E*30 and E*60, (equivalent to a time of resistance of a panel to smoke and flames of 30 and 60 minutes respectively); the sub-family of glass blocks “resistant to fire” (available both for vertical and for horizontal structures) also offers higher resistance characteristics up to classes E*90 and E*120, corresponding to the values EI**60 and EI**90 respectively, therefore also allowing the structure to contain the transmission of heat for 60 and 90 minutes.

The Seves 1919/10 30F (SHS) blocks used by architect Eva Jiřičná have been installed on site with white tile joints to create large glass surfaces composing 4 longitudinal bands, corresponding to the various storeys of the building, where the structural element of the floor is emphasised with a decorative function. Large vertical red and yellow flat glass panels are then distributed irregularly to break up the continuity of the surface of glass blocks.

The result is an asymmetrical and dynamic façade, an attractive backdrop for the common central area, livened up by plants and seating to allow people to meet and socialise, where a large stairway stands out that leads to the basement floor. From the classrooms on the upper floors, the façade stands as a protective and filtering screen to calibrate the entry of light into the study areas, where red chairs and yellow partitions create a relaxing and pleasant atmosphere with a youthful and contemporary look.