Quality of architectonic space is essential for our mental, social and physical health, serving as a constant source of strong influence – sometimes supporting and inspiring, other times oppressing and dulling. With silent contemplation we may realize there are principles which “enliven” this space. Architectonic space, like all other animate and inanimate things, exhibits a certain degree of its own analogy of vitality (animateness) which reflects in our mental, social and physical health.

This paper deals with the reconstruction of the historical building of the cinema “Varšava” in Liberec, Czech Republic. The building designed and built in the 1920s by the german Liberec architects Effenberger and Noppes is both valuable architectural and constructional monument. However, it has suffered from faulty partial reconstructions done during the 20^th century and during 8 years of closure of the building in 2008. For salvation of the building, a a new civic association “Save kino Varšava” was established in 2012. Now, it tries to halt further decay of the valuable monument at start a process which would convert the old cinema to a modern multifuctional hall of the 21^th century in the future. Recently, the foyer is reconstructed and minor reconstructions in the hall are taking place. This paper deals mostly with restoration of the original ventilation system and dry rot fungus treatment.

Currently there are changes in our legislation in order to increase the energy efficiency of heating. Opinions differ on the effect of accepted changes. While some expect significant savings on heat, others, and I am one of them, draw attention to the absurdity of the whole project.

The article deals with one of the essential documentation for the operation of buildings, and as-built documentation. The aim of this paper is to present documentation as a basis for further development of operational documentation, and contributes to each well to that used and operated building. The article presents possibilities for the documentation used in practice and how to deal with it during the life cycle of the building. The article also lists ways of processing and updates.

Loggias and balconies are external structures designed for recreation and other activities, which increase the value and the surface of the property. They are positioned as part of the cladding of the building. Actually, these structures are perhaps the most exposed components of a building's cladding, and for this reason, the most degraded. This is why the repairing of these structures should certainly be included in any comprehensive renovation of a building, even though it might not have any financial effect for the owners and tenants, unlike, for example, changing fillings or additional insulation.

Railings are a safety feature in buildings. They should prevent the fall of people. Their requirements are not only architectural and aesthetic, but also of mechanical resistance and stability. The current designs for the construction of railings include their anchoring to adjacent structures, which have the same requirements as the very structure of the railings. The tests on heat pumps are connected to an article on the tests of solar collectors. The basic operating principles of a heat pump is that it gathers heat from the surrounding environment and then transfers it to a higher temperature level and supplies to according the whether it will be used for heating or hot water. The advantage over collectors is that it works even if the sun is not shining.

In the first part of the article were presented general fire protection requirements for External Thermo Insulation Composite Systems (ETICS), for new buildings and existing buildings. The second part will focus on atypical modification due to fire protection of the facade with combustible thermo insulating material, as well as the latest changes in legislation of fire protection and another context.

This article aims to introduce methods and tools to assess the costs during the operational phase of the life cycle of buildings. Determining the life cycle cost of buildings is an important part of every construction project and a preliminary determination of costs in the operational phase life cycle contributes to the sustainability of future building.

ETICS for buildings is a key modification to reduce their energy consumption. Where and under what conditions it is still possible to use flammable thermal insulator, or with such modifications and where it is already necessary nonflammable insulator? Fire standards define different requirements for thermal insulation of new buildings from the requirements for additional insulation of older existing buildings for which they are allowed a certain structural exceptions.

Prague building regulations currently represent debated and controversial topic among both professionals and the public. This is a new concept of law to which they are greatly implemented basic knowledge of urban theory and practice. The article summarizes the basic principles of the new regulation in the field of territorial requirements.

The owners of houses in the Czech Republic, in which many flats share common central heating system, must fulfill new legal liability: “to equip the heating system in the building with the devices that regulate and register the delivery of heat to the end users, in the extent defined in an implementary regulation”. According to the law, they have to do so by end of year 2014. The problems are that neither the devices are further specified in the law, nor the implementary regulation exists. The most frequent hypothesis about this duty is that one should install the so-called indicators of heating expenses. It might be valid, but it goes far beyond the legal requirements: As a side effect, it introduces certain method of the expenses accounting. This article presents and justifies an alternative: The liability can be fulfilled by installation of thermostatic valves on the heating bodies.

Which buildings can receive grants from the Green Savings Programme, amount of the grants and what technical details cover the energy audit? Part A in this article covers the specific questions (building’s envelope rennovation). A sample of 16 family houses that comply with all the required conditions of the New Green Saving Programme from 2013 is further described in this article.

Roof construction with mechanically anchored waterproofing sheets rightfully belongs to the most popular solution of roof structure not only in the industrial but also civil and residential construction. This is because of the speed of construction, small depending on weather conditions and often lower financial cost. But vera often there are lot of mistakes in this part of construction design.

The media regularly appear alarming reports, according to the Czech Republic gets into trouble with the fulfillment of its obligations towards the EU, due to the lack of state financial support. This information is frequently based on calculations originating from the potential recipient of government subsidies, so we cannot rule out that this is about wishful thinking. One of the sectors where we reportedly threatened is the reduction of energy demands.

During the reconstruction works of residential houses the associations of housing unit owners have to make decisions according to their financial means. It often arises a situation when windows are changed and facades of residential floors are insulated by a thermal insulation. Skirting part of the building and the roof is often in seclusion interests. Subsequent roof insulation therefore brings a number of design and implementation issues. This paper describes the necessary structural modifications of the existing double-deck roof structure (i. e. cold deck roof) to single-deck flat roof (i. e. warm deck roof) and increased financial costs caused by successive structural modifications made without consideration of the follow-up.

Currently, we increasingly need to carry out construction modifications on objects which in view of their age could be basically considered as new-build buildings at which we did not expect such a requirement. In most cases these construction modifications are caused by failures or defects of roofs, especially operation roofs – terraces. The cause of failure is often a combination of several factors. The primary source of error may be already a design project and roofing solution and quality of realization of each roof layer and roof details or unsuitable climatic conditions during the implementation. A separate issue could be the problem of the poor quality of used materials. By interaction of these negative effects then surprisingly arise failures at objects which were realized a few years ago.

The contribution deals with particular causes of excessive damp of wooden constructions in objects of the civil engineering. It concerns for instance the matter of water condensation on the surface of wooden elements and on the inside of constructions that contain wooden elements, of incorrect construction design, of constructions with wooden elements and leaking water in places wth wooden elements.

Failures occurring on the facades of assembly houses often arise due to volume changes sunlit walls and incorrectly made contact details between panels. Sometimes it is not enough to eliminate them or repeated repair of damaged joints. Therefore is no choice of other solution than to overlap these joints with thermal insulation system. One such case is the subject of this paper.

By flat roof reconstruction of panel apartment houses we meet quirements for hygiene, health, inerior environment, thermal protection and energy consuption. This paper deal with these problems. There are also mentioned actual conditions of flat roofs and principles of their reconstruction. Moreover paper contains example of wrong reconstruction of panel house.