The Brno office of CHYBIK + KRISTOF (CHK) just completed a new scientific greenhouse project in its historic Czech Republic home city.

Mendel’s Greenhouse is an homage to the influential late-19th-century genetics biologist and takes its form from the namesake’s own drawings of the human hereditary system produced at St. Augustin Abbey, to which the then 22-year-old first came to reside in 1844.

Taking the resemblance of the site’s original greenhouse that served as a laboratory for Mendel until it was destroyed in the 1870s, the new glass and steel structure will serve as a permanent exhibition of his scientific legacy as it doubles as a new hub for community and social engagement for Brno’s population of nearly 400,000.

CHK emphasizes: “While the exemplary and highly complex design highlights local history and heritage, the Greenhouse concurrently becomes a brand-new public space for strengthening the local social dialogue, combining innovation with respect for the city’s heritage. Underlining the studio’s engagement in spatial transformations and adaptation of existing structures to fit contemporary times, CHK’s redesign of the historic greenhouse honors Mendel’s legacy while cultivating a new social dialogue to emerge in its community preserving a sense of belonging.”

The architects reiterate this social mission along with touting the structure’s ability to “fit seamlessly into the [site’s] existing urban fabric.”

Mendel’s theories are once again invoked in the steel structural support system whose nodes and diagrid pattern reference the three laws of inheritance first published in 1865. The roofline and orientation of the greenhouse also match the original 19th-century structure. CHK says, “This honorary addition to the greenhouse preserves the integrity of the scientific invention in a resourceful way, both functionally and aesthetically.”

A series of concealed heat pumps and natural ventilation systems that mirror the “regulative properties of a greenhouse” complete the sustainable design of the structure, once again offering itself as an environmentally-minded tribute to the advancement of sciences its sometimes mislabeled namesake dedicated his life's work towards.

“Although Mendel was stigmatized for his origin and faith by the political regimes of the past, our transformation immortalizes and celebrates the abbot’s substantial achievements to society as a reconciliation with the past ultimately cultivating a sense of belonging. The greenhouse revives the area as a beacon of unlikely harmonious bonds working in service of its community,” CHK co-founder Ondrej Chybik said finally.