The dissertation explores the history and activities of the Brno-located Town and Country Planning Department of The Research Institute for Building and Architecture (RIBA) since its foundation in 1954 until its abolishment in 1994. As a part of the department functioning, a description of its main research tasks and publications, which had played an essential part while formulating theory and methodology of urban planning after the 2nd World War in Czechoslovakia, are introduced. Special attention is paid to tasks and publications whose authors and research workers applied interdisciplinary approaches and – in spite of the prevailing totalitarian regime – managed to apply their experience acquired abroad to produce highly influential works such as The Principles and Rules of Spatial Planning. Another objective of the dissertation is the creation of a complex bibliography of texts that were produced by the department (books, reports on the outcomes of research tasks that had been explored at the Town and Country Planning Department and that were released internally as handbooks serving research workers of the institute and other institutions focusing on building and architecture). Depictions of the Brno department of RIBA from the perspective of two of its significant representatives who have outlived the institution they had witnessed to be founded and to the functioning of which they had significantly contributed, become a key part of the text: Ing. arch. Vladimír Matoušek, CSc., the second head of the Town and Country Planning Department of RIBA and Ing. arch. Dušan Riedl, CSc., a theoretician of architecture and urban planning and a top expert on Czech national herritage. As the topic has not yet been subjected to scholarly research, the main objective of the work is to create the very first complex text on the Brno department of RIBA and its activities. The circumstances surrounding the constitution of RIBA in the context of other similarly functioning research institutes are pursued with a special focus on the fields of building, architecture and urban planning as well as legislative embedding of its foundation and functioning, its organization structure, staff, definition of taskmasters and the way the tasks were approached, relations to other institutions in the field, publishing activities and transfer of theoretical research outcomes to practice. The text also deals with the state of present-day research of architecture and urban planning. Archive material and publications released by the institute represent a predominant source of information about RIBA activities. They are now stored at the archive of ABF Foundation in Prague (the foundation has been administering both the archive and library of the Prague department of RIBA since its abolishment), at the library of The Institute for Spatial Development in Brno (the institute administers the library of the former Brno department) and at the Moravian Land Archive in Brno. Both of the archives have been thoroughly researched by the author. Critical reflections upon the urban-planning department of RIBA occurring in contemporary publications and periodicals are another important source of information which help to specify the character of its activities (recent literature mentions RIBA scarcely, a complex evaluation is still missing). Oral history reported by former employees of RIBA, who had contributed to the first-rate quality of its research activities.

The goal of the thesis is firstly to get all the information about the initial state of solved block of flats, which is located on the street Merhautova 76/954 in Brno – Černá pole, in terms of constructions, energy consumption and initial state of heating system. In the second part of the thesis, where are discussed the possibilities of reduction of energy consumption, variant drafts of reduction of energy consumption and their financial costs and the choice of optimal variant. Third part deals with assement of solved block of flats in terms of sustainable built environment by using tool to rate buildings in terms of sustainable built environment - SBToolCZ, evaluation of possibility to use renewables. In the end are written summaries and recommendations.