The third edition of the Construction Hackathon, held on March 25–27, 2026, as part of the Architecture Festival and Building Fair Brno, has its winners. After 48 hours of intensive coding, modelling, and design work — all without a single printed drawing — the grand prize, a top-of-the-line Prusa CORE One 3D printer, was awarded to a team from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Brno University of Technology. The winning team consisted of Maximilian Szotkowski, Denisa Kazíková, Dagmar Sukopová, Vojtěch Kudláček, Kristýna Rotreklová and Ondřej Šlapák.

The aim of the Construction Hackathon, subtitled Hack the Building Without Drawings, was to encourage innovation in affordable and sustainable housing through modern design methods and digital tools.

Paperless Construction 

This year’s challenge focused on one of today’s most pressing issues: how to deliver affordable housing. The competing teams were asked to bring fresh ideas to the Czech construction industry and to approach a traditional field from a modern and open-minded perspective.

The Construction Hackathon is open to university teams from the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Each team may include up to six members, with a maximum of two doctoral students. All other participants must be enrolled in bachelor’s or master’s degree programmes.

This year’s brief, developed under the NCS 4.0 initiative, was ambitious: design an affordable housing building using prefabrication, with the entire process carried out in a fully digital environment. The main goal of construction without printed drawings is to reduce errors and provide clearer, more accessible information to everyone involved in the project.

Teamwork as the Key to Success

The Brno University of Technology team designed an apartment building and won by a wide margin. Their concept combined algorithmic optimisation with a highly effective division of roles within the team. The result was a digital twin linking BIM data with augmented reality directly to the construction process. Sustainability was also built into the proposal, including the recycling of building components at the end of the structure’s life cycle and low energy demands. At the same time, the team paid close attention to compliance with current building regulations and practical feasibility.

The winning team brought together students from several fields, including Building Construction, Construction Management, and Environmentally Advanced Buildings. “The format and quality of the final output clearly reflected the strength and diversity of the team’s composition. The project was well balanced and thoroughly supported across all evaluation criteria,” said Lukáš Daněk, a member of the jury and Chair of the Building Structures Section of the Czech Chamber of Authorized Engineers and Technicians.

48 hodin adrenalinu 

“A hackathon is about pressure, improvisation, and the ability to present a vision that works both technically and economically. These students showed that they are not afraid to rethink established approaches within just a few dozen hours. In their hands, modular construction is not about stacking boxes, but about making smart use of data. Their victory was well deserved,” said David Bečkovský, informal coach of the participating teams and one of the event organisers.

This year, the team from Brno University of Technology was mentored by KOMA Modular, a manufacturer of modular building systems known for promoting high structural and functional quality together with flexibility in design solutions. “I am delighted by the atmosphere of the competition and by the commitment shown by everyone involved. Our faculty has every reason to be proud of its students. They demonstrated not only a high level of expertise, but also the ability to work effectively as a team, even though most of them had barely known each other before the hackathon. The ability to come together quickly and search for solutions collaboratively is essential in today’s construction industry,” said Dean Karel Šuhajda of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, who followed the competition in person.

This victory confirmed that civil engineering students are innovators with the courage to reshape technological approaches across the construction sector. The jury particularly appreciated the team’s excellent collaboration and their ability to integrate advanced technologies into the real-world requirements of current building regulations.

Congratulations to the team from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Brno University of Technology, and thank you for representing the faculty so successfully!