Articles published by: Nickname

ADN BA have had the opportunity to insert small buildings in sensitive urban areas before, but that has usually happened in the garden districts in the north side of Bucharest. In this case, the context has an older history, being part of the extended historical centre, more eclectic (a mixture of buildings of all styles and sizes), but also rich in landmarks and symbolic spaces of the city.

In what follows we will talk about a example of reconditioning and re-use of an existing dwelling space. The importance of such a project cannot be stressed enough, no matter how much is written about the subject. We live in a highly built world which constantly presents us with the opportunity to reinvest buildings with the facilities necessary to contemporary generations, thus salvaging energy, resources, and a dash of memory.

On 27 July, during the 44th extended session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the Rosia Montana mining landscape was inscribed simultaneously on the World Heritage List and on the List of World Heritage in Danger. On this occasion, Sneška Quaedvlieg – Mihailovic, Secretary General of Europa Nostra, delivered a powerful statement, strongly applauding this decision and recalling the support of Europa Nostra to this campaign, also with the support of the European Investment Bank Institute, during the past decade. Europa Nostra is also preparing a congratulatory letter addressed to the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, who himself welcomed the inclusion of the mining landscape in these important lists.

Intro: Ștefan Ghenciulescu

This short dossier starts in fact before the introduction you are just reading. The opinion piece on rural space and the recent works of the Larix Studio closes the dossier on village architecture; it also includes a public space project, one of the most persecuted programs in a rural world that has to deal with underfunding, migration and abandonment, but also with individual interests and poor civic association.

Coordinators: Cătălina Frâncu, Ștefan Ghenciulescu

“The Countryside”. Introduction

The first lockdowns helped bloom the #cottagecore aesthetic. It is a trend born out of a wish for a simpler life, with low levels of stress, which would allow an easy connection to nature through activities like husbandry, gardening, picnics, etc. It’s also about nostalgia for good times passed, an imagery and aesthetic which stirs the spirits of a lot of people, from the radical left and minorities, to the ultra-traditional right

Editorial: 37 meters and 20 centimeters

Text: Mugur Grosu
Photo: Alexandru Oglindă

Six Frenchmen get off the plane and start following a bunch of football fans, thinking they will lead them to the stadium. They reach a pub in the old town where the others start drinking. A couple of beers later they realize that the supporters were not Hungarians but Ukrainians, and what they thought was Budapest was in fact another capital that had once dreamed itself to be Little Paris (…)

DOSIER: Rural

Intro:
The Countryside. Introduction

Coordinators: Cătălina Frâncu, Ştefan Ghenciulescu

The Piscu School Museum and Atelier Piscu experience

Text: Ştefan Ghenciulescu, Cosmin Pavel, Mihnea Simiraş
Photo: Laurian Ghiniţoiu & echipa proiectului

A place of discreet worth. A generous dream. A student project. And then a real one. The mu¬seum in Piscu village is the result of an individ¬ual initiative and of a good mix between work, teaching, heritage and a modern vision

Viila Cheia, Cluj County

Text: Paul Mihai Moldovan, Anamaria Moldovan
Photo: Ovidiu Micşa

The guest house acts simultaneously as steady object and element of the landscape, as mod¬ern construction and reinterpretation of archaic gestures and places.

The Wood House
Manopera Architecture: Housing, Ciurila, Cluj

Text: Raluca Sabău, Romeo Cuc
Photo: Eliza Jurca

The wood house project is proof of a vision claiming that new inter¬ventions in the rural environment can be contemporary and gen¬tle, too, and that they need to work with of today’s life, in the same way as old households used to an¬swer to the naturalness of life in their own time.

2/4 Concrete Houses
Manopera Architecture: Semi‑detached Houses, Târgu‑Mureş

Text; Romeo Cuc, Raluca Sabău
Photo: Eliza Jurca

Normalcy, symmetry, simplici¬ty, structural logic, and an honest materiality: the project tests the limits of clichés about dwelling at the edge of a city, and attempts to partially erase the strict lines between the public and the pri¬vate space, so that it can turn into “home” for 4 families.

Le Shack
DAAA: Extending the Extension to a Peasant House

Text: Simina Dron
Poto: Antonia Pruteanu, Raul Dan Ardelean

Saint Friday Cottage is the story of a place and of some people—a place in the countryside, close to the spectacular “Transfăgărășan” mountain road. Some good people retreat¬ed from Bucharest, to their inherited family house, sporting a porch and a garden. They refurbished and laid it out as a home for them and their 2 children, on the ground floor, and as guest accommodation, in the attic.
2020 scared away foreign tourists (which had been their bulk business) but triggered an avalanche of accom¬modation requests from Bucharest dwellers just com¬ing out of lockdown. As compared to all the previous years, when the season would end of its own accord with the clo¬sure of the Transfăgărășan, the need for fresh air and for a city break continued at the same pace even when the weather cooled down. It was thus necessary to create a separate space, where the guests could dine, protected from the wind, rain and cold (…)

The New Life of the Roşia Nouă Homestead

Project, Text & Photo: Loredana Gaiţă, Miodrag Stoianov

A traditional farm in Arad County, in the area around the MureșRiver, was transformed to re¬ceive groups of friends, sportspeople, scouts, and to host varied activities.

Ski Pavilion, Piricica/Piricske, Harghita
a‑platz

Text: a‑platz
Photo: a‑platz, Szigeti Vajk István (clădire), Antoine Séguin (machetă)

Located 10 km from Miercurea Ciuc, in the heart of the Harghita mountains, this project responds to a specific re¬quest: the design of a pavilion for families and children at the base of the ski slope.
Simplicity lies at the heart of the project. We im¬agined a pavilion that can be used all around the seasons, with a large porchon its whole perimeter, to be used in a free and spontaneous ways. (…)

The Wooden Church of Urşi Village
A Microhistory of Restoration within the Local Community (2009–2020)

Text Mirela Duculescu, Raluca Munteanu
Photo: Mihai Bodea, Camil Iamandescu, Thomas Laschon, Pro Patrimonio

Sixteen Oak Barn
HILBERINKBOSCH architecten: An Oak Extension of a Modular Traditional Farmhouse, Hilberinkbosch

Text: HILBERINKBOSCH architecten
Photo: René de Wit, Breda/Inga Powilleit, Haarlem

Traditionally, most farmhouses in the Meierij of Hertogen¬bosch, a former administrative realm or bailiwick, have their separate parts—living quarters, storage space and cow¬sheds—integrated into a single building. Over time, how¬ever, these compact buildings frequently would become too cramped to house all of these functions and a separate barn would be added. These were usually built from locally available materials and largely followed the structural pat¬tern of the farmhouses themselves.

In 2017 we were told that seven of the century old oak trees in our yard were in bad shape. They had to be cut down. Instead of following the usual path and selling the trees to the paper industry, we decided to reinstate an an¬cient tradition. And so, by replacing a collage of obsolete shelters and sheds, we would, in line with our farm’s mon¬umental character, build a new barn with locally harvested materials employing traditional techniques. Adding a cou¬ple of oak tree trunks we obtained from the nearby Wam¬berg estate, we had enough timber to construct the new barn from cut down trees. (…)

Have a Good Trip!

Text: Jakub Charousek, Roberta Curcă

The Czech Centre Bucharest started the Instagram project called Protect Public Space in 2017, back then under the lead of František Zachoval. In the beggining the project was very uncurated, mainly due to the fact that we were just getting to know Romania more and we were fascinated by all possible, more or less bizarre structures. One of the rem¬nants of these times is definitely Nr. 17 on the map, the ven¬tilation shaft of the Municipal Stadium from Pitesti. Never¬theless, we were also inspired and influenced by the Aliens and Herons project done by Pavel Karous, Czech sculptor and pedagogue.

The Aliens and Herons project maps plastic art in public areas which was made in the 70´s and the 80´s in Czechoslovakia, or how Karous calls it the „4% Art.“ At that time, Czechoslovakian legislation would oblige eve¬ry state funded contruction project to spend 1–4% of the budget on decorating and cultivating the public space around, therefore kindergartens, schools, hospitals, admin¬istrative buildings and large infrastructure projects such as bridges or highways would be surrounded by art.

Inspired by Aliens and Herons, we started to make our Pro¬tect Public Space project more cohesive and it was just a matter of time before we would transform the exclusive¬ly online Instagram project into something material as well. (…)

Rural (Sur)faces

Text: Köllő Miklós
Photo: Szigeti Vajk‑István, Lukács Géza

Köllő Miklós and his team (Larix Stido) are the authors of several works published in our mag¬azine. About all of of these works are in the Székler Country in Transylvania and most of them in the countryside. Miklós himself lives with his family in his ancestral home in Ciuma¬ni village. We asked him to write a bit about the rural and about architecture, but mostly about things outside architecture or, apparently, be¬yond architecture. Several small public projects accompany this text. (Zeppelin)

DOSSIER: Spații publice/public spaces
Intro

Text: DO ARCHITECTS
Photo: Norbert Tukaj, DO ARCHITECTS

This short dossier starts in fact before the introduction you are just reading. The opinion piece on rural space and the recent works of the Larix Studio closes the dossier on vil¬lage architecture; it also includes a public space project, one of the most persecuted programs in a rural world that has to deal with underfunding, migration and abandonment, but also with individual interests and poor civic association.
Unsurprisingly, the Romanian city deals with similar issues: public space is the hunting ground where we all clash to¬gether, a shapeless mass from which morsels are grabbed or abandoned. To this we add a type of urbanism that works mainly for individual private interests or for the pride and delusional fantasies of the city mayors, and what we get is the harsh reality of the Romanian cities.

A seemingly modest project, easy going but sensitive, such as the street transformed by Planwerk in Cluj, is for the time being an exception that we believe should become an urgent model of good practice.

We also have two international examples, with an impor¬tant theme and an equally relevant interpretation

Urbanizing the Non‑urban

DO ARCHITECTS: Ogmia City Public Space Conversion, Vilnius

Text: DO ARCHITECTS
Foto: Norbert Tukaj, DO ARCHITECTS

Ogmia City is a multifunctional complex located in the northern part of Vilnius Ogmia, evolving from an under‑utilized outlet center to fully fledged and fully integrated city quarter. This enormous 12‑hectare territory, located only a few kilometers from the centre of Vilnius, has until very recently been largely overlooked by locals and visitors alike—merely a destination for bargain‑hunters and homemakers—certainly not an attractive place to go and enjoy your leisure time.

The structural changes that have transformed Ogmia City area into an ‘open air’ shopping centre, were based on the principles of the formation of the historic city centre, where the streets are the highest quality public spaces. Here too, streets, squares, footpaths and parks together create a view of the city within a city. And like a city, territory is an endless work in progress—it will continue to grow and evolve organically.

The design ensures that a pedestrian‑friendly environment is prioritized, (…)

Molnar Piuariu Street, Cluj
planwerk

Text & Photo planwerk arhitectură şi urbanism

The figures below are usually present in our „Credits” sec¬tion. We showed them here because, as dry as they may seem, they do express quite well the purpose and the fun¬damental character of the project; total area: 4.000 sqm; pedestrian surface increase: +124%; road surface decrease: −55%; green area increase: +151%; planted trees: 48. The transformation from the usual and appalling state of Romanian public space to decency and urbanity is so profound, that you cannot speak just about some technical prowess, that would somehow precede architecture. Hwre, the technique actually means planning skills, spatial re thinking, economy of means, creative strategy. To which, of course, some design is added. (Ștefan Ghenciulescu)

Hills over Bikes
Cobe: Karen Blixen Plads, Copenhagen

Text: Cobe
Foto/Photo: Rasmus Hjortshøj – COAST

At more than 20,000 m2, Karen Blixens Plads is one of the largest public squares in Copenhagen. The project was supported by a generous donation from the private Danish foundation A.P. Møller Fonden. Situated between the Uni¬versity of Copenhagen and the Royal Danish Library at the university’s campus, the combined public square and uni¬versity plaza is designed as a carpet that covers an undulat¬ing terrain of small hills and breaks the large space up into smaller zones with room for activities both on and inside the hills. The three bicycle hills were created as cast concrete shells clad with

ZOOM

Between Street and Water

Text: Alina Măldărescu
Photo: Cosmin Dragomir

The context is pragmatic: in Voluntari, in an area with in¬tensive building, there is an elongated site, adjacent to the street and in direct connection with the water on the opposite side. The first gesture, however, consciously contradicts the temptation to place a long bar, perpendicular to the street. The project assumes its reinterpretation of the relationship that a construction has with the public space. To live, to travel, to do, to tinker; activities that involve in theory a spatial delimitation but that translate into the reality experienced through an unclear limit. Here is therefore the proposition of a placement on the lot that becomes a filter between the outside and the inside world. (…)

Not Your Usual Shop
Bogdan Ciocodeică: Lunet Eyewear Signature Store

Text: Bogdan Ciocodeică
Foto/Photo: Kinga Tomos

Opening a store—any kind of store—in this day and age it is still a brave endeavour. But for Lunet Eyewear this is in a way a natural evolution. They started in 2019 as an on¬line business, and, during the pandemic, they went for a hybrid relation with their clients: one could order for free models, try them at home (“Home Try On” is the actual name of the platform) and then purchase at will. Therefore, starting their first signature store is a logical development. The brief asked for a pleasant, merry and safe environment, encouraging friendly togetherness but also allowing for some privacy. (…)

Dodged House, Lisbon
BUREAU (Daniel Zamarbide) with Leopold Banchini Architects

Text; Bureau (Daniel Zamarbide)
Foto/Photo; Dylan Perrenoud

The crisis that hit Portugal ten years ago produced an in¬credible number of abandoned spaces. The two main cities, Porto and Lisbon, offered a landscape of ruins and shut down buildings that charmed an international community longing for southern romanticism. Ever since, the two cities have been taking action towards renewing their historical centers; all the effort led to the renovation of a fair quantity of the abandoned houses, probably also fueled by a sensitive and cultivated approach from Portuguese architects.

This landscape of shut buildings was made up by numerous opaque facades hiding the interiors as if their life disappeared or froze, waiting for better times to open their windows again and let sunshine in; streets with no windows, faces without eyes.

This particular situation evolved faster in Lisbon. The reconstruction of the city centre attracted an aggressive Airbnb economy, thus re creating a well known phenomenon that other cities in Europe had already gone through. The Air Bed & Breakfast also produces an Air Economy with implications and consequences that will fatally show in time. (…)

Plans

Text: Mugur Grosu
Photo: Alexandru Oglindă

Six Frenchmen get off the plane and start following a bunch of football fans, thinking they will lead them to the stadium. They reach a pub in the old town where the others start drinking. A couple of beers later they realize that the supporters were not Hungarians but Ukrainians, and what they thought was Budapest was in fact another capital that had once dreamed itself to be Little Paris, one of the hosts of this peculiar European Football Championship which has sent the fans on a fool’s errand through 11 European cities.

Delicate shifts of overall simple forms, archetypical elements and refined details give identity and human scale to both the cost-effective prisms in Wetzikon and the posh urban villa in Küsnacht.

The Centre for Electronic Industry (as the clients named it) or the Electra factory, as many call it, brings together manufacturing, office, technical and representation spaces, all harmonized within an assembly of three industrial halls. The altogether 11,000 sq. m. are built within the Miroslava Industrial Park in the Iași County, an area that will rapidly develop over the next years.

An articulation between the city and the Museum Island, between the water and the urban fabric, between the Neues Museum and the Pergamon Museum, between public space and the one for the culture, between tradition and today’s technology and culture.