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

On simplicity, luxury and the influence of biographical context on creative people

Edito: Dystopia is not (only) our fault

Text, photo: Ștefan Ghenciulescu

DOSSIER: „My house, our house”

Negotiating dwelings in times of crisis

Dossier coordinators: Ștefan Ghenciulescu, Cătălina Frâncu, Ilinca Pop

We don’t have enough housing. But we are also running out of land or money.

Of course, it is difficult to find any moment over the past 200 years when one could not speak of a habitation crisis: More intense or rather demure, localised following rapid development or disasters or a generalised one, the housing crisis has been with us all along. What seems to have disappeared, in stark contrast with the postwar period and the 1960s, is the State’s involvement in building housing. Of course, the massive boom has also brought along a host of mistakes and issues – ghettoization on public money, social and urbanistic catastrophes etc. But, over the last 50 years, the authority steps back, leaving a free reign to the more or less regulated market. The phenomenon can be sudden, as is the case of former Socialist countries, or more moderate and slower in the more developed countries.

No matter how much of an economic liberal and anti-public interventionism supporter you were, you’ll have to admit that the exponential increase of needs, the lack of quality for the majority of new developments, and also the climate crisis and the need to preserve some unbuilt territories are imposing a new urban contract. There’s a major need for an acceptance of regulations, a more democratic urbanism, a veritable and complex ecological thinking, accessibility, collaboration instead of unprofitable individualism etc. (…)

Brick social housing insulated with seaweed
08014 arquitectura: 24 apartments in Ibiza

Text: Cătălina Frâncu
Photo: Pol Viladoms

Social housing doesn’t have to be boring or look cheap. In some cases, social housing differs slightly from ‘for sale’ housing in its finishes — especially those built in the 80s and 90s, when the same shape was built with stone and exposed brick on one side and PVC on the other. Not the case here. Since starhitecture is questioned more widely than socialist circles as a waste of resources, social housing continues its rise as an area of experimentation and an example of good practice.

08014 arquitectura is building a semi-community block with 24 social housing units in Ibiza. The small dimensions and the efficiency of the spatial transition place the block between individual and collective housing, in a simple spatial gradation: the private apartments are contained in a clear structure, double-oriented around atria with a double function: air conditioning and lighting. The pathway to them is lit, generously sized and flexible enough to be appropriated with various shared functions.
The apartments are owned by the Balearic Government, which makes them available to those below a set income threshold, and the rental price is between €350 and €500 per month. (…)

PARIS. LIVING. 2023.

Text, photo: Ștefan Tuchilă

(…) Large urban centres in France, Paris especially, are areas where people are living their lives outside their homes. Paris, at least, has a nearly Mediterranean lifestyle, despite the fact that the weather has nothing to do with what happens far south. Besides other economic, cultural or social factors, this is the motivation that convinces Paris inhabitants to live in very tight confines (the average housing area is 58 m2, and the average useful area for one inhabitant is 25 m2), in Europe’s densest metropolis (somewhere around 21,000 inhabitants/km2).

The quarantine triggered by the Covid epidemic drastically changed priorities, and many have started to wonder about the few months spent under lockdown in their suffocating apartments, without access to the public space which usually worked as an extension of the private space. The exterior space (balcony, loggia, terrace) has become a priority, and this tendency was almost instantaneously translated into programs for new housings or the priorities of real estate agencies. At the moment, many of the standard programs for collective housing operations start from the presumption that all housings have an exterior space. (…)

The Building as a (Future) City
Bruther + Baukunst: Student housing and reversible carpark, Saclay Campus

Text: Cătălina Frâncu, Bruther
Photo: Bruther @ Maxime Delvaux; Bruther @ Filip Dujardin

The car has remade our cities and ourselves. As we cannot discard it completely right now, what if we could design its spaces so that they could in time become something else?

In the closer South of Paris lie smaller towns with specific communities, such as university campuses. There is still room for large-scale experiments there, such as this collaboration between Bruther (Stéphanie Bru and Alexandre Theriot) and the Belgian office Baukunst (Adrien Verschuere). The raw and heroic building is a contemporary take on the ideals and language of historic Brutalism, but also a reflection on order and diversity, domesticity and domestication of infrastructure. A smart and poetic way forward.

15 Heap Apartments inside of an Urban Island
HHF. Landskronhof in Basel, Switzerland

Text: HHF
Intro: Cătălina Frâncu
Photo: Laurian Ghinițoiu, Maris Mezulis

Landskronhof is the answer to Basel’s need for densification. Almost derelict, irrelevant urban areas (as more than parking spaces within the urban islands) are slowly becoming attractive for new construction. In the urban fabric, architects build an object that responds to the need for densification, illumination, gradual transition spaces and community. The community is understood in this instance as comprised of the inhabitants of the 15 apartments, but also the small animals and insects that can shelter in the surrounding vegetation. Remarkably, not a patch of lawn can be glimpsed in any of the photographs. I’ll explain, because at least in Romania, we are fighting a hard battle against this barren monoculture with which we stubbornly keep away bees, hedgehogs and other insects and animals that have the ability to increase our quality of life (or even save it): lawns are a status symbol; the English used them to show that they could afford to use a large lot of land for aesthetics and not for any kind of production — back then they were few and far between (lords and the like), but today, almost every backyard home has a lawn manicured with a gas mower. Meanwhile, tourists from England come to us to see the wildflowers, which they don’t have anymore.
It seems the new directions are becoming increasingly clear: terraces on low-rise high-density blocks with the potential to create green and biodiverse spaces on a human scale, a mound of people and plants in contrast to the concrete and PVC fortresses of the last century.

Density and delight
Shift architecture urbanism: Domūs Houthaven apartment complex, Amsterdam

Interview: Ștefan Ghenciulescu
Foto: René de Wit, Pim Top

How can more people still afford to live – and in a good way – in the city? This project shows one way to do this, from within the market, but in a responsible way. Ștefan Ghenciulescu talked to Oana Radeș and Harm Timmermans from Shift. There came up social trends and money, urban hybrids, real common spaces and the 21st century alcove bed.

Missed Opportunity: The National Housing Strategy 2022-2050
Why do architects need government strategies?

Text: Cătălina Frâncu, Teodora Vătavu, Liliana Oprea, Andreea Ghenu
Photo: Cătălina Frâncu

(…) The National Housing Strategy (NHS) has gigantic potential to influence future policy directions. Vienna, a city with more than 60% social housing stock, has succeeded in building a sustainable economic ecosystem in which every actor involved in housing development functions: from developers to architects and developers. The eligibility threshold for social housing is low enough for 75% of the city’s population to qualify, and the minimum requirement for a first application is to have lived in Vienna for 2 years. The regulations for the development of social housing require, among other things, that both the location and the finishings are similar to those for free-market housing — while maintaining both housing standards and the quality of the built environment. Spatial segregation on socio-economic grounds — one of the indicators of social stratification — is absent due to the homogeneous intermixing of social and open market housing throughout the city.
It would have been ideal for romanian Strategy to propose, in principle, a regulation similar to the one in Vienna, aimed at ensuring high and uniformly distributed architectural and urban planning standards both spatially and socially. (…)

The market is not the solution, but the cause of the housing crisis — some thoughts from Cluj

Text: Enikő Vincze
Photo: Căși Sociale ACUM și George Iulian Zamfir

(…) To describe very briefly the housing crisis in Cluj, it is to be mentioned that, between 2015-2019, 15,587 homes were completed in the city, all from private funds. No social housing was built by the municipality during this period. In 2015, the average price per square meter in Cluj-Napoca was 956 euros, and in 2019 it increased to 1590 euros/sqm. The increase continued in the following years, so that in May 2023 it reached 2450 euros/sqm. Between 2015-2019, the number of people living in the city with domicile (official address noted in ID cards) only increased by 3420. We can therefore ask, rhetorically, where the high demand for housing in the city of Cluj comes from, if not from those who settle here? Who can pay the ever-increasing housing prices (to rent or buy)? In parallel, an equally important question is why aren’t more applications for social housing? Why has the idea stuck, not only in the minds of real estate developers and public authorities, but also among the population entitled to social housing (with incomes below the national average and without owning a home), according to which the market must and can respond to the housing needs of people? Many people live in Cluj-Napoca on rent without having a lease agreement with the owners. According to some unofficial estimates, the percentage of private renters in the city is 15%. Many of them, not having their domicile registered in Cluj-Napoca, are not eligible for social housing. Moreover, more and more housing units are being completed and traded on the market in this city for investment purposes. Because the city is promoted as a location worth investing in, while more and more young people at the beginning of their careers or older people are forced to leave precisely because they do not have enough income to pay the high housing costs.

Housing vulnerability
……And something about Romania’s National Housing Agency

Text, photos: Anca Dumitrache

The term housing crisis defines a period of time during which affordable housing units become more and more scarce in proportion to the number of people needing them. This phenomenon is spread across many countries in the Western world, causing many people to be affected by housing vulnerability. In the United States people earning the minimum wage cannot afford the rent of a two-bedroom apartment in any of the 50 states, while only being able to afford a one-bedroom apartment in 7% of all counties (NLIHC, 2022). In Europe, the situation is more balanced, but the price of housing units is experiencing an upward movement. 8.3% of the EU population have housing expenses that exceed 40% of their monthly income (Eurostat, 2021). At a European level, Romania is one of the countries with a low degree of housing vulnerability (Eurostat, 2022), but with a high level of housing overcrowding: 41% of people live in overcrowded households (Eurostat, 2021).

“Predictability is the best thing you can offer.”
A conversation with Georgian Marcu about current Bucharest developments

Interview by Ilinca Pop

Georgian Marcu has been working in the residential segment of the Romanian real estate market for over 17 years, having an eye on the dynamics of developments “from the ground up”. He says the percentage of rejections in his profession is only surpassed by the performing arts: an agent is told “no” only slightly less often than an actor, which puts many in the position to give up quite quickly. Five years after the Romanian real estate market “coming of age”, we are faced with a post-pandemic change in housing culture, inflation, rising interest rates and blocked developments in the downtown area of Bucharest. However, the city continues to attract a consistent demand for housing. Do we have reason to be optimistic?

Scale-intersection urbanity
ADN BA. Marmura, infrastructure for community and dwelling

Text: Cătălina Frâncu
Photo: Vlad Pătru

Weaving an unstructured urban fabric is the cusp between architecture and urbanism. We know ADNBA best from the city centre, where they have been designing urban fillings, blocks of 20 apartments in coherent urban grids — but even their small scale projects take into consideration urban principles. In this case, however, they make a gesture that structures the urban scale. Near the intersection of Șoseaua Chitilei and Bulevardul Bucureștii Noi, remains an unscraped triangle from the Bazilescu allotment, between the many former factories in the area. Here stands Marmura Residence, an atypical development for Bucharest, but especially for the area, which morphologically echoes the 1960s blocks in the vicinity of the park.

Romania’s De-Citifying Transformations
Vasile Ernu interviews Sociologists Norbert Petrovici and Florin Poenaru

VE: The latest census has brought a multitude of new data, even new phenomena. One of these phenomena is showing us that our cities are decreasing. You wrote an analysis on Romania’s `de-citifying`. Where did you start this analysis, and how? In sociology, we have terms such as peri-urbanization or rurbanization. You have studied these phenomena. What is the difference between them and what you call `de-citifying`, and is this different from the urban ruralisation phenomenon?
NP/FP: The Preliminary data of the Census of Population and Housing (RPL 2021) in Romania is indeed showing the deepening of a phenomenon that started over a decade ago: the country’s peri-urbanization1. While the number of city inhabitants is decreasing (we are mainly concerned with county capitals), the number of inhabitants in their adjacent communes (and, in some cases, towns), is increasing. This is a country-wide phenomenon, but a few examples are paradigmatic, such as Bucharest’s peri-urban area, where the population has increased by over 150,000 inhabitants over the last 10 years. (…)

About (Middle Class) Living in Bucharest, Today
Ilinca Pop & Bogdan Iancu: In and Around the City. A Conversation

Bogdan Iancu is an anthropologist, lecturer at SNSPA (National University of Political Studies and Public Administration) and researcher in many projects focusing on cities and urban communities. Between 2015 and 2017 he was part of a research project on the material culture of the middle class in Romania, in which he specifically followed the locative (material culture, architecture) and spatial aspirations of middle-class representatives. We discussed what has changed since the project ended and why, who, where and how is gentrification produced in Bucharest and the perspectives from which the urban policies approved in Romania in 2022 could be viewed. (…)

Exoskeleton and lived-in courtyard
Attila Kim Architects: House with exposed concrete, Bucharest

Text: Ștefan Ghenciulescu
Photo: Vlad Pătru

We are in one of the former semi-rural areas in northern Bucharest, where most all old houses have made way for post-Socialist villas (especially since the 1990s). The new constructions, with a few exceptions, do not possess any architectural value. But they generally observe the model of the house with a yard, it’s true, a house with two levels, sometimes with an extra attic. The neighbourhood uglier, is more crammed and more chaotic than it used to be but, as there aren’t so many apartment buildings, there still is plenty of greenery, and the general scale remains decent and pleasant.
If you hurry by, you won’t even notice that the plot at 6, Dărmănești St. has received a permanent construction. Recessed from the street, with only one level and a sort of transparent gazebos on top, with exposed concrete facades and grey plastering, the house, built for a family of two parents and two children, is barely rises over the semi-transparent fence. (…)

The house that sings and The house that listens
Two houses and their stories

Projects, texts: DAAA

As an architect, there are many instances when you end up working for years on one and the same work. But it is not so often that you happen to resume, at a later moment, working on a place or finished job. It is the case of these small-scale densifications, both entailing something more than actual living.

Restoration without a drawing board
Rehabilitation and landscaping interventions on the homestead in Urluiești, Argeș

Photo: Raluca Munteanu, Horia Stănescu

A vernacular homestead, made, repaired, altered and adapted over time to the needs of its inhabitants: it is difficult to set on paper/screen and to design a proper project for it, according to current standards. It could be seen as a restoration, in the sense of returning the building to its moment of glory. Nevertheless, the project itself is in fact an extensive effort of repairing and harmonizing techniques, in order to correct the issues accumulated by improper alterations and uses.

Low-key order
Vinklu: The MDP House (Bisericani, Neamt County)

Text: Ștefan Păvăluță
Foto: Vlad Albu

This little house hides a host of surprises: a modulated plan over an implacable square grid, a succession of very different spaces, a dance between traditional, classical, and Modernist-inspired elements. The photographs show that total design is not amust, and that quality spaces can be inhabited nicely after the architect has left

5 x 2
cra-de.studio: TRSA HOUSE, Mogoșoaia

Text: Jean Craiu, Ada Demetriu
Photo: Sabin Prodan

The house in Mogoșoaia lies is in an average-density, mainly residential area, with low-rise individual houses. The rectangular plot, its short sides to the north and south, is situated between the Mogoșoaia forest and lake, neighbouring the sports complex of the same name.

ZOOM

Cities That Transform – Beirut after the Blast
VICEVERSA: En exhibition in the Basement of the Palace of Parliament, Bucharest

Text: Laurian Ghinițoiu, Dorin Ștefan Adam
Photo: Laurian Ghinițoiu

Cities are transforming at a rapid pace nowadays, but changes are never random. Factors of various historical, political, economic or social periods are influencing not just the built environment, but also our societies. The process can be a long-term one, carried out over hundreds of years or, on the contrary, instantaneous. Understanding the nuanced context and current memory is part of the effort of the “Orașe în transformare – Beirut după explozie” (Cities That Transform – Beirut after the Blast) project.

The Nursery.
1306 plants for Timisoara

Interviews: Ștefan Ghenciulescu

In 2023, Timisoara is a European Capital of Culture. The program is based on several components, one of which is the section Places relating to the city’s spaces – old and new, to urban regeneration and discussions about the city’s future. One of the main interventions of the European Capital program is the Nursery – a provisional tower located in the space with the greatest symbolic importance in Timisoara. The project due to a collaboration with the or5der of Romanian Architects – Timis Territorial Branch, is spectacular and has become one of the European Capital’s symbols. While it became an instant icon, it is not one of the strong, yet meaningless objects we see so often today, but an instrument for debate and urban transformation. I have talked about its purpose and importance, and also about the sometimes-harsh reactions it caused, with representatives of the team that made it possible: Cosmina Goagea (Timisoara 2023 curator – the “Places” Territory), Alexandra Trofin (OAR Timis), MAIO Architects, Barcelona), Alexandru Ciobotă, Raluca Rusu (Studio Peisaj, Timisoara).

PLANS

There’s an advertisement touring social media: a res­idential complex now under construction in Bucha­rest consisting in a taller, uglier, and more cramped precinct of blocks than those built in the last years of Ceaușescu’s time.

eematico was awarded first prize at the Civil Society Gala (Romania, 2022) in the Learning, Education and Research category for the project „Architecture Kit.”

The main objective of the northern extension of the Paris Métro Line 14 was to relieve the saturation of Line 13.

19-28 mai 2023 @ Romaero Băneasa din București

Prima ediție a târgului de artă MoBU – International Art Fair of Bucharest durează zece zile și prezintă galerii, spații conduse de artiști, grupuri de artiști și artiști individuali ca expozanți, în 40 de standuri dedicate artei contemporane.

Expoziție Ana Asavei Pietraru în cadrul programului Doar pictură #1
curatoare: Nona Șerbănescu
vernisaj: 19 mai 2023 ora 19:00
19 mai – 13 iunie 2023 @ ARTHUB Bucharest [Str. Gen. Constantin Budișteanu nr. 10 Sector 1 București]

The restoration history of the building with few apartments at 1, Sf. Ștefan square, Bucharest, and the remodelling and lay-out of its attic is, in itself, anything but spectacular.

Edito: Rehabilitation and Expansion. And Death.

Text, photo: Ștefan Ghenciulescu

DOSSIER: „Further. The Architecture Profession Transformed”

coordinators: Cătălina Frâncu, Ştefan Ghenciulescu, Ilinca Pop

25 Authors and Offices, 33 Works, 3 Types of Materials

First, we have project presentations. We have selected works that would best represent our topics, but which would also be examples of good and relevant urban architecture, which should lead to
new discussions. The other category consists of theoretical texts or interviews dedicated to specific topics – from inclusive architecture to urbanism and large‑scale projects, BIM, artificial intelligence for a profession whose aim is to create an artificial world. At last, we have experimented with a new format: pop‑up articles and interviews. They take up two (infrequently three) pages, as a sort of PechaKucha conferences: short texts by architects and images and legends for a representative project.
We have chosen very different types of practice and colleagues: young architects and multiple‑time award‑winning offices, small companies or ones with dozens of employees, activist architects or those drawing from “an architecture for architecture”, people in metropolises or in the countryside, in Romania and worldwide.

Radicality and Respect
BAILORULL. Refurbishing and Extending Two Houses Close to Barcelona

Intro: Ştefan Ghenciulescu
Text: BAILORULL

These two projects by the office led by Manuel Bailo and Rosa Rull propose neither the demolition, nor the discrete restoration or the fetishization of contrast. They become exemplary for a completely different type of approach, namely the powerful, yet considerate intervention on old buildings holding no protection status. However, the initial substance and initial values are not simply melted within the new projects: they become the primary layer and a generating element for a brave architecture, which responds to contemporary needs and expression.

• A New Hat foran Old House
  The Story of 5 Houses and 3 Pieces

• In between Houses
  The Place

Heritage – the Architecture of the Present
Ecology and Heritage

Text: Raluca Munteanu (Arhi-Mede Studio)
Photo: Raluca Munteanu, Andrei Mărgulescu

Raluca Munteanu designs passive houses and other ecological buildings, but she also works on restauration, regeneration programs and an activist for saving heritage. And, as she writes below, she sees all of this as parts of one and the same practice. (…)

The Last Generalists
Oana Bogdan: We Are Not Specialists, We Are in Fact the Last Generalists

Reporter: Ştefan Ghenciulescu

Until the end of 2022, the Romanian‑Belgian architect Oana Bogdan was operating Bogdan & Van Broeck with co‑founder Leo van Broeck. The award‑winning Brussels‑based practice reconfigured under the name &bogdan, which stands for cooperation and promotes the “follow me, I’m right behind you” type of leadership. Oana questions the architect’s traditional role, believing that the profession’s skills can be used to navigate the complexity of many areas of life. In 2016, she took on the role of Secretary of State for cultural heritage in a reformist Romanian Government. In 2021 she was appointed Chairwoman of the ‘Good Living’ Expert Committee in charge of the reform of Brussels Region’s building code.

Good Living
The Report of the Expert Committee for the Reformation of the Brussels Region’s Building Code

Text: Ştefan Ghenciulescu

The government of the Brussels‑Capital Region appointed, in 2021, a multidisciplinary expert
committee, chaired by Oana Bogdan. This committee had to redefine “the objectives and recommendations for the reform of the Building Code, seen as an instrument for the quality of life – ‘Good Living’.”

Complexity and Care
&bogdan: The Amal Amjahid Centre, Molenbeek‑Saint‑Jean

Text: Ştefan Ghenciulescu
Photo: Jeroen Verrecht, Laurian Ghiniţoiu

Late December on a canal embankment, in a rarely praised neighbourhood. The complex, named after an exceptional Brussels‑born sportswoman, does not shout its presence. However, upon entering, I have found a magical and complex world, welcoming athletes, toddlers, teenagers or simply neighbours who use its gallery as a shortcut.

For the Democratisation of Architecture
studioBASAR: Community Activation

Text: Alex Axinte, Cristi Borcan (studioBASAR)
Photo: Alex Axinte

The compass falls heavy into your hand when you stick it into the soft wood of the drawing board as you unhinge its top screw according to the radius you need. A commonplace working scene, a technical move, used in the handling of drawing utensils. Nevertheless, the gesture is neither autonomous, nor harmless. As long as designing draws manners of being in space for people, architecture is political. Even if the professional discourse has been struggling over time to paint architecture as a craft that is either politically or socially unengaged, the practice’s explicit or implicit complicity to the causes of contemporary global crisis becomes apparent.

When economical value, profit and consumerism become the main resorts of architecture and urbanism, looking the other way can be interpreted politically. There are also manners to resist this diminishing of the profession’s social responsibility. For the past few years, we have been witnessing a true movement reconsidering the social and political capacity of our practice to disrupt the hegemonic discourse of profit, privatisation, segregation and inequality and to re‑compose architecture on ethical, ecological, equitable and foundations. (…)

A Portrait of the Architects as Young People
Maria + Ştefan Cocioabă: Hipodrom neighborhood in Brăila (1965–1969)

Text: Cristian Bădescu, Vlad Dumitrescu
Photo: Marius Vasile, Vlad Dumitrescu, Cristian Bădescu, arhiva fam. Cocioabă

„I found a picture of Fane Cocioabă and your grandfather, my grandmother said, holding out an old photograph. It’s from college or afterwards, from the institute. I don’t remember.” The picture that my grandma was holding was showing Sterea Bădescu, my grandfather and his peer Ștefan Cocioabă, alongside a group of other young architects. We were looking for the photo as part of my research into the Hipodrom Housing District in Brăila. From its very beginnings the whole project was a strongly autobiographical one as the lush and winding Hipodrom is where I spent mos
of my childhood. Moreover, although it was the image of my grandfather hunched over a drawing board that inspired me to become an architect, I had never delved deeper into what the profession meant to him and his generation. Reconstructing the history of the Hipodrom District and the story of those who designed it, Ștefan and Maria Cocioabă, also reveals fragments of the history of the practice of architecture in Romania in the 60s. (…)

The City and Its Buildings
STARH

Florian Stanciu and Iulia Stanciu are managing the Starh office, one of the best known, most
awarded, and widely published architecture offices in our region. Their works vary from new houses and restorations, to housing complexes and, recently and in progress, to large-scale public buildings and spaces, won in contests. They are both teaching at the “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism of Bucharest.

The intervievs with the two partners were summarized in the texts below.

• Iulia Stanciu.
  Restoration in an Unfriendly System
• Florian Stanciu.
  The City as Architecture

CREDO.
Or on Tradinnovation

Köllő Miklós

Köllő Miklós lives in his home village of Ciumani (Harghita). He is the co-manager of the Larix office in Gheorgheni, with awarded projects ranging from minuscule chapels to gyms and museums,
from new constructions to restorations of monuments and peasant houses.

Soft‑Power Strategies: Reclaiming Continuous Dialogue
Eugen Pănescu

Reporter: Ilinca Pop

From 2002 to 2022, after his return from Hamburg, Eugen Pănescu contributed as founder, through the planwerk Romanian‑German office, to the transformation of urbanism practice in Romania, with award‑winning public strategies and projects for public and private clients in several towns in Transylvania. He taught at the Cluj School of Architecture and Urbanism. He is still searching,
as an independent planner and consultant, for responsible professional answers to urban issues, in
interdisciplinary cooperation.

Metapolis
Between Nature and Inhabited Environment

Text: Cristian Panaite, Mircea Munteanu

Metapolis is an office based in Brussels and Cluj/Bucharest, with award‑winning urban and landscape design, public space and architecture projects in Belgium, Romania, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Currently, the office includes Cristian Panaite, Mircea Munteanu, Diana Sava, Mihai Șom, Ștefan Mirică and Laura Dinu. Through our current practice we have found that in the human behavioral code there is a continuous tension betwee separating and protecting ourselves from the external environment and the desire—in fact the need—to integrate this environment. By building, we are responding to a human need, but at the same time we are often acting against nature.
Through our projects, which range from the scale of the architectural object to the urban and territorial scale, we seek to defuse this tension between the built environment and its surroundings and to initiate virtuous circles, proposing inclusive living environments in which different forms of existence share theurban area. (…)

Inclusive Design
AMAIS. Good Practices, Design as Adaptation of the Environment to People

Text: Teodor Călinoiu

This is the second episode of the talk with Iris Popescu about public space and inclusivity. In our previous issue, 167, The Inclusive City, we spoke with Iris about exclusion through built space and the role of architecture in addressing it in the wider context of concerted efforts towards social inclusion. Iris is an architect specialising in accessibility and inclusive design with a PhD from the University of Architecture and Urbanism “Ion Mincu” in Bucharest, and founder of the Association of Alternative Methods of Social Integration (AMAIS) with a mission to create a more inclusive society through the morphol ogy of space, for those with permanent or temporary disabilities and beyond. AMAIS is currently working on the first Romanian guide of inclusive design, which we look forward to later this year.

DeafSpace. A Systemic Approach to Inclusivity
Hansel Bauman: Five Focus Points for Designing a More Inclusive Environment

Reporter: Cătălina Frâncu

Hansel Bauman founded the DeafSpace Project in 2006 together with ASL Deaf Studies Department at Gallaudet University, where he served as Executive Director of Campus Design and Planning and adjunct faculty for ten years. He has been developing architecture projects as a consultant on deaf‑inclusive design in academic, residential and civic buildings. Bauman’s international work is permanently informed by its intended end‑users, who are often part of the design process, in a bottom‑up approach to architecture. Since 2006 he has served as a design consultant on a range of projects serving the deaf community including the Rocky Mountain Deaf School, DeafHope, a transitional housing community for abused deaf women and Deaf Village, Ireland. While at Gallaudet University, he has overseen the development of the 2022 Campus Plan, the design and construction of the university’s newest student residence hall and consulted on the design vision for the redevelopment of the 6th Street corridor adjacent the Gallaudet campus.

House with a Steep Learning Curve
No So: MAC House

Text: Cătălina Frâncu in conversation with Rion Philbin
Photo: Stefano Calgaro | Rion Philb

“Spaces that are too inclusive, become exclusive” Rion tells me, well aware that he utters a controversial stance. After a pause, he elaborates: “In the States we have strict regulations about what is needed in design in order to appropriately cater for particular disabilities; respecting them without a thought turns the space into something quite arid.” We turn to Casa MAC and what he means becomes apparent in his own work: regulations are there for a reason and should be respected, but they should be processed and integrated by design. Adaptations of the environment for different needs should not mean public policy and regulations directly added onto architecture, like an additional limb that seems to come from another body; they should be designed, just like everyday objects that become subject to such wide variety of forms like chairs, tables, and kitchen cabinets.

Kashiwa Sato, Yoshihiro Saito
Landmark Toilet, Ebisu Station, Tokyo

Text: Cătălina Frâncu, Kashiwa Sato
Foto: Satoshi Nagare

A network of famous designers and architects came together with the occasion of the next Wim Wenders movie, which is to be filmed in Shibuya, Tokyo. They designed nothing else but 17 toilets for one of the most populated cities of the world. This is one of them, in which accessibility, urbanity and spectacular design come together in a spectacular way.

Initiators of Community Building
Helen & Hard (H&H): Vindmøllebakken Co‑Housing Project, Stavanger

Intro: Ilinca Pop
Text: Helen & Hard
Photo: Jiri Havran, Sindre Ellingsen, Minna Soujoki

Not long ago, a strong backlash was triggered by the public enunciation of an idea which still seems difficult to accept: in order to provide affordable housing and quality common spaces, the private sphere must take a step back towards the collective good. We may blame the memory of regional politics of the last century for the concerns provoking negative reactions, but the economic and social reality refutes this handy resort—the private interest is not a counter to a historical fact, rather it is a defence of the current disastrous consequences of unequal growth. Private market mechanisms dictate who is entitled to decent housing and who is not, and sometimes in which ways we may enjoy public spaces depending on the interests around which they are negotiated. Social inequity—translated into materially and spatially embodied inequality in our cities – should not be a cultivated condition of the desire to protect individual interests, as they are in fact, upon closerscrutiny, common interests: collective well‑being protects individual well‑being.

This is also the philosophy behind the Gaining by Sharing model proposed by the Norwegian office Helen & Hard (H&H), which was implemented throughthe Vindmøllebakken pilot project. The model not onlyrefers to a co‑housing formula as a type of architectural programme, but also to a model of collaboration between an architect‑entrepreneur in the role of an intermediary or community facilitator and the direct beneficiaries of the project

Public Space as a Generator of Social and Economic Well‑Being
Esenghiul Abdul

Reporter: Ilinca Pop

Esenghiul Abdul is a practicing architect and urban designer, and, since 2017, a partner in ADN-
BA, where she has been working on variou large scale residential projects and office develop ments. She has previously worked as an urban designer in Space Syntax Ltd. in Bucharest and London, focusing in the development of the public realm as a catalyst for social and economic well‑being. Before joining ADNBA, she has been a partner in Beros Abdul Studio. Esenghiul graduated in 2003 from the „Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism and in 2005 she finished the MSc in Advanced Architectural Studies at The Bartlett, UCL where she has acted as an honorary assistant in UCL’s Faculty of Built Environment for a couple of years.

Alt.Corp.
Alternative Corporation

Text: Andrei Theodor Ioniţă
Photo: Alt.Corp.

Alt. Corp. was founded in 2018 at the initiative of architects Cosmin O. Gălăţianu, Cristian Beşliu,
Octavian Bîrsan, Cosmin Georgescu and Andrei Theodor Ioniţă. They ironically claim the title of
an architectural band, a formation as spontaneous as the themes and concerns that describe their
practice, having as their main motivation the ability of the design process to become an unsuspected
research tool.

Technology, Innovation and Integrated Workflows
Ștefan Constantinescu

Reporter: Ilinca Pop

Ştefan Constantinescu is an architect and BIM Manager. In 2016 he co‑founded the BIMTECH association, and in 2017 he opened the design and technology practice BIT Arhitectura. Since 2022 he is lecturer of BIM courses at the Bucharest branch of the Oroder of Romanian Architects and president of buildingSMART Romania chapter.

Architecture, Dreams & Robots

Text: Cristian Alexandru Beşliu

Humankind’s propensity for exacerbating the artificial dimension of the world has never and will never follow a linear path, but rather a discontinuous one, marked by unexpected pivotal points. The path of technological progress has always been in a state of tension, affected either by feelings of fascination and admiration or by more or less justified fears—or even violent aversions. In this light, history seems to have been set in motion by a succession of such diametrically opposed attitudes—the very engine of civilization. As part of the ongoing transformation of the world, architecture has also been under the authority of the same giddy oscillations between technophilia and technophobia.

ZOOM

Design for Opposites
One Method and Two Projects

Intro: Ştefan Ghenciulescu
Texte: Justin Baroncea
Foto: Andrei Mărgulescu

Every place deserves design. And design can be achieved everywhere, if you think in terms of needs, efficency, architectural space and comfort and not decoration. This is proven quite well by these two projects of Justin Baroncea and his team. Their functions could not be more different: VIÉ is a top restaurant, Anvelope.ro a tire changing shop. Neither budgets, nor equipemnts are to be compared. Yet both places move, cpombine hard grids and soft materials, are (also) shaped according to narratives.

Plans