Edito: Do the Poor and the Middle-Class Still Have Room in the City?

Text: Ştefan Ghenciulescu

[…] I would like to be very clear here: cities have always been territories of inequality. Starting with ones a few thousand years ago and going through absolutely every type of historical society, political regime, etc., in any city there were, at some point, rich inhabitants, as well as ones of average wealth or poor, to varying degrees and proportions; and, of course, “good” and “bad” areas.

But we are now witnessing an emptying of cities of their poorer population, and their progressive transformation, from centre towards the outskirts, into territories where there is less and less dwelling, as fewer and fewer can afford it. We are starting to no longer have neighbourhoods of people with more modest income, but cities without such a permanent population. […]

DOSSIER: INCLUSIVE CITY

Coordinators: Cătălina Frâncu, Ilinca Pop

Intro: City, The Land of Promise
Text: Cătălina Frâncu

The city has existed from the beginning as a progressive economic centre, always in contrast to the frozen, ”regressive” and traditional countryside. After the Industrial Revolution, the city became the nucleus of economic growth, turning into a platform for development for all who left the countryside behind in the hope of a job (in a factory) and modern housing (in a tenement). But the city has always ”welcomed” its immigrants in well-prepared places, far from its “rightful” inhabitants, often transforming itself from the land of promise into the land of need. In the illusion that the possibilities are infinite, the city shapes its continuous need for growth and manufactures new obstacles in the journey of overcoming its own condition. […]

Intervening in a Fragile Place
Benga Riverside Housing and School, Tete, Mozambique

Project & text: Kéré Architecture, Diébédo Francis Kéré
Intro: Cătălina Frâncu

Atelier Ad Hoc: substandardPLUS or Redefining a Limit
A Social Infrastructure Project

Project, text & photo: Maria Daria Oancea, George Marinescu

The Open City
A Conversation with Doina Petrescu

Reporter: Cătălina Frâncu
Photo & drawings: Atelier d’Architecture Autogéré

Inclusive Architecture
AMAIS—Case Study on Inclusive Design

Text: Teodor Călinoiu, Cătălina Frâncu

The ‘Woman Architect’ in the Communist Period

Text: Ilinca Pop

Two Houses: 1925, 1926
Eileen Gray & Henriette Delavrancea-Gibory

Text: Ilinca Pop

UMT
A Project by María Luisa Blanco and Lluís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco

Text: Lluís Alexandre Casanovas Blanco
Photo: Pol Rebaque

An Aesthetic Reading of the Inclusive City

Text: Daniela Calciu, Ilinca Pop & Cătălina Frâncu

War of Streets and Houses
Sophie Yanow

Review: Cătălina Frâncu

ZOOM

Urban Mode
ADN BA: Tandem Office Building, Bucharest

Text: Ștefan Ghenciulescu
Foto: Vlad Pătru, Ștefan Tuchilă

Mass, Cut-outs, Collage
ADN BA: Apartment complex, Sfinţii Voievozi St., Bucharest

Text: Ștefan Ghenciulescu
Foto: Vlad Pătru, Sabin Prodan

Vinklu: Comun Café, Timișoara, Romania—2022

Text: Ștefan Păvăluţă
Photo: ADMO Studio (Ovidiu Micșa)

Vinklu: HOUSE W17 (2017–2020), Piatra Neamţ, România

Text, photo: Ștefan Păvăluţă

Walls, Membrane, and Everything In Between
Iungo Studio: Apartment in Bucharest

Text, photo: Iungo Studio

Changes of Scale
Narchitektura: Memorial Park of the Former Great Synagogue in Oświęcim

Project: Narchitektura
Text: Levente Szabó
Photo: Piotr Strycharski, Bartosz Haduch

How Can We Make an Architecture School Together?

The Triplex Confinium Educational Project, and the Think Brick Competition

Text: Cristian Bădescu, Irina Tulbure

PLANS

Text, photo: Ștefan Ghenciulescu

Henley & Partners is a company which provides investment migration consultancy. It works both with rich individual customers, and with companies, and even governments, counselling them on golden visa-type programs (i.e. fast and easy gain of citizenship upon investing in the respective country), property purchasing opportunities etc.

How can we produce an architecture school together?

Authors: Irina Tulbure, Cristi Bădescu

Started in the autumn of 2019, by the initiative of a group of history fans and entrepreneurs in the village of Tămășeni (Neamț County, Romania) the museum quickly became a reality, and its exhibition opened in the first three rooms a year later.

Text: Ștefan Ghenciulescu
Photo: Vlad Pătru, Sabin Prodan

As in all Romanian large cities (and many of smaller ones), buildings have boomed in Brasov since 2000. Its particular situation has led to some very varied types of increase: limited in the historical centre, extensive on the outskirts

SPEED is an architectural practice based in Oslo, founded in 2020 by Espen Robstad Heggertveit and Eirik Stokke, after receiving the DOGA Newcomer award. The acronym stands for Section, Plan, Elevation, Extrusion, Diagram

This is a story of cooperation and patience, of team and trust, all started from an ambitious idea. The sunny house was born out of a beautiful dream – a house that uses the sun, a house built of wood, in the midst of an edible garden.

Coordinators: Ștefan Ghenciulescu, Cătălina Frâncu

Intro:

We have become rather accustomed to thinking of territory in terms of clear categories: city/village/nature, industry/agriculture/services, built/unbuilt, work/living etc.

Edito: Control and Conciliation
Text: Ştefan Ghenciulescu

DOSSIER: Hybrids. New Ways of Cohabiting

coordinators: Ştefan Ghenciulescu, Cătălina Frâncu

Intro: Hybrid Environments

We have become rather accustomed to thinking of territory in terms of clear categories: city/village/nature, industry/agriculture/services, built/unbuilt, work/living etc.

And this is, of course, because we generally need categories to be able to think structurally, and, it seems, to simply think and communicate. Perhaps, when talking about urbanism and architecture, radical cut-outs are also related to the obsession with modernity and to separating city functions not just conceptually, but also physically, to decomposing and then recomposing fundamental elements. (…)

Multi‑Species Architecture
Enrique Espinosa (Eeestudio) & Lys Villalba: Educan, Brunete

Taming Infrastructure
Mecanoo: Taichung Green Corridor, Taichung, Taiwan

Accomodate Places
SCOB: 2 Public Space Projects
Intro: Cătălina Frâncu

Reşiţa. A City on the Move
DOSSIER Authors: Lorena Brează, Mugur Grosu

Crowding and Richness
l’atelier, Nomadic Architecture Studio:
6 projects in the city

Working
Dialogue with arch. Corvin Cristian

Desvio—Creative Work Space, Lisbon
João Gonçalo Lopes

ZOOM

Fortress in a Peripheric Neighborhood by the Lake
The Concrete House, Close to Băneasa Lake, Bucharest

Safari Through a Miniature Universe
Atelier MASS: Expanding the Ursuleţul Nursery in Cluj

Fold & Function
Alexe Popescu

Disturbing Models
Philip Topolovac at /SAC @Malmaison

CLEAR
INTERSECTIONS
(On Laboratories, Education, and Water)

Andreea Boldojar
(book in romanian) Curţile Bucureştene. Potenţialul ascuns al morfologiei urbane
Review: Cătălina Frâncu

PLANS

Text: Ștefan Ghenciulescu
Photo: SCOB

The adjoining photo shows one of the projects in the dossier of the summer issue of Zeppelin magazine no.166. To be honest, it doesn’t look much like architecture. In fact, it looks like something that can be a corner of nature, or a greenfield, or some generic greenery, rather self-sown.