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An interview with Vlad Bina, arhitect and digital set designer

In 2004, Vlad Bina took part in and won a prize at the Bucharest Architecture Biennial. He had alrready worked on digital set design for famous movies, such as the Matrix sequels/. We interviewed him then, not knowing that it would take another 14 years for a new article, in a very different (also movie) world. Hey, but Matrix may be a classic, but it aged better than movies even 10 years younger. We hope that the next interview will happen sooner than 2032, and for the matter, that we won’t be then in the reality first imagined in 1999. (Z)

Text: Mugur Grosu

One morning, in a hotel room in the Transylvanian city of Arad, I woke up with hammering headache and two extra bodies in my bed, naked and reeking of beer. And the first thing that came to my mind was the question: What is a pink hippopomingo?

Text: Iuliana Dumitru

These days there are two years since I first set foot in the space of tranzit.ro/București. I got there on a drizzling rain, not knowing much about the place, although it had been in the city for over three years. Once past the gate with many locks, I realized right away that everything I knew about a conventional art space was not applicable in that case. What do you mean, organizing exhibitions and growing vegetables in the same place?

A couple of years ago, Klara Veer was in a charge of a small project, yet one with several dozen clients: a community kitchen for the members of a federation of artists and other cultural actors housed by a former factory. This projet is even tinier. The memory of the building, a sitting device and a messenger from the art inside define together a threshold.

Text: Ștefan Ghenciulescu
Photo and on-site research: Laurian Ghinițoiu

It is very difficult to speak, in an architecture magazine, of those “instant icons” produced by starchitects, famous on the spot, and even afterwards extensively publicized. The avalanche of images leads to saturation and, as easily recognizable as they are, the less patience people have, to learn something or to analyse.

Project, text: Beros Abdul Architects
Photo: Andrei Margulescu

Mesange Fromagerie is a new cheese trader opening their first shop in Bucharest, Romania in 2017. The company imports mainly European cheese, but with an emphasis on traditional French dairy products and cuisine. We had the opportunity to work with them in an integral design project, developing from the brand identity to interior design, furniture, table setting, and packaging, trying to build-up a coherent image through the project.

From a distance, the house is a discreet part of a traditional landscape. As you get closer and the step inside, it reveals its contemporary layers

Project, text, photos: Traian Cimpeanu

Vänga is a small community of houses in the middle of rural farmland, just 60 kilometres east of Göteborg, Sweden’s second largest city.

Text: Constantin Goagea

See, I’m just walking to the office through the railway station, as every day, and in those three minutes and let’s say 30 seconds I need to cross the station, cross-cutting from the Grivita to the Dinicu Golescu Boulevard, I try to record my train of thoughts, which seems somewhat chaotic, so step one our railroad station is beautiful when it’s sunny, but today it’s cold and dreary, this is not relevant, here is an infinite universe of small and great events, it’s a bloody historical landmark, the station was built in 1872, I know because I read it on Wiki, it’s a metaphysical point of the city

Intro: Ștefan Ghenciulescu
Photo: Dan Vezentan & Sandwich

An improbable place for displaying art: a leftover of space, at one end of the world.

Combinatul Fondului Plastic (Arts and Crafts Combinate) is not that far away from the centre, nor is it so inaccessible – although there is some walking to do to the public transport stations, and quite a longer walk to the underground.

Intro: Ștefan Tuchilă, Ștefan Ghenciulescu
Texte: Brenac & Gonzalez & Associés
Photo: Ștefan Tuchilă, Sergio Grazia

In this article we speak less of buildings and more of façades. Building skin –solid, opaque, porous, light, transparent, with small or large apertures, loggias, balconies, porches and blinds, merged with the structure or autonomous has always been an essential architectural element. Nowadays, it is probably the main piece in any sustainability concept.

Project, text: Bogdan Ciocodeică
Photo: Kinga Tomos

A really special beer brand – Denmark’s Mikkeller is only around the world only in its own locations in some very carefully selected cities – like for instance Tokyo, Seoul, San Francisco, Los Angeles outside of Europe, and in Europe, with the exception of Denmark, only in Barcelona, Berlin, Stockholm and Reykjavik. It now has opened a beer-bar and bistro in the Charles de Gaulle Square, in a spectacular villa from the onset of the 20th century.

Ecology doesn’t need to show off. It can be a natural part of the building, woven into the general design, and choice of materials and details. We wanted to kick off this dossier on sustainability with a project that is before anything else architecture – beautiful, appropriate, refined and humanly scaled. Yet Steven Holl’s newest addition to the Iowa campus is also the result of a sustainability concept that is highly innovative and centered on the connection to the environment and the people that use it.