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The roof breaks away from the house; ther house rises above the ground; windows, doors and shutters slide in all directions; the construction is light, transparent and sets ina most delicate way in a spendid landscape. The house in Molco is an almost didatic example of how to work today with modernist principles. (Z.)

… accept that there is no recipe, but there might well be some sensible principles. The situation is dire, our profession is in crisis and attacked from all parts. We are forced to redefine it, says Oana Bogdan, but that may be a blessing in disguise. A sharp and well-documented essay about work, the market, responsibility, identity and 7 steps for change.

Pakhuis de Zwijger’s project “New Europe – Cities in Transition” was funded with the support of the European Union under the Programme “Europe for Citizens“, measure 2.2: “Network of Towns”.

A total of 5 activities were carried out as part of New Europe – Cities in Transition under the Europe for Citizens programme.

Project, text: Cristián Axl Valdés
Photographs: Natalia Franco, Leo Basoalto

Curanipe is a small coastal town in the middle part of Chile; it is a territory of subsistence agriculture, artisanal fishing and summer tourism. In this place, two couples owned a site far away from the sea, but, in return, blessed with panoramic views towards the ravine of Chovellén River. The terrain lies is on the highest point of the ravine, from where the slope descends gently to the sea and abruptly to the river.

The ensemble of ecological buildings is part of the project “Setting-up an eco-reintegration mechanism for inmates” that addresses the inmates who are coming from a disadvantaged environment and with a low level of education and aims to facilitate their access to rehabilitation programs and further their reintegration in society, providing them with new skills in niche crafts such as ecological construction, carpentry, wooden boats building, wickery and pottery.

Text: Mihai Duţescu
Photo: Andrei Mărgulescu

I am 36 years old and I was born in Alexandria, Teleorman County. Alexandria is a town with a population of about 50,000, located south of Bucharest; that’s an hour’s drive on an ordinary day, when pigs are not slaughtered in the countryside or it’s not the Day of the Dead, in spring or autumn.

5-10 March 2017, Bucharest

Both Dâmbovița and Colentina went through radical transformations throughout their history, yet their presence is hardly felt in the city. Dâmbovița changed, after a two-phased transformation, from a meandering wetland to a canal that today is completely absent from the mental maps of the citizens, whereas Colentina was slowly cut off from the city by an uncontrolled process of piecemeal lake-side privatisation. Besides the obvious need of draining the water through the city, neither one or the other seems to have an overall coherence.

Text: Stefan Ghenciulescu

I spent the first 26 years of his life in a modernist building in the Buzeşti neighbourhood, in Bucharest. A good while after my parents and I moved away, around 2010-2011, the building and most of the neighbourhood fell victims to the big and very distructive urban operation. In the years that followed I supported and promoted the efforts to keep as much as it could have been kept, but slowly I started to avoid the area and stop thinking about it. Until recently, when two completely unrelated things things happened.

Mega-malls and urban shopping areas as cornerstone urban elements, including (or especially) in Asia? Far from it. Introducing Kombini, the Japanese army of tiny hyper-organized and adaptable shops.

Text & Photo: Stefan Tuchila

About the recovering (and re-interpretation) of a modest existing construction, a traditional typology, a modern material, and the imperfections of building in post-socialist Romania

Project: Andreas Heierle, Cristina Trofin
Text & photo: Andrei Mărgulescu

Intro & Interview: Ioana Zacharias Vultur

Richard Scott is a British architect, artist and musician. He is a distinguished graduate of Bartlett (UCL) and Sci-Arc (Los Angeles) who worked at the Cornell University and teached History and Theory of Architecture at Bartlett (UCL) and AA School. Beyond the international critical recognition of the studio he founded in 1996 – Surface

Building Blocks, Bucharest 2016

Text: Andreea Ilinca
Photo: eematico, Bogdan Dincă, Iuliana Dumitru    

We, the grown-ups, believe we know it all. We went to schools and have enough experience to be convinced that we understand everything better. Better than whom? Than children, most certainly.