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Dossier Zeppelin #161: “Small Blocks of Flats”

It might sound a little unprofessional, but we simply couldn’t come up with a single umbrella term for “collective apartment buildings with a reduced number of housing units”. The urban villa comes closest to the subject matter, but for many people the urban villa is quintessentially a detached building, usually surrounded by its own piece of land. There is also the Italian version – palazzina, which actually also means “small block” (specifically, the apartment building is a palazzo in Italian).

Edito: They cleaned it up

In Romanian society, one of the most common (and terrible) value confusions is, I believe, the one between beautiful, new or in good condition, on the one hand, vs. ugly, old, in poor condition, on the other. And it primarily shows when talking about architecture and the city.

Abruptarhitectura: A house with wide eave in Mizil

Excellently located in the “old” sector of the former Carol Street—the commercial street of the once thriving market town of Mizil—across the street from the high school, the house is a reinterpretation of the good old “train car house” type. An ample eave is added on one side of the house, framed by two rounded gables.

Chronicles of the future superheroes @ Kunsthalle Bega

In 2019, Kunsthalle Bega initiated the programme BEGA ARTPRIZE, the only curatorial prize in Romania which is awarded annualy, following consultations with a specialised jury, to a curator under the age of 40. The first laureate of the prize was Anca Verona Mihuleț, who over the last two years has been preparing a complex exhibition project dedicated to the cumulus of technologic and artistic mechanisms that validate our perception about the future

RDW Open Air Society

Zeppelin Design & more @ Romanian Design Week 2020

Text: Constantin Goagea
Photos: Andrei Mărgulescu
Curatorial concept: Romanian Design Week and Zeppelin Design
Exhibition design: Zeppelin Design+Ping Pong winners+

The social housing factory. Rehabilitation of a textile factory & creation of 46 housing units – Barcelona

The transformation of the warehouse building of the old Fabra & Coats industrial complex in Barcelona is part of the process of reconversion of this 19th and 20th century textile industry neighborhood. The whole complex is part of he “BCN creation factories” network and it will bring to Sant Andreu district more than 28,000 m2 of facilities.

A pause from the city, a background for the city. Z33 – House for contemporary art, design and architecture

At Zeppelin, we are obsessed with going as deep as possible into the fabric of a project. Well, here the architechture, the context and the details are interwoven in such a complex way, the process is so fascinating an clearly exemplary, that we chose to present the project as a succesion of frames. telling a complex story through its details; the close-ups show sketches, poetic representations, plans and details, the four tupes of models (porcelain, ceramic, loom fibers, at 1:10), construction photos and then, the final images. 

MUZEON, Cluj. The story of your Jewish neighbour

This small independent museum starts from a family archive, but speaks of a community, of a city and of fundamental human experiences, and does so by a spatial and auditory experience rather than by classical museum means

Skanderbeg Square, Tirana

In 1989, while the entire East was enthusiastically reforming, two (neo)Stalinist countries were still left in the area. In the meantime, one of them became a EU member, the other one is struggling a bit more. One has just finished, the other one is still busily working on a grand national project, built in the centre of their respective capitals.

Beacon, Boundary Marker, Cocoon, Bricolage. Cultural Center and Auditorium, Plasencia, Spain

From most of the photographs circulated on the Internet, especially at a cursory glance, the Plasencia auditorium appears to have been randomly thrown into a field, in an absurdly peripheral position, yet another of those many self-sufficient objects, planted in the middle of nowhere by egotistic local administrations and architects.

FABER. Independent Cultural and Production Center, Timișoara

FABER is a community made up of people who have been investing trust and energy in Timisoara’s growth, a place whose story revolves around the idea of strategic conservation, where the process, the people and outlining work strategies are more important than the product itself,

Places in a garden. Mânadelucru: Kindergarten near the Patriarchy Hill, Bucharest

The old house in the southern part of the historical center and its extensions shape a complex of rooms, porches, courtyards and terraces. A world for children to explore and to enjoy.