City: Bucharest

Urban Spaces 2 / Mumuleanu 14 Apartment Building

0

Urban Spaces 2 / Mumuleanu 14 Apartment Building

Policies and regulations
Financing
Promotion and production

Main objectives of the project

The project densifies a fragmented neighborhood in central Bucharest. It works with local dwelling typologies, in an attempt to preserve the flavour of small corners, courtyards, gardens, long narrow houses which all used to fill the old center of Bucharest, and which are quickly disappearing under a fast and mostly uncontrolled development process.

Date

  • 2020: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: Petra Bodea
  • Architect: Bogdan Brădățeanu
  • Architect: Adrian Untaru
  • Architect: Andrei Șerbescu

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Bucharest
Country/Region: Romania

Description

The apartments building is located within a very heterogeneous urban fabric. It consists of 7 house-like volumes, successively placed along the site, creating a community of 20 different apartments. The building's imprecise outline opens less towards the street, and more towards the deep and diffuse core which is often hidden between Bucharest’s old streets. The elongated volume stretches from the street to the (deep) back of the site and stays connected to the street through an access courtyard that runs along the site's western boundary. On the plot’s eastern side, the long and irregular strip of land is split into a sequence of private gardens.

The entrances’ careful customization and the units' double orientation are borrowed from the characteristics of the wagon-type dwelling, a typical housing pattern in Bucharest's old central neighborhoods. Thus, on the ground floor duplex apartments are entered directly from the common garden, like a series of "maisonettes".

On the second floor, an external gallery runs along the whole building, as an elevated "alley" or garden, through which all apartments from the 2nd and 3rd+4th floor are accessed.
Bucharest's central areas face nowadays a fast and rather chaotic densification. While we believe that density can, and many times is form of sustainability, we also admit that the relationship between habitation within an old urban fabric and the increase of its density is often a fragile one, as such areas and places of our city might lose their atmosphere and character.

Our project tries to mediate between different sizes and densities, in a central neighborhood with small streets, long, narrow plots, and a puzzle of old and new buildings, of all types and scales, which is also not far from the socialist intervention of a large boulevard and its "curtain" of tall apartment blocks.

The project thus tries to work with a local typological criterion (the long “wagon-house”) and aims to respect and complete the neighborhood’s character, by attaching and overlapping within one long and fragmented building several dwellings with distinct, private entrances, porches, gardens, loggias or roof terraces. All units benefit from cross ventilation and open towards the more public West side (front) garden and towards the more intimate East side (back) garden.
The structure is made of concrete frames which carefully follow the shape of the 7 volumes. Beams are used only on transversal direction, within the walls between the apartments, allowing for higher openings on the long facades. The slabs are cantilevered towards the Western side, creating the intermediate spaces of the verandahs and open gallery. The slabs are tied together with thin steel columns, working as cross-ties and allowing for a deep façade, with a “portico” appearance.

At the same time, the project has searched to reclaim the plaster as a simple, yet beautiful façade material and technique. A very common and rich technique in Bucharest’s older architecture, it has recently almost disappeared, in a period when the whole city is being arbitrarily clad in polystyrene, with standard mechanized finishing. The plaster was applied and finished manually all around the building - all small errors were left visible, precisely because they enhance the beauty of the material. We believe that such "syncopes" complete the whole design’s expressiveness and may recover some of the "handcraft" techniques' lost qualities.

Authors:

Fundació Mies van der Rohe Barcelona

Urban Spaces 1 / Dogarilor Apartment Building

0

Urban Spaces 1 / Dogarilor Apartment Building

Urban Design Services and infrastructure Liveability

Main objectives of the project

Located in Mulhouse's popular district near the city center, this project consists of 59 social rental dwellings developed by SOMCO. Our goal is to provide generous dwellings without increasing rent. We aim to address the issue of densification in Bucharest's central area while preserving the qualities of the existing neighborhood. The building design seeks to maintain the narrow plots' porosity and blend with the surrounding collage-like appearance. It balances the required alignment with the specific characteristics of the street and urban fabric. The apartments offer diverse typologies, ranging from studios to four-bedroom units, with private courtyards, balconies, or terraces. Common spaces, commercial areas, and ateliers are also included. The flexible design allows for unit combinations, resulting in a total of 77 residential units and approximately 50 apartment types. Site size: 2082 m2; Building size: 8931 m2.

Date

  • 2014: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: ADN Birou de Arhitectura

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Bucharest
Country/Region: Bucharest, Romania

Description

The project is located in Mulhouse in a popular district close to the city center, currently under renovation. It includes 59 social rental dwellings developed by SOMCO, operator on public social housing. A few years after the Cité Manifeste experience, our common goal was to pursue the same aims: generous dwellings without increasing the rent. One of the most important and problematic aspects of nowadays Bucharest is the fast densification of the central area. While we believe that density can, and many times must be seen as a form of sustainability, we also admit that the often fragile relationship between habitation within an old neighborhood and the increase of density could many times alter the place and reduce its existing qualities.

Our project is looking for an appropriate answer to this problem. It tries to mediate between different sizes and densities, in a quite central neighborhood characterized by small streets, long, narrow plots and a puzzle of old and new buildings of all types and scales. The building searches to preserve, at its own scale, the porosity and “profoundness” of the deep, narrow plots, while also trying to capture part of the “collage”-like appearance of the surroundings. The volumetric proposal seeks to partially open the building to the street, in the depth of the plot. Because of this, the volume facing the street is less compact and the ground floor is more transparent, in order to allow a better visual connection at eye s level. In this way, we have also tried to mediate between the continuous alignment required by the urban regulation and the specific of the street and of the surrounding urban fabric, characterized by fragmentation. At the same time, the project proposes a type of habitation which we consider suitable for the center of the contemporary city: a place where the relatively small spaces and the density are complemented by diversity and wider common spaces. Most of the apartments are different from one another, not only in size, but especially in typology: they range from studios to four-bedroom apartments – each one of them laying on one, two or even three floors and having private courtyards, balconies or terraces of different sizes. They all are complemented by several indoor and outdoor common spaces (terraces, party room, large halls etc.), while the ground floor offers several commercial spaces and ateliers to rent, towards the street and the inner courtyard. The apartments are conceived in such way as to allow a great deal of flexibility, making it possible to connect (horizontally or vertically) two or more small units into a larger one, leading, in the end, at a building consisting of 77 residential units offering approx. 50 types of apartments. Size of the site: 2082 m2; Size of the building: 8931 m2

Authors:

Occidentului 40

0

Occidentului 40

Urban Design Environments Quality Inclusion

Main objectives of the project

A vertically moving house in Bucharest.
This building on Occidentului Street in Bucharest blends well with the neighborhood by decomposing its volume into smaller houses of varying heights. The design features split-level apartments with staggered floors and open facades that showcase the interior life. The street facade reflects the structural order and distribution of cells, while small balconies occupy the contact area with the vertical structure.

Date

  • 2017: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Architect: ADN Birou de Arhitectura

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Bucharest
Country/Region: Bucharest, Romania

Description

Ubicado en una calle típica de la zona central de Bucarest, con una imagen y densidad similares a las de las metrópolis occidentales clásicas, el edificio contribuye a unir el frente. La descomposición del volumen en cuerpos más pequeños de diferentes alturas suaviza el efecto en el vecindario y la calle, preservando la atmósfera urbana típica de Bucarest.

La calle Occidentului es una calle típica de la zona central de Bucarest, con villas aisladas en medio del patio, casas de vagones, edificios de la época de entreguerras e inserciones de los años 60 y 70. El volumen general se descompone a través de varios movimientos y retranqueos en una fila de casas más pequeñas con diferentes alturas que secuencian la percepción del edificio y matizan la relación con las casas vecinas y el entorno fragmentario. La intervención propone una comunidad de 20 apartamentos y una unidad comercial en la parcela amplia pero relativamente estrecha. Todas las unidades son transversales y de doble orientación, y se organizan en niveles divididos. En lugar de los típicos pisos apilados, aquí los pisos y techos se mueven y generan una serie de pisos escalonados, diferencias de nivel y variaciones en altura y profundidad, lo que le otorga a los apartamentos una dimensión vertical de la vivienda.

Las fachadas abiertas reflejan la vida interior variada del edificio y buscan cierto tipo de "transparencia"; la disposición de los apartamentos define y está definida por el orden estructural del edificio y se revela claramente hacia el exterior.

En lugar de plataformas generales, aquí los pisos y techos se desplazan, creando apartamentos de varios niveles con espacios de una, una y media o dos alturas. La fachada de la calle expresa el orden estructural y la distribución de las celdas. Sus elegantes proporciones reflejan la armonía de las relaciones interiores.

Los grandes paneles de vidrio con marcos metálicos no ocupan toda la bahía. El área de contacto con la estructura vertical está ocupada por pequeños balcones, otro tipo de espacios al aire libre, diferentes de las terrazas o el piso superior retirado.

Authors:

Urban Spaces 2 / Mumuleanu 14 Apartment Building

0

Urban Spaces 2 / Mumuleanu 14 Apartment Building

Urban Design

Main objectives of the project

Date

  • 2020: Construction

Stakeholders

  • Constructor: ADN Birou de Arhitectura

Location

Continent: Europe
City: Bucharest
Country/Region: Bucharest, Romania

Description

The project densifies and preserves the character of Bucharest's central neighborhood. It consists of 7 house-like volumes arranged along the site, creating a community of 20 unique apartments. The building's shape opens towards the core of the city, with an access courtyard and private gardens. The design takes inspiration from the wagon-type dwellings, with duplex apartments on the ground floor and an elevated gallery for access to the upper floors. The project balances density with the neighborhood's atmosphere, respecting its character. The structure uses concrete frames and plaster as a façade material, preserving traditional craftsmanship.
The project densifies a fragmented neighborhood in central Bucharest. It works with local dwelling typologies, in an attempt to preserve the flavour of small corners, courtyards, gardens, long narrow houses which all used to fill the old center of Bucharest, and which are quickly disappearing under a fast and mostly uncontrolled development process.

The apartments building is located within a very heterogeneous urban fabric. It consists of 7 house-like volumes, successively placed along the site, creating a community of 20 different apartments. The building’s imprecise outline opens less towards the street, and more towards the deep and diffuse core which is often hidden between Bucharest’s old streets. The elongated volume stretches from the street to the (deep) back of the site and stays connected to the street through an access courtyard that runs along the site’s western boundary. On the plot’s eastern side, the long and irregular strip of land is split into a sequence of private gardens.

The entrances’ careful customization and the units’ double orientation are borrowed from the characteristics of the wagon-type dwelling, a typical housing pattern in Bucharest’s old central neighborhoods. Thus, on the ground floor duplex apartments are entered directly from the common garden, like a series of “maisonettes”.

On the second floor, an external gallery runs along the whole building, as an elevated “alley” or garden, through which all apartments from the 2nd and 3rd+4th floor are accessed.

Bucharest’s central areas face nowadays a fast and rather chaotic densification. While we believe that density can, and many times is form of sustainability, we also admit that the relationship between habitation within an old urban fabric and the increase of its density is often a fragile one, as such areas and places of our city might lose their atmosphere and character. Our project tries to mediate between different sizes and densities, in a central neighborhood with small streets, long, narrow plots, and a puzzle of old and new buildings, of all types and scales, which is also not far from the socialist intervention of a large boulevard and its “curtain” of tall apartment blocks.

The project thus tries to work with a local typological criterion (the long “wagon-house”) and aims to respect and complete the neighborhood’s character, by attaching and overlapping within one long and fragmented building several dwellings with distinct, private entrances, porches, gardens, loggias or roof terraces. All units benefit from cross ventilation and open towards the more public West side (front) garden and towards the more intimate East side (back) garden.

The structure is made of concrete frames which carefully follow the shape of the 7 volumes. Beams are used only on transversal direction, within the walls between the apartments, allowing for higher openings on the long facades. The slabs are cantilevered towards the Western side, creating the intermediate spaces of the verandahs and open gallery. The slabs are tied together with thin steel columns, working as cross-ties and allowing for a deep façade, with a “portico” appearance.

At the same time, the project has searched to reclaim the plaster as a simple, yet beautiful façade material and technique. A very common and rich technique in Bucharest’s older architecture, it has recently almost disappeared, in a period when the whole city is being arbitrarily clad in polystyrene, with standard mechanized finishing. The plaster was applied and finished manually all around the building – all small errors were left visible, precisely because they enhance the beauty of the material. We believe that such “syncopes” complete the whole design’s expressiveness and may recover some of the “handcraft” techniques’ lost qualities.

Authors: