Multifunctional building - apartments, office spaces, retail

Authors’ Comment

The place is central Bucharest, torn by totalitarian operations before 1989, and then by ultra-liberal development nowadays. This project tries to get the most out of a restricted frame: the lack of a design brief, the limited budget, the rigid and a low-risk sales strategy, the urban regulations, or the poor quality construction. It therefore aims at creating a decent zonal landmark, breaking-up the scale in order to minimize the clash with the remaining urban fabric, and trying to establish a starting point for a more coherent development of the area. Complicated and therefore almost surely unsuccessful details were avoided, as architectural expression is only shaped by blank volumes, surfaces, and voids. ‘Responsible Realism’ was the main design strategy, trying to inject quality in a rather bleak general practice, so specific to the Romanian context.

Jury Comment

The project has a very well thought plan, with common spaces which decrease the scale. It manages to integrate itself in the difficult context of a typical Bucharest high rise residential neighborhood.

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