Agri-Park on the Nikolics domain

Authors’ Comment

The project aims to recover the Nikolics noble ensemble from Rudna village, Timiș County, by transforming it into an Agri-Park, while taking into account the consumption of resources, the usefulness of investments and the way they respond to climate change. It involves the implementation of an organic farm based on regenerative systems, which offers an alternative to the conventional supermarket products and develops around three components: hospitality, agriculture and education.

The Nikolics ensemble is one of the most important points along the proposed cultural route in Lunca Timișului. Confiscated during the socialist period and then nationalized, the Nikolics domain became a garrison, and later the CAP (Agricultural Production Cooperative) headquarters. The events of the 20th century dispossessed the buildings of their splendor, and the communities of their memory, all three buildings reaching an advanced stage of degradation. The existing buildings on the site -the manor house, the mill and the warehouse- are thus equipped with new "mechanisms" that will allow them to regain their usefulness, ensuring their continuity over time. The conservation works aim to ensure the survival of the original characteristics and values ​​of the buildings, the reconstruction interventions aim to restore the formal integrity, while the modern interventions bring them in contemporaneity. The mansion, which is the central piece of the whole ensemble, received special attention in the recovery process. The ground floor works with the landscape allowing the main alley of the park to pass through the interior of the building, subtly juggling the interior-exterior boundary so that the walk through the house is perceived as part of the exploration course of the park. The austere interior, devoid of the richness of the ornaments specific to such a building, reminds us of the stages the building went through, leaving them visible. Reconstruction would have meant a denial of the history of the last century that involved the disappearance of the nobility, the destruction of the communist period, but also the fragmentation of the property.

The presence of sculptural objects, openings to perspective points, the way in which vegetation determines certain visual axes or form spatial structures, all invite the user to a journey of exploration and rediscovery of natural and built heritage, creating together with architecture a sense of place.