Research Center for the Reclamin of Polluted Mining Sites Baia Mare

Authors’ Comment

The project approach began long before the sixth year, even before I knew what topic I would address for it. I was born in Baia Mare in 2000 and spent my childhood near this city, gradually noticing the extensive level of pollution as well as the gray and desolate atmosphere produced by abandoned industrial buildings, the grimaces on the faces of the inhabitants, and the stories my grandmother told me from the communist era about the city:

“People in Baia Mare don’t live very long; their lungs are full of lead from the smoke stack. Every morning, a thick black fog settled over the city, and slag on the windows. You would choke. And the Săsar River was red when it rained, it smelled of sulfur, and your nostrils burned when you crossed the bridge.”

Thus, I decided that the diploma project could be the right opportunity to present my interests regarding the environment and pollution issues within the city. These topics were further developed in my dissertation titled: “Revisiting the Relationship between City, Landscape, and Mining,” arguing the role that architecture can play in the recovery and remediation of the urban fabric and landscape affected by mining activities.

The diploma project is located on the northern bank of the Săsar River and aims to use a series of strategies to restore this space to the inhabitants, while also outlining a multifunctional research center to scientifically monitor pollution levels and propose recovery strategies for polluted sites. The first strategy used in the project is the application of landscape urbanism principles, designing an arrangement whose path allows the resumption of dialogue between the river and the inhabitants through the use of pavilions and architecture that provides access to the watercourse. To reduce and combat water pollution, phytoremediation principles are applied by planting native plants resistant to toxic substances, which can absorb and immobilize them, reducing their spread into the urban fabric.

Using the topography and level differences, the project anchors itself to the bank, creating spatial relationships with the water and the functions that the architecture houses. Thus, the project’s spaces become active areas that directly interact with the exterior landscape, becoming an active public landmark that accommodates mixed functions, galleries, workshops, and areas where the public can learn about the city’s history and context. Therefore, the proposal becomes a place of research and recovery, with the architecture itself serving as an example of recovery and revitalization of a dysfunctional and unused urban fragment, whose potential is activated by the complexity of the spatial relationships created and the dialogue with natural elements and local specificity.