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HN Services Romania choose to modify their office for a lighter, more open and transparent working environment in their quarters close to the historical and vibrant area of Victoria Square and the infrastructure of Northern Railway station. The new space enhances the well-being of the team, through connection and creativity in a distinguished way than average tech companies.
We imagined the working space as a context that the community will feel attached to as a space easy to understand, particular through light and materials, that will be considered useful and suited to the teams. Thus, we proposed from the beginning a layout divided into two areas by see-through walls. An open area, for working in large teams, socializing, easy moving, and another one for small teams, discussions, connection, relaxing. Between the two areas, the dividing walls are made of glass elements with a fluid appearance, soft curves, allowing light, movement of people, silhouettes of furniture, plants, be seen in a discreet way. After the first meetings with the management team of HN Services, the opinions of the direct users of the space were introduced through co-design, deciding the continuity of the layout.
By reusing part of the existing assets – like part of the furniture – we invested in things that truly made a difference for both the representatives of the space as well as the comfort of the users. The placement and type of furniture in the working and relaxing areas were adapted. The floors are a mix of new and reassembled existing materials of the previous layout. The mural mosaic from entrance area – made of ceramics custom by Ioana Trușcă for HN Services – is the main representation of the team and the graphics was developed considering the dialogue with the teams.

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The premise of the project is the capitalization of the unbuilt space, the main resource for living in rural communities. A careful treatment of the outer space can generate qualities that can be beneficial in any conditions: spaces for spontaneous socialization, community events, playground or representation.
The structuring element of the project is a courtyard - defining common ground situated among the individual parcels, constituted between two porticos which generate the symmetrical disposition of the buildings. To the north, trees are to continue the rhythm imposed by the porches, protecting the courtyard from the prevailing winds.
By connecting the houses, the project aims to let maximum surface to the courtyards. Two types of boundary spaces are established: the portico space, defined by the rhythm of the pillars and the low eaves; towards the private gardens, we propose a covered space, wide enough to allow the potential extension of the house.

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Beyond the actual design theme, the project really started with the visit of the entire office to the site. The Vlăsia Forest, reflected in Lake Snagov on two sides, is a defining moment for its character. The project had not to ruin this pregnant quality of the place, but to build an intermediate space, a general exterior protected from the weather. In addition to the maximum glazing, permanent visibility with the outside, we also worked with the geometry of the volume to increase this relationship. A series of northeast-oriented sheds generate diffuse light across the entire surface of the house, the perceptible contact with the sky becoming possible in every corner of the house. In the same logic of the relationship with the site, the slates cover the necessary opaque areas.

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Between an open space and closed spaces use , a mix between the two was chosen. The integration of spaces with democratic use increases the level of comfort. Thus the center of the space is used as a work area only on certain days, the rest of the time it becomes a space with common use and ensures visibility and easy crossing.
The closures are either firm but transparent material boundaries (glass partitions) or flexible (curtain) to the central area, ensuring sound comfort and a clear delimitation when used for work. All spaces are connected by material and color of the floor (carpet) and those of the ceiling (plasterboard or metal grid).

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The brief involved modernizing an existing structure to turn it into a new hotel. Given that a lot of works needed to focus on interior refurbishment, the design tactics aimed to symultaneously solve the programmatic, technical, aesthetic and representational requirements while keeping the exterior intervention to a minimum. Thus the project is focused on the street bay of the building which it redevelops to incorporate the new main staircase, the lobby and the link to the wine cellar. This constructs a new public image of the hotel and the building’s improved relationship with the street.

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For this project we received one of the most candid design theme.

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Ordoreanu village, Clinceni district, was declared “martyr” for it was demolished in 1987 to make way for the hypothetical Danube-Bucharest Canal. After the anti-communist Revolution the people were given back land in the present location, near the Mihăilești-Cornetu barrier lake. The nearby forrest and the meadow of the Argeş river made the location attractive for a young dynamic family, fond of exercise in the wild.
On a site of 3000sqm we were asked to design a small weekend house, an alternative to the Bucharest density: minimal functions for a one child family with annexes, pool and tenis court. The amoebic shape of the main building was designed to integrate the entire site and its uses. The entry is connected with the car shed, while the living areas are opening to the main terrace and the pool, but to a more intimate terrase as well, near the vegetable garden. Even it was set that the most confortable living is only at the ground floor, the clients asked for two intimate retreat zones. The two cubic cocoons configure a local topography, the house being diffrently perceived from any direction.

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We enjoyed designing the totems of the well known Bucharest Business Park. We used corten® in order to accentuate the reddish nuances of the building.
Furthermore, we emphasised the idea of flexibility of any office building – where the tennants come and leave periodically – by proposing an ordering grid, which permits future permutations. By letting this grid transparent, the sight can pass through the thick layers of metal sheet and activate a dynamic perception of the rectangular object.
The main totem from the DN1 highway adopts a similar demateriazing techique. In this case we used the same grid for the night lighting to mark the acces to the office building.
We thank CA Immo for this opportunity!

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O vilă pe bulevardul Eroii Sanitari (făcută de Simotta în 1934-5), compusă din două apartamente, caută să recapete mândria de la început prin reparare, înzdrăvenire și minime modificări.
Intervențiile asupra exteriorului au implicat consolidarea pe toată înălțimea fațadei și au condus la soluții locale menite să păstreze raportul dintre planul accentelor (șepci acoperite cu olane peste ferestre, jardiniere dedesubt) și planul exterior al fațadei.
La interior, tema a prevăzut păstrarea nealterată a tuturor spațiilor principale ale celor două locuințe (câte trei camere pe fiecare nivel) și concentrarea intervențiilor asupra zonelor de serviciu ale vechii case, transformate pentru a acomoda nevoi contemporane.
Tâmplăria a fost recondiționată în interior și în exterior; clanțe, schielduri etc. au fost șlefuite și uneori refăcute după model; parchetul original păstrat; mici piese decorative turnate după mulajul celor încă intacte; soclul din tencuiala spițuită a fost refăcut, alături de elementele accesului principal.
Demisolul a suferit modificări mai importante. Aici încăperile de serviciu inițiale (centrală, spălătorie, uscătorie) au fost transformate într-o mică locuință independentă.

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In a residential area typical for semi-detached houses, the project introduces an interior garden, distinct from the front, lateral and rear ones imposed by the building regulations. Placed in the middle of the plot and of the house, this light and ventilation courtyard is at the same time a winter garden, an elegant extension of the front entrance, a place to enjoy a eating outdoors … The whole house swirls around this void and opens towards it through controlled openings of the other rooms. More than anything else, this courtyard becomes responsible for introducing a playful depth to the experience of the other areas of the house. At ground level, the surface of the courtyard is completely used and even virtually amplified by projecting one of its walls to the limit of the plot. A small balcony, a bow window and a crossing enrich the use of its height and constitute small events that occupy the void and enhance its spatial experience.
The longitudinal cross section of the house is uneven, with a taller cornice towards the street/north façade and a lower one towards the rear-garden/south façade, thus allowing the sun to more easily enter the depth of the inner courtyard. The distinction between the different outdoor spaces that the house has to offer is enhanced by the fact that the communication with the outside world is only possible through this inner courtyard.

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The project - holiday home for a family - is set up around the staircase to the first floor, the main element of the house. The open space of the living room and the kitchen on the ground floor are folded around the stairs, while upstairs, the intimate spaces of the minimal bedrooms and the bathroom are accessed directly from the landing. On the ground floor, the access is marked as a volume, attaching to the bathroom and the guest bedroom.
The living room is a space with fluctuating function depending on the type of users: guest reception area, relaxation area, place to prepare and serve food, children's playground, the latter extending to the geometry of the stairs. The staircase extends from the living room to the first floor, visually separating the kitchen from the fireplace area. The series of skylights access hall / staircase bring natural light in the middle of the house, on the ground floor and first floor.
The volume of the house changes the discourse of the mountain houses with an accentuated slope. With reverence for the natural landscape to which it looks, the house is identified by the flat, white roof of the roof volume. The volume of the floor, finished with wood, apparently heavy, slides over the white volume of the ground floor, and together the wide eaves of the roof seem to lighten their weight.

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The design task consisted in transforming an existing office building from the 1990' to meet the current needs of the University's new Research Center. These transformations were to be kept to a minimum and involved alterations of the general layout of the open floors, adaptations of the building's technical aspects and up-dating the building to meet today's safety requirements. The new technical requirements of the research center and the consequence of working with an existing office building have worked together to provide the main framework for the works to be implemented and have led to a particular structure of the design approach.
The first task was to identify the elements of the building that had to be completely redone – the electrical network and the data network. In a second stage, the design efforts were channeled into investing the very limited budget left into works that permitted a "safe-mode" functioning of the research center. In this way, the interpretation of the brief discerned between spaces that required specific working conditions (regarding light, ventilation etc.) and other areas of the building that suggested a more loose approach of functional issues. By applying this grid, the former spaces were isolated and enjoyed a preferential treatment from the point of view of the design and of the technical facilities. The latter spaces, the ones in search for a vocation or those that should remain programmatically volatile for the benefit of the future development of the research center were mostly cleaned and rendered viable for use.
As a consequence, all technical equipment in the building was kept in sight so as to allow easy access for future adaptations to the yet unforeseen growth of the research center. The resulting image is more akin to the aesthetics of a workshop, one that is able to transform its appearance each day through its own means

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Apart from the rehabilitation of the valuable elements of the interwar apartment and the inevitable technical upgrades, the project looked for answers to two questions - one of a practical nature, the other more poetical.
The first issue was to find a furnishing solution that would meet the requirements of an architecture studio and invent storage areas. For this the answer was to build custom made furniture, designed to follow the irregularities of the walls. On the other hand, the project puts the height of the rooms to use by conceiving a volumetric frieze whose depth becomes the much needed storage areas.
The second question was how to imagine a wall finishing that would simultaneously meet four demands: to be remarkable, to illustrate the studio’s profile, to keep costs to a minimum and not to constitute applied decoration.
This led to the idea of not adding the final finishing layer to the walls (the plaster coating and the paint). The intent was to suggest a work in progress, a building site, and to reveal the qualities of the space itself, before being hijacked by the dresses it may wear, before its potential to become something else was used out.

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This real estate development had to deal with a simple design request: cheap inline houses, nicely ordered above the large plain in the periphery of Bucharest. Initially, the developer had alreary finished two similar projects, with identical houses placed in a row vis-à-vis the parking spots. The hope and the real stake of this engagement was the construction of similar houses regarding both the costs and the construction techniques already tested by the client, dressing it in a new “design” layer which could customize this development among the many recenly built gated ensembles and simultaneosly could emphase the need for differentiation of the future dwellers.
In spite of this, the enlarged geometry of the site, which allowed the configuration of two rows of houses back to back, inspired us a certain collective conviviality and, if not too much to say, the potential of an inceptive urbanity. This was the reason for designing a small central square, which could benefit from this potential and offer a minimum communal space for the remote periphery. So, every house had to have a small acces to this central space which could coagulate the 23 dwellings, but also reestablish the urban model as a valid cultural asset amidst the kaleidoscope of recently built gated communities.

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The medium size apartment was bought by a young family to be transformed into a pleasant home. The restriction on the intervention to the structure of the 80's block of flats has focused the interior design on the furniture. The pieces are attached to the surface of the walls and the visible surfaces are finished with materials that create decoration through mirroring or by facing one another - wood and white fiberboard in the small bedroom. The same seamless furniture is creating a see-through barrier between spaces with different use, by developing cur-outs from the entrance to the kitchen. The finishing of the walls and floor are discrete and neutral - white, grey, black - but also the natural nuance of wood.
The lamps are mare on the building site from specific objects - wooden sticks, metal cable, electrical socket - and create a connection between the rooms.

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Situated on the streets that open at East from Calea Floreasca whilst descending into crossing the lakes, the building dwells six apartments, on four levels. Located on a corner – at the junction between Stroe Postelnicu and Rachmaninov street – the building’s blind walls are on the verge of the site. Six out of seven apartments share the same level, while the remaining one occupies the entire ground floor.
Despite it being finalised in 2014, the project succeded an initial solution based on future expectations of spatial standards for buildings that would develop in the North area of the city. The former idea was reconsidered starting with 2010 and developed into the final resolution of having two apartments per level, soon before the structure had been completed. Therefore, the main issue was to find the boundary between the two apartments while preserving and bringing as few alterations as possible to the structure. Furthermore, the facades were designed according to the adjusted interior.
The facades open up towards East and South, providing light even for the most remote corners of the apartment. The ventilated facade not only emulates the ethos behind the interior arrangement, but is also a response to the site’s constraints by turning on the narrow elevation, thus highlighting the corner. The same corner, together with the main entrance, shelter on the ground level gardens that act as a buffer between the public and private area.

Nominee for "Housing Architecture" at The National Architecture Biennale 2013-2014.

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Republic of Architects organised during Romanian Design Week 2014 a four day event "At home in the garden", dedicated to the garden and MoMi living module. The event was made visible as an installation in the main exhibition of the venue at Chamber of Commerce Palace, but took place in the garden from Calarasi street 40 around the living module. MoMi was presented as a completed structure, covered in transparent polyethylene. The visitors could see the interior of the small module and appreciate the new perspective that the house offers to the garden.
The visitors that were interested in living in a house with a courtyard, entered a space covered with wild plants and took part in different event. The first day was dedicated to introducing MoMi, followed by a free discussion. The site was visited by Şerban Ţigănaş, the president of the Architecture Chamber from Romania, in the context of the book that was about to be published by Simetria "Architects, Architecture and Cities". The second day was dedicated to learning how to enjoy a garden, no matter the age. The workshop de-a arhitectura gathered kids from 6 to 11 years to create a small garden from natural materials, around a miniature MoMi. Later, the yard turned into an outdoor cinema to present documentaries about tiny living. The third day was the day of gardening, the landscape specialists Diana şi Mihai Culescu from rpr birou de studii contemporane lectured about landscape as a cultural inheritance. Afterwards we learned to garden in the backyard of MoMi. The last day, part of the official event of the Night of the Architecture Offices, there was a party to end the 4 day event.

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MoMi is a modular dwelling unit designed for living as much as possible outside the house itself. By its condensed form, MoMi occupies as little space as possible in order to foster delight of nature and connection to the space around. The garden becomes the board where the great living game happens, with specific furniture.

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The theme of a cultural pavilion in the central park of a poor romanian village was an invitation to rethink about the community space. Futhermore, there is no such space in Gălbinași village and reusing a sport facility seemd like a good idea to engage public life.
We proposed a square building with a flexible space for different activities. We had to fit all the requirements in maximum 300sqm at ground level plus a minimal attic. The center of the plan is dominated by the largest room, a possible meeting room, ball room, exposition or wedding room orientated toward the nice view of the park.
The attic is an independent space for community events. The minimal space was folded inside the simple lines of the volume, orintated diagonally to the rest of the composition. So, the feasibility requirements were speculated to test new relations between the community, the public park and the potential of cultural events.

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Opera Center office building was built more than 10 years ago, when its two lobby areas were also designed. Situated in one of Bucharest's most prestigious neighbourhoods, with a well-defined character, Cotroceni, it is one of the most renowned office building in town.
The design brief specified that the two lobby areas had to undergo a remodelling process, one that however suggested keeping most of the existent materials, thus conferring a sustainable quality to the entire remodelling process. As a result, the intervention suggested superimposing a new layer applied on top of the original materials. In a similar manner, the furniture received either new upholstery or a second, more textured layer.
The proposed design was an idea coming out of the prestige that the area enjoys and its being a determining factor on how the building is perceived: consequently, the interior walls, easily perceptible from the outside, graphically reinterpret parts of the existing neighbourhood. Designed en raccourci, the images on the walls convey the impression of being on the street. By using a stencil and white HPL sheets, the black inside was revealed, therefore creating a black and white low relief.
The most important details of the graphically represented houses are accentuated with the use of projector-lamps. The ceiling, even though regarded mainly as a decorative piece, transforms the direct light into a mellow one, through a golden metallic grid. Specific graphic elements like the metallic fences in the area are transposed in the white metallic pattern that covers the existing lobby desks.

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The prototype of the library Plai (garden furniture) completes linving with the minimal module MoMi. The garden becomes the board where the great living game happens, with specific furniture.

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The design of the project is a response to a speculative brief requiring a block of flats on an elongated site. The monolith emerges from the blind wall and opens to the courtyard through generous loggias. Emphasised through contrasting finishes, they represent the cut-outs in the façade and act as connectors for some spaces. Furthermore, by using the same materials to clad the façade as well as the attic, the volume started to gain a unitary shape, becoming a so called monolith.
One of the set requirements for the project was to offer flexibility. Considering the financial unpredictability, a residential unit that would dwell only 6, 5 or only 4 apartments was imagined. The different configurations are possible due to the building’s likelihood of developing as a semi-detached unit.

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PLAI (free in the garden) means sleeping under an acacia tree, having a picnic, to read and sleep under the moonlight. It is the essence of living in the garden.
It promotes a lifestyle that changes dramatically the strict limit of the house to the garden. Instead of a tough structure that allows one to admire what is outside, the house is outside. Habitation could become a board game that is extended to the whole garden. The game is made of more stable pieces and mobile pieces, that are placed in the yard and generate activities. The stable pieces are small enclosed spaces that offer minimal living cosines. the mobile ones are tables and chairs, bookcase, beds, shower, swing and many others. The spreading of the pieces in the garden makes places for considering the entire garden as yours: under the walnut, in the dew, close to the lilies, become moments to have breakfast or dinner, to take a nap and read, to discuss with friends or chat online.
The counterpart of the house in the garden is the Minimal Module - MoMi. MoMi is created in order to save resources for developing and maintenance. It is completely made of renewable materials and developed to be assembled in an workshop and then delicately placed on site. MoMi is a room of the house that you want to be closed and protected. On a field one can place one

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What could the architect's involvement be in developing a place that has grown harmoniously by itself? Doing almost nothing. (Ole Bouman) At the same time, if one considers the objectives of the transformations of the village, one's attention is drawn to the dangers that contemporary needs may represent for the built culture of Sibiel. Doing almost nothing thus becomes determination – the determination to take care of that which spontaneous evolution has brought to this world and the determination to try to shield this sensible ensemble from overzealous public or private entrepreneurship.
In these conditions, the stake of the architect's involvement is, on the one hand, refraining from design and, on the other, assuming the role of a balancing factor between the desire for excessive and urgent renewal (either by one's own wishes, or as a result of external market requirements) and the desire to freeze the natural evolution of a place in the nostalgia of a long forgotten time.
Defined in this way, the competition's stakes have led to an approach that superimposes two legitimate ways of active involvement: (A) the identification of those strategic evolution directions less visible to the native inhabitant and (B) leading the same inhabitants into an adventurous participatory process that asks them to continue to assume the collective role of the principal author in the designing and building of their living environment. As such, any opportunity observed from the outside should be seized by the community, incited to decide together on a project brief, but also encouraged to actually build the project themselves.

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The potential of a modular house, surrounded by nature, is portrayed in Phileas’ Journey. Each module comprises minimal spaces that suggest exporting activities in the outside, unbuilt surroundings. Therefore objects such as the the well, the table or the courtyard bed, the swing or the tree house help to develop and populate the entire external space with activities that fall outside architectural programming.
Nature acts as infrastructure, but also as stimulus. While architectural delight is banned by the process of standardisation, the quality of space and living is regained through the use of nature. At the same time, the limitations of Utopic architecture, found in Phileas’ story, are used as instruments to reimagine the city.
The game «PLAI» was presented at the PechaKucha Night Bucuresti#8 event, on the 23rd of February 2012 and at the Bucharest Annual of Architecture 2012.
Phileas’ Journey was presented as a comic strip in the 4th issue of Arhitext journal, that was curated by Atelier Mass, under the theme Soft Utopias.
Republic of Architects participated at the 2012 Venice Biennale with the PLAI project for the Romanian Pavilion IRCCU which contained the HEAD UP! exhibition.

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Rehabillitating existing dwellings in Bucharest, especially in neighboourhoods with a clearly-defined ambiance- ex. Cotroceni- is an advisable practice, but in reality, it rarely has positive results. How and how much you negociate the boundary between the neccesities of the new materials and those of the existing ones, more or less damaged is left to the sensitivity of the architect and to the client’s expectations and budget.
Rehabillitating the dwelling in Cotroceni meant first a change in the vertical circulation. Initially, the house had one independent acces per floor. The quality of the acces spaces corresponded to the importance of the inner spaces and the social hierarchy established between those who used them, in ascending order from the basement to the first floor, whose access staircase occupied much of the courtyard and of the facade. All this access system was replaced by a main vertical circulation, in accordance with the new use.
The loft’s superelevation raised the ethical problem of the completion and continuity of the modern facade. We chose to interpose between the area upon which we intervened and the existing house, an element taken from the modernistic language- the horizontal window- reinterpreted through its exagerated length, surrounding the house, with vertical deviations where the inner space required it.
We hope that this villa shall become a successful stilistical exercise in the neighbourhood’s scenery.

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Râmnicu Vâlcea is one of the few cities which manages to respect the surrounding environment, despite it being a touristic, historical and cultural city. Therefore we have tried to consider all the important aspects of the city while interpreting the progressive requirements of the design theme. The proposed city centre is in fact an ensemble of public squares spread across a route starting in G-ral Praporgescu street and developing on the North-South direction. The squares are integrated in a network of pedestrian routes which connect to landmarks or the rest of the city.
The Mircea cel Bătrân square is the most visible spot and also the hardest to negotiate at a city level. The approach for this type of urban space is to transform the spaces into places that gain a certain aura when used by the public.
In owr design proposal, the site develops on two plans, a horizontal one, on top, and a sloped one facing the the landmark of the clock. This reflects the already existent idea of a sloped square. The two plateaus are connected and articulated through rows of seating, important in the public space premise. The latter, together with the islands of trees (encompassed with cement and grass) form the seating places of the square. Therefore, the square which acts as merely a transition place will become a continuation of the Mircea cel Bătrân foresty parc.
The upper plateau is bounded at North by a row of blocks, acting as an extension of their need for public space and urban rehabilitation. The existing office building has the potential of becoming the cultural headquarter of the area, as information point for tourists, also comprising different functions directed to public. In addition, the roof terrace could be designed for the public (as a restaurant or simply a lookout point) on account of the views it has.

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We imagined two potential public spaces in between the buildings took shape: the public spaces as piazza, a western type spatial enclosure, and also the public space as forest, so typical to the finnish city of Turku. The metaphor of the five local gods tried to emphasize this duplicity between the local and the generic city.

"The model, based on five compact blocks, has development potential. In the presented format the proposal is too inefficient and fragmented. No cohesive public space is created in the area. The car-parking solution is unpleasant for the residents." - honorable jury / Europan11.
http://www.europan-europe.com/e11/en/results/FI-Jury-Report.pdf

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The official toponymy describes space around the Black Church from the beginning as a place marked by the personality of Johannes Honterus in a significantly way. Indeed, as scale effect of the Black Church since the earliest representations of Brasov, the church seems to be rather the whole city.
At the bottom of the church, the humanist’s imprint in not within the monumental register, but it relates to the community quotidian that the church calles from afar - gymnasium, library, pupil organization, printery.
In this regard, as revealed by the name of "courtyard", activities using the space according to the model introduced by Honterus relate to proximity and are more dedicated to the community than those city-scale representative (to the latter the inside of the church is dedicated to, from the spiritually point of view, and Piaţa Sfatului, at levels of administration or commercial). In the shadow of the church as an active spiritual landmark, Honterus Court disengages of servitudes to it: the church is there, it is the center, it is an undeniable presence, that no longer needs to be strengthened. Least a planning related to the scale or importance of the church, the court shelters events that the church and commissions. Snapshots of the day or year make the shifting subject of the court and capture its overall picture by joining and overlapping in real space or in memory of so many ephemeral images. Photojournalism as a lifestyle, not as documentary.
The project proposes a planning that puts strong, but also discrete, emphasis, on a neutral canvas. Based on the evaluation of the functional potential of surrounding buildings, to be taken in advantage in relation with the unbuilt space of the court, the arrangement favors the track and partial everyday use, over "strong" spatial concepts. In this respect, the court becomes a stage on which the daily life acting is projected (walking to school, going to work or simply crossing), marked by traces of former performances that it hosted. The place’s experimentation regards less the space’s fitting out, but the proper care of the activities that qualify the court’s time: recess, Honterusfest, service, book launch, the concer... but also the rain, snowing, lime flowers, dried leaves... The fragments of the past located by marking the remains or documents and contemporary amorphous uses blend in a polyphonic speech in the tone of different seasons or times of a day. Thus seen, the court’s space becomes elapsed time in the past and present, and the court’s composition – music – defines as a run on multiple voices, where over the history’s one overlap the rythm of the daily use or the natural one.

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The competition proposes the planning of the public space dedicated to the composer Ciprian Porumbescu, which involves solving two key issues: the existence of a functional public space and the evoking of the composer’s memory in a specialy dedicated area.
The way a common space operates, in terms of legal ownership, confers it the characteristic of public space. Through a brief analysis, we found that the space in which the statue of the composer is placed is excluded from the area in which city residents spend their time and comprehend as public.
Isolation is exacerbated by the use of fence enclosure around the statue, indicating a restricted area that emphasizes the communication and closeness fissure between users and monuments.
The purpose of intervention is to divert rigid commemoration through silence or meditation to active knowledge, participatory, subtly introducing new data specific to the subject (composer Ciprian Porumbescu’s universe).
The monumental area’s limit was dimmed by removing the fence which was replaced by an oversized-plan pedestal which requires a distance between the monument and visitor. The new limit is easily to elude because of the existence of a function assigned to this base, along with the low height (50cm above ground); the monument’s base becomes the scene with acoustic properties, interactive playground for children. In order to evoke the musical universe, we used in designing the pedestal the principle of the resonance box specific to musical instruments, especially the strings. The sound (in case of no artistic events) will be taken over by mechanical vibration and amplified in pyramidal cavities.

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The Universitate Square is the geographical and historical center of Bucharest. This centrality is accused of the planning city development in the second half of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century, following the principle of the two perpendicular axes. The site is not only full of history, but proves contradictions between various historic stages that succeeded in the evolution of the city..
The city’s transformations started at the end of the nineteenth century have deleted the previous stage, as the current work began by asserting contemporary needs in indifference front of the entire square. Consequently, in discussion there are several historical stages in contradiction, of which we have identified three major :
A. A specific urban square for urban planning at the end of the nineteenth century.
B. The modern city represented by construction of underground parking and the underground station (planned) affecting the piazza’s geometry. At functional level, the development of the old center located south of the site, pushes the square towards a function of transport node, removing it from its role of representation.
C. vestiges of one of the first institutions of education in the country brought to light by excavations.
Exclusive assertion of any of the layers can be done only at the expense of the other two, however, the three will have to find a place all together in the life and space of University square.
The approach of the project understands this history like a sequence of events launched by the initial decision to "sharpen" the piazza’s surface. In this comprehension, the beginning of work on the parking structure is the gesture that pushed the old city to the surface. As such, the voids of this surface (continuous and empty) are places where the history of the city's former stages erupts in the contemporary city, and the pressure that pushes them is the same as the one exerted by its densification through expanding in the basement.
The project takes the characteristics of the square specific to the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century (A), making way for contemporary uses (B) and necessary time to assess property (C). Refusal to negotiate with the past that characterized the installation of the original piazza on the ruins of the medieval city, as the beginning of work on the parking, is opposed to by a new approach: the new surface of the square becomes a canvas that is waiting the writing of a city’s most comprehensive history.

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The requirement for this suburban house is usual for owr days: a ‘minimal’ house, but as spacious as possible for the needs of a contemporary familiy, and the most generous courtyard to justify the escape and refuge from the city. This negotiation between the yard and the house lot was resolved by splitting the plot into two, thereby maximizing the potential of each other.
The house became a virtual cube in a close enough relationship with the neighborhood, according to the local regulations. It is this relationship we tried to renegotiate through the upstair terraces, allowing good illumination of bedrooms, but also privacy and comfort. The same type of cut in the basic volume was operated on the ground floor to obtain a covered dining room either inside or outside. The virtual cube acquired depth, the inside-outside relationship (physical or psychological) being negotiated through these intimate spaces.
From conditioning budget, the cubic form was no longer feasible for the beneficiary. The intention to remove the last plate and attic-roof the whole house has put us in difficulty at the moment. The less obvious solution was reporting the attic areas to the strong home spaces – the terraces - so that collection of meteoric water does not adversely affect this simple volume.

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The project-single family house- is the result of stacking an existing warehouse-a building with only one level, former annex of the neighbouring house. The position between two existing buildings, the dimensioning and the limited possibilities to place the windows has deffiningly determined the inner organization and the volumetry of the intervention. The facade of the new dwelling is marked by gables to show the change in the subordonation relationship between the house and the old annex, into a relationship of dialogue between two neighbouring houses.
It was envisioned to keep the spatial figure and the generous natural lighting of the interior of the former workshop, leaving the inner space as free as possible, keeping the maximized glazings at least for the groung floor area. On the ground floor the space is open, flexible; the kitchen represents the only fixed core, thus becoming a pivotal point. The exterior decoration was a long negociation between the client’s passion for the exuberance of Hundertwasser’s archhitecture and our option for pure, rational forms. Resulted a hybrid, where the decoration areas, done by an artist after his design, are placed in a composition intended to emphasize the shapes of the main volume.
The building’s final image remains open, as a result of the negociations during the works.

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Pipera Tunari Street is the main road in Pipera neighborhood – the first limit of the project – that is part of Voluntari city, which overlaps DJ200B, a county road that connects the city of Bucharest. Pipera is separated from the rest of the Voluntari city by a Tunari forest, the second limit. The other limits are the farm land and Bucharest beltway. Situated in Oxford Gardens real-estate development, these are the kind of landmarks that the Vila 86 extension relates to, although these are not close limits.
The new addition contains an interior pool, palestra, sauna, jacuzzi, bath and other spaces of delight. The site was balanced comparing to the size of the existing house, allowing the placement of the new addition only on the site limit. The new building is generous in size and number of spaces, generating a bulk volume, the space of the pool having double height. The new volume is connected to the ground floor of the existing building, from interior and also from exterior, making the pool space similar as importance to the living room. The space of the pool was challenging to accommodate an intimate and bright interior space, considering that the new volume is placed on the site limit, neighboring the main street. Hence, the bulk volume is opened to the street through small yards incorporated in the building, and also through a long and narrow window placed at the floor level, allowing the swimmers to see outside without being observed. The façade facing the garden has large windows that slide completely opening to the exterior. A skylight is placed above the pool. The skylight is made of structural narrow concrete beans with 15/70cm in section and 780cm length, placed on a 75cm spacing that were made of precast concrete, later transported to the building site and placed in situ. The beans transform the volume of the building creating shading that reduces the greenhouse effect on the interior space, still keeping the heat input during summer and winter.
The new volume is therefore a limit that, although bulk, allows natural light suited for the interior spaces and the connection with the existing building, garden, and street. The urban landmarks have influenced the opportunity to invest in order to enhance the comfort of the house.

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The rehabilitation of the Blaj cultural palace is guided by a few principles:
1. The palace must become a cultural space that will encourage a greater variety of activities to host. The condition of its maximum permissiveness leads to using the space of most ample dimensions.
2. The old auditorium is situated in the geometrical centre of the lot and is surrounded by spaces that will receive other functions in the new refurbishment. From there relations, the auditorium is invested with the value of an unprogrammed space. From the intersection of the various flows, the courtyard becomes the most lively and public space of the ensemble.
3. The palace courtyard must be open to public use independently fron the official organization. The condition of accessibility leads to a free artistic expression from outside the “programme”. This way, resting in the shade of the new auditorium, the informal culture expands in an alternative and effervescent space that grows from the relationship with the street, with the square, but also with the various spaces of the palace.
This course attracts a nuanced approach to the historical material: the noble spaces of the initial composition( except the main hall) shall be carefully restored for their original details. The previous auditorium is both the place of the most contemporary intervention and also the space where the history of the building is most intensely felt. The old scene tower, the theatre’s technical space, encloses a perimeter where the verticality is emphasized by the overlaying of the maximum number of levels.
The print of the previous auditorium thus becomes the main salon of the new palace, characterised by a fertile ambiguity: covered but uncovered, outside but protected, the old hall remains the palace’s main space .

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The client's requirement for this project was to change the image of the existing lobby of Europe House office building without interfering with the main finishings (the granite plated on the walls and floor).
Analizing the existing situation we discovered that the main issue was not necessarily the obsolescence of the previous design. The real problem was the configuration with the numerous objects required by the programme in the same lobby space: the bar volume and the lounge area, two front desks, one for the entire building and the other for the main tenant, each of them with different waiting areas. The general impression was thereby chaotic, but not as a natural stance.
Our main idea was to change the programming of the space in order to redefine its qualities. The two necessary front desks are to be organized as one, as all waiting areas gather around a green space. The two mega-volumes create space around them, their disproportionate scale being copied in the perforated steel-plate ceiling. As a tic-tac-toe game, the space is splitted between the two main activities, the welcoming and the waiting area.

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The building proposed for extension is an imposing residence in Primăverii neighborhood, overlooking the Herăstrău Park. The private client required a project similar with a feasibility study in order to estimate the best solution that complies with the design tasks. The extension was suggested by the client as enclosing the outer spaces of the house - terraces, balconies. This suggestion was converted in our proposed project: to keep with obstinacy these spaces and to build the extension around them, while respecting the protected area planning requirements. The natural lighting of the deep spaces of the house is protected and new particular interior areas are created.
A spa in the basement, an enlarged living room at ground floor, a master bedroom with natural light bathroom and a dressing at first floor. In the attic, a total change by creating living spaces in the entire area. We implemented these requirements by placing these areas around the existing patio that stands as an atrium that illuminates and allows visual communication between the different spaces. The atrium becomes the light center of the house, decorated with “drawing room” furniture and plants. At the ground floor, the space will be completely open to the exterior courtyard, placed over the extended basement, with a link to it through an underground level courtyard.
Spaces are designed for different climates: lush vegetation indoors, damp vegetation near the spa in the underground courtyard, designed planting over the extended basement over the mineral space of the concrete structure.

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Amenajarea se află într-o clădire tipică de birouri -Sema Park.Evident clădirea respectă clasicul grid de modulare corespunzator tehnologiei peretelui cortină. Acest grid se regăseşte la toate nivele de detaliere: placaje pereţi, pardoseli, tavane. Din punctul nostru de vedere, gridul raţional, impus de o logică tehnologică folosit ca unic discurs, nu ar fi putut evita corectitudinea plată a unei identitati corporatiste . Cerinta clientului de a imbunatatii atmosfera acestor lobby-uri, fără insă a modifica finisajele sau partiţiile interioare, ne-am rezumat  mijloacele de lucru la mobilier, lumini, accesorii.Pentru a putea modifica atmosfera interiorului, era necesar să intervenim cu elemente spaţiale care să impună o noua ordine, o nouă dinamica  si nu doar cu elemente decorative. Aveam nevoie de o intervenţie care să umple cu prezenţa ei, intreg spaţiul, care să accentueze importanţa celor doua spaţii in cadul clădirii.Diferenţierea consta intr-un nou grid , inspirat prin contrast, de ordinea naturii. Acesta are unghiuri de 120 de grade si ordoneaza atât mobilierul si  cât si corpurile de iluminat.  Tot in aceaşi idee, a fost ales materialul predominant – furnirul natural de lemn. Fiecare corp de mobilier a fost creat pornind de la o forma tip, adaptată gridului prin diferenţe specifice fiecărei utilizări: recepţie, canapea, jardinieră. Asupra mobilierului tip, s-au efectuat  tăieturi sau adăugiri pentru a creea ghivece pentru flori, locuri de stat, sau desk pentru recepţionist. Pentru a putea susţine raportul dinte gabaritul spaţiului si noua intervenţie era vital să avem o unitate daca nu unicitate a elementelor folosite. Repetiţia aceleiaşi forme, impreuna cu noua structura hexagonală de dispunere spaţială a făcut posibil crearea din elemente relativ mici a unui ansamblu la scara 
intregului lobby.

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In an intensive real estate development from the outskirts of Bucharest we had to deal with an est-west lakeside oriented site. Two quantitative ideas structured our proposal: the necessity of lakeside view for every apartment and the avoidance of completely north orientation of each. The cross section of Unité d'habitation seemed ideal, combined with the rhomboidal planimetry which permitted large terraces lakeside oriented.
It seemed to us that the client heard about the Pruitt-Igoe disaster by definitely refusing such management risk.

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Site and programme both led to the decision to explode the whole into five separate but identical units. Each unit houses living and dining areas, kitchen, three bedrooms and a large terrace – a small holliday house.
This solution allows for the independent use of each unit/house, for renting several adjacent houses for a larger group, or even for the use of the separate bedroom units that share the living areas on the top level of each house.
More than a decision based on the creative interpretation of the programme and planning for versatility, this is also a technical and strategic position regarding the implantation on an irregular, but steep slope. This also generates nuanced, ambiguous areas between the five houses, thus creating a unique setting for each unit in relation with the surrounding landscape.

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The extension of the University Library was intended to be, according to the theme, an independent building, connected only through a walkway to one of the levels of the existing library. Assessing the urban potential of the lot, near Lucian Blaga square, intensely frequented by the students, the new building wing was conceived as a gathering and communication space, with a possibility to have independent working hours, with a generous access, ressembling the existing one. This is why the proposal’s discourse places its stake on the new building’s layout mode and its volumetry, on the spacial relation generated with the addiacent building.
The new building wing lays on the lot’s diagonal to define two types of spaces- one urban, connected to the street and one with a semi-public character- the library courtyard. At the same time, due to its north-south orientation, the sun exposure is optimal, all the reading spaces bennefit from the zenith light. The courtyard opens between the two buildings due to the progressive withdrawal of the floors.
The ground floor, but especially the semi-basement encompass spaces dedicated to public events and they are easy to access, freely and unconditioned by the library’s working hours. The gigantic staircase in front of the entrance is an independent space, where you can talk, wait and enjoy the sun. The access to the semi-basement is through a slowly desccending courtyard, protected from the street traffic, animated by comercial activities: bookstores, the access to the cafeteria and to the conference room.

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The theme of the project is to connect two existing buildings (school and sports hall) to avoid students crossing the yard for physical education classes, especially during the winter. The extension is performed by an independent body that connects the school and gym. The volumetric compliance results from solving functional flows and additional improvements to the sports halls - changing rooms. The link between school and gym is perpendicular to the direction of access and crossing toward the schoolyard, which also determined the arrangement of the two identical lockers. The space configuration is attractive and may become a landmark for both users and local inhabitants, a possibility sustained by the position of land adjacent to the main street high visibility in public space.

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The project develops Campina’s center by a number of interventions that critically interpret both the existing situation and also its refurbishment theme. The city center develops an artifficial density, accused by its rupture with the historical fabric. This situation is enforced by the competition theme, which proposes isolating this area and treating it as a public space, separated from the rest of the city. Moreover, proposing the subterranian passage and its corollary, liberating the old center from all road traffic presents the risk of suffocating today’s commercial activities and move them to areas easier to access.
The design proposes reinventing the center by breaking it in distinct spaces with strong character, tied in new ways to the fabric behind the appartment buildings. This approach takes shape by a sum of interventions at different scales which meet the simbolical, representation, promenade, leisure necessities, by designing distinct places, that live through the complementarity of the ensemble: symbolical public building, sunken square, the promenade, „By the watch”, market, public parking, playgrounds, commercial facades and terasses, the square’s cornice.
The project refuses from the very begining the hypothesis of the subterranian passage. The solution with the circulations at street level avoids transforming the rest of the city in a highway and isolating the center. In exchange, joining all types of mobility in the same space constitutes the declared goal of the design and the main engine to supporting the urbanity in Campina’s center.

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A residential project situated out in the fields and far from the city, in an area adjacent to the A2 Highway and the traffic ring of the Bucharest metropolis. Disregarding these, the main issue was considered to be a company situated in close proximity which is responsible for the bad scents in the area. Considering all the issues negative that the site was posing, the resolution was situated at a microlevel, and decided that the apartments will not be orientated exclusively towards the field. Instead, they could be orientated towards a green interior space, an olfactory oasis. This space, secluded from the external, would be used by the residents as a background to different sports activities, short walks of games for different age groups. The sides which comprise apartments, especially the two and three bedroom ones, have the horizontal circulation system from 3 to 3 levels, as well as interior courtyards in order to naturally ventilate the kitchen. An access route encompasses the blocks, delimiting it from the field.
After all, it seems that the client has heard of the Pruitt-Igoe disaster and declined any risks that this configuration might impose.

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The client's requirement for this project was to change the image of the existing lobby of Europe House office building without interfering with the main finishings (the granite plated on the walls and floor).
Analizing the existing situation we discovered that the main issue was not necessarily the obsolescence of the previous design. The real problem was the configuration with the numerous objects required by the programme in the same lobby space: the bar volume and the lounge area, two front desks, one for the entire building and the other for the main tenant, each of them with different waiting areas. The general impression was thereby chaotic, but not as a natural stance.
Our main idea was to change the programming of the space in order to redefine its qualities. The two necessary front desks are to be organized as one, as all waiting areas gather around a green space. The two mega-volumes create space around them, their disproportionately scale being copied in the perforated steel-plate ceiling. As a tic-tac-toe game, the space is splitted between the two main activities, the welcoming and the waiting area.

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The kindergarten must occupy the only unbuilt spot on the lot, with direct access from the street, assuring that the intersection of flows between the pupils and the preschool children can be overseen or reduced. Under these terms, the school’s proximity induces both an ensemble geometry for the program and its double orientation to the street and to the courtyard. In relation to this, the kindergarten spaces choose their openings, giving privilege to the courtyard for any inner space whose activity might be extended outdoors, when the weather is nice.
A second polarization took into account orientating the spaces designed for resting to openings as far as possible from the street noise.
The classroom cells are held together by the hallway- foyer and playground- on the ground floor, doubled by a terrace that can also host some of the studying activities. The multipurpose space (auditorium and cafeteria) spans in the cross-section between the semi-basement and the ground floor and it seeks to stimulate both the use and the playful spirit by the treatment given to the level and height differences of the spaces.
The three units of the vertical circulations that personalize the groups of study and resting spaces express themselves through color, also at the exterior of the building. Facing the street, square openings, placed at different levels bring the landscape from outside the kindergarten at reach for the beholder.

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With a street opening of only 10 meters the site occupies most of the interior of the block. Hence, it is sur¬rounded by blind walls on six sides. The resulted build¬ing simultaneously stands for the will to realise the site's economic potential and for the lack of fixed regulation in the case of a irregular plot surrounded by con¬structions which do not comply with it. The building does not aim at negotiat¬ing with the neighbours either its general size or the scale of its details: the total built mass highlights the expectations of the city officials for the urban development of the area. Given the context, the additional stakes of the project were to add complementary exterior spaces to the vari¬ous flats, thus making use of the view over the neighbourhood. Privatly owned, these yards, balconies or terraces turn into exposed areas to outside looks, in the same way that the neighbourhood opens up to the view from above. This reciprocity softens the differenc¬es in scale and links everyday living practices in the neighbourhood with those of the new owners.

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After receiving the brief for refurbishing the air-locks of the basement elevators for Semaparc, our response focused on three directions: the spatial analysis, the configuration analysis and the proposal.
The spatial analysis revealed that the elevator lobbies were disregarded because they represented uninteresting spaces. What was to be discovered at the site were a lot of pipe types for ventilation, protection and fire safety, cables etc.
As for the configurative analysis, it was accepted that the basements of office buildings have become complicated machines that support the business upstairs. Though kept hidden in the rest of the building, these technical functions are being unravelled in the basement. Considering their importance for the entire complex functionality, we decided that these services should not be removed from the lift lobbies, but valued.
Following the analysis mentioned above, the proposal was developed around the underground machine theme. The walls were to be painted emulating and exaggerating the idea of pipes, similar to PIPE GAME images, therefore a local artist, Pisica Pătrată was commissioned. The underdeveloped theme of emphasizing the technical infrastructure was sensibly interpreted by the artist, producing a piece of work that exceeded our expectations.
Hopefully our intervention will attract visitors, thus reviving the lift lobbies status, although situated in the basement.

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CofA is a study that relies on a simple observation: the development of cities is based on a system of rules that may come into conflict with the architect’s desire for formal innovation, or at least to his freedom to form. In Bucharest, the main urban rules are expressed as limitations of CUT (the area of the building), POT (the surface of the plot occupied by the building) and H (the building’s height). The conjunction of these three factors generates an extruded polygon i.e. zero possibility to interpret an architectural programme by twisting the built form. In this context, we ask for the introduction of a new coefficient into the urban legislation regarding architectural design – CofA (architectural coefficient).
In contrast to POT, CUT, etc., CofA is a coefficient for architectural freedom regarding built form. It expresses itself as a percentage of the total built area to be built on a plot (CofA=20%CUT). As such, it uses the traditional rules that confine the architectural practice to ascertain the opposite of a rule – a space of formal freedom. CofA also supposes a professional promise for architectural and urban quality as opposed to a system of rules that only governs the quantity of built space in the city.

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“ The Ploiesti racecourse has closed its gates for good, after running for 86 years. The italian businessman to whom the City Hall has leased the racecourse three years ago has announced the owners and the trainors that they are no longer allowed to enter the tracks with the horses.” (http://www.realitatea.net/hipodromul-din-ploiesti-a-incetat-sa-mai-functioneze_147161.html)
On the occasion of the solutions competition organized for its modernization, we proposed to keep and restore the existing building, from technical and economical considerations, but mostly because of aesthetical preferences. The frust building is impressive, and the cross-section conveninet for watching the races deserves to be speculated on the whole lot, especially since the municipality imagines a multiplication of the neccessary number of seats for the spectators. Thus, the brutalist building is reconfigured and transformed into a new topography for the whole site.
Because of this, we have chosen to position all the new facilities required through the competition theme ( hotel, restaurant, training area, commercial area etc) on the opposite side of the existing racecourse. A new urbanity related to minor practices, apart from the exceptional time of the races is configured in this multipurpose slab.

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Republic of Architects has adapted the concept and the constructive system of the modules proposed by Star Dome to the programme of a multifunctional space including a kindergarten. The geometry of the geodezic domes was the object of a first relative layout study for the modules and placing the 5 modules in site, comparing the various possible built surfaces. The dome’s attribute to be placed in multiple ways leads to different ways of occupying the lot, to different coupling systems between the different modules. Inner spaces with distinct geometrical dimensions and architectural qualities result.
The study was dedicated towards the end to perfecting the construction so that the kindergarten would qualify for the A energetic performance class. For this we chose to work with innovatong materials that included liquid thermal insulating acrillic membrane finishing. The thermal insulation was made of materials that reduce the building’s energy consumption: insulation with graphite particles, fire-protected cellulose wool and reflecting plated sheets. The interior plasterings are made of materials that increase the thermal confort. Moreover, heat-regaining ventilation systems have been proposed to reduce the maintenance cost, and the heating installation is composed of heat pumps on water and solar pannels.

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The unifing idea of the DeutschKulturWoche should be the culture that the Fall of the Berlin Wall made possible, the culture that it produced, generated, and the culture that the afterward unified Berlin fostered. The Fall of the Berlin Wall represented a different conquest of the city: after the fall, the city became a prize for everyone. Berliners were conquerors of a space – urban, political, cultural, etc. – previously denied to them. The immediate effect on Berlin city-life was an effervescence of use of public space that can still be seen in the density of art venues and cultural events, as well as felt in the streets, a predilect space for expression of art and individuality. This continues to be the specific trademark of the German capital – a city that values its reconquered public realm. The concept for Sala Dalles is to transform the main hall into an open arena for artistic experience and expression, a small scale Berlin that can host a variety of smaller events throughout the entire month of the lease: places to sit (styrofoam bricks), a beamer and a speaker-system. Along with free accessibility this infrastructure aims at transforming the use of Dalles central hall and to prepare it for the Cultural Week's programme, as well as for the spontaneous staging of unprogrammed events.

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The site of this project: a wonderful middle sub-Carpathian hills field. Theme: holiday residende with living room, kitchen, dining room and office, 2 bedrooms, hobby room in the attic, covered parking.
What interested us regarding the proposed configuration was primarily landscape richness. Thus, we chose to perch the holiday house as high as possible. And since the back of the lot aggressive slope did not allow its hilltop position, we had to develop the necessary functions vertically. The house has a semi-level configuration because of the intention to raise it above the first row of trees in the valley. Thus, the hilly landscape can be admired even in cool weather conditions, unfavorable to outdoor activities.
The remaining land can be arranged or not, positioning a pool with optimal length in the valley, along with the customary area of the arbour with grill between fruit trees on the hill.

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The project aimed at restoring the existing house roof structure, extending it with a pavilion in the garden and adding a awning at the entry into the new house. The drainage, the covering of the old access to the basement, as well as the need of storage space for garden tools - alltogether have led to the alteration of the simple geometry coverage pavilion into a bridge - between old and new structures - impractical for adults and adressed to the children in particular. Both main pavilion area and the children’s split level started from the requirement to better observe the garden and are originally just that - playgrounds in relation to the court.
Interpretation of specific household annexes of traditional houses in Bucharest, its interior space is opening up the garden through a porch / covered terrace and encloses the courtyard to the posterior limit of the plot. In this way, the property has no rear (back); the depth is the one that nuances the degrees of privacy from the street or from neighboring space.
Looming outside the pavilion roof shaped pulse on successive plans of the blind walls of core silhouettes of the island.

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The client for this project, having with a relatively large plot of land, asked us to design a building to engage as much with the courtyard and thus with nature. The desire to escape the city started with quantitative criteria and tried to be organized by this project through the quality of resulted spaces.
According to this view, we started the project in reverse, from garden to house. We proposed dividing the court into a series of different landscapes that enrich the area of land: an orchard, a vegetable area, the main courtyard with swimming pool, a Zen garden for guests, the roadway and a flowery access courtyard.
Between these landscapes lies in the middle the house and enjoys the quality of each, also subordinated to the cardinal points. The living room becomes the important area, visibility and access center to each of imagined realities. Its central configuration allowed large openings to three distinct areas of the yard, as well to three others of the home: access to the kitchen and garage, the guest area, the upstairs night zone with master and children bedrooms.

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To extend vertically, by added volume, or through creating a new one, placed at distance. The limit between the existing and the new building is either a line – a structural gap – or a space.
In the case of Jegălia cityhall, the new space – as a public one – is necessary. The initial context of the cityhall is a house with a fence and annexes. In the case of an extension detached of the existing house, the fence would no longer exist and the space between the new and the old house will remain a small covered square with a bench. The structural effort for the new function of public space is visible: the console completely covering the small square is 3.80 meters, 9.30 meters in height. We are convinced that the people in the village will have a lot to speak of on bench in the piazza.

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Between the client’s request – a public authority – to expose a major project and the planning requirements and strict enviromentally standards, we opted for an elevated road plan, that subordinated the enclosed functional spaces beneath. The complex functional project includes: traffic node, Dâmbu river protection area, bridge, bus terminal, commercial area, offices.
Being faced with the choice of normal architectural building near the bus terminal, we discovered the infrastructure as a key element of the final proposal to the client, which had as a powerful advantage as a new type of the land’s topography. Inside the building, the bus terminal operating scheme, including awaiting, arrival and departure space, the requirement to cross on the other side of the river and then the urban one of closing the city’s traffic ring, the building displays itself as an attic-like urban structure, subsequently populated with functions that may contain normal urban images and functions "at level with the eye". Once this proposal was accepted, we could study the details that make this building not a large-scale infrastructure, but rather a reference public space.

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The project is located on one of the quiet streets and (still) full of vegetation in South Eforie. Without direct access to the sea, but allowing a perspective on it, the plot is a rectangle resulted from a recent batching. The volume represents a maximization of buildable potential of the land, under a permissive regulation, but also ambiguous and interpretable. Consequently, the resulting shape is a strong one, aggressive to the outside, but also introverted. Openings are made only on the short sides: to the street, to the rear of the parcel (view to the sea) and to an inner courtyard; to the two long sides of the plot, the construction is opaque. If we consider the fact that the hotel consists of two buildings connected by a stairway - identical plan, but treated typologically differently (one is covered with a steep sloping oriented to the sea, the other has a roof terrace) - results in a very special silhouette, recognizable, able, we hope, to become a signal and a business card of the hotel. The entire assembly is lifted from the ground to allow the use of land as outside parking. The atypical image of the suspended volumes contributes to the expressiveness of the project.
After long discussions and negotiations with local mayoralty over interpretable aspects of the regulation, after solving the problems caused by sensitivity of coastal land, the project was authorized and expected the end of the tourist season to start site.

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This project is a collection of timely intervention in an area already built. All lobby and atrium’s finishings (floors, walls, ceilings) were fitted under the project of Westfourth Architecture, being the all copyright holders. Republic Office of Architects intervened punctually in the space, as follows:
GLASS BLADES: were fitted along the building access façade to emphasize linear qualities of space;
GLASS RECEPTION: is made from a series of overlapping horizontal strips with six layers interspersed with intent to diminish the perception of an uniform volume. The glass weight is transmitted to the floating floor through a metallic bracing; in the interspaces of this structure various storages find their place, wrapped in a uniform finish of Corian and MDF;
ATRIUM POTS: the client desired intensive planting of this great atrium space, but existing topsoil layer proved insufficient. Greening of the vertical plane was achieved by using a stainless steel mesh to support climbing plants;
ATRIUM LAMPS: for the functional area of the cafeteria, we have preferred a local lighting, not uniform. The leg lamp is deliberately chosen the same as the one used for exterior common areas;
ATRIUM BAR: stand-alone object with a simple as possible form, consisting of colorless finishes to avoid competition with the original space finishes. The object is black on the outside (glass enamelled) and white inside (Corian), thus defining distinct areas, both for customers and the bartender.

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The project consists of four houses located in a new urbanization of Glina commune. The main requirement of the client was that these houses to be effective in terms of construction, but at the same time to have a sufficient degree of differentiation.
In this respect, they chose two directions of work. The first – the attenuation of street front line repetition by the rotated disposal towards buildings’ alignment, and the second - the intervention over the façade, without affecting the inside.
Houses are based on a masonry-made prototype of which the oversized gaps will have wood panels and joinery. The facades’ variety will be in proportion between the carpentry and wood panels, chosen depending on the sunlight, the need for privacy and the importance of interior space.
The house plan is influenced by the relationship with nature (the court). The main access and exit to the pool area is through two interior courtyards, which provide transition, controlling and ordering the natural frame.

The principles of this project can be applied easily at much larger scale assemblies.

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This small bar project refers to a lot of Sinaia, in the central promenade area. The investor’s limitations were related to the idea of land lease from the Mayoralty for a limited period. For this reason, the whole project had to be designed with cheap material, easy to install and, of course, to remove.
We chose to use for the entire design polycarbonate material, with the primary benefit of its insulating properties, in terms of limited budget. But what we were interested in these solutions was a two-stroke operation of the project, diurnal and nocturnal. Thus, the cafe would receive enough light during day light and the view on the park on one long side, and by night it could become a bright attraction in the small tourist town. The removable wooden structure with metal joints was also somewhat implied to this sort of program.

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In the existing 1930 building, the client intended to move the central quarters of an advertising firm. The house should represent the firm as a brand and also give space for a well functioning office.
Like in every office building there is a reception area and a hall way that communicate with the stair case, the managerial office and the meeting room. At the first floor, there are 3 working rooms that communicate through the main hall way.
The house, with its generous spaces, gave place for special rooms. At the first floor there is a large kitchen. The attic was transformed in a free space. Part of the roof was trasformed into an outside terrasse. All these communicate with a second stair case. These spaces are to be used as creation or meeting places. Part of these spaces are fully equipped so that in the future they may be used as office spaces as well.

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Lack of urban planning parameters’ correlation set by the planning certificate, may be an opportunity for architect. Thus, with a surplus of built space, we could cancel the CUT block, the one whose volumes reveal through a simple extrusion.
To each level a certain amount of excess surface was distributed, in such a way as to avoid the monotony that would result from repeating the current floor. In this respect, the client’s requirement to maximize built surface was transformed into a tool for architecture.
Real estate pressure does not always create happy situations. Thus, the shape in plan, resulted from the withdrawals, has serious geometric disadvantages for both space organization and structural concept.

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Following the theme’s analysis and representation needs of the beneficiary, Republic of Architects’ proposal for expansion and functional remodeling contest of the Art University Bucharest headquarters had the subsequent objectives:
* Enhancement of the Robescu house by releasing the space in which this can be perceived visually;
* Creating an uniform background to achieve contrast, the intervention subordinating to the existent;
* the Robescu house becoming the honor and distribution area to the proposed new body.
Thus, we settled the public exhibition spaces in a general basement lit by the small "mineral" square created above. The needs of students taking additional courses were accommodated in a blade with administrative functions. The full-empty relation was correlated with the small square around the Robescu house to get a background as homogeneous as possible, for the important architectural monument.
The Robescu House would become, we believe, a representation object of the entire institution, with its history and performance, being dedicated to exhibition spaces, the picture galery and university management.

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For the Viilor project, the office realized the "theme's illustration". In current practice, in the process urban plans approval, "illustrating the theme" tries to demonstrate the viability of some situations occasionally "unlikely" due to pressure of real estate market.

Located on a former factory field, a residential is desired, that would occupy 5 times the field surface. The high density of the built volume has imposed two major work themes: the possibility of sunlight and the ratio between the existing scale and that of the new buildings. Extending the main directions of circulation, four islands were defined volumetric, with variable height, so that the street profile’s modification from specific residential to commercial-like to be done gradually.
The study has a high degree of abstraction and is limited to the graphical representation of surfaces associated to functions such as housing, office and commerce, which, in turn, conditions the number of parking spaces. It is a mathematical game that lays behind any future real estate realities.

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To make a house in the attic for a family and a grandmother? We were faced with a resolute acquisition of an attic in top of a block of flats by the visionary client, in the Domenii neighborhood.
The inherent problems regarding the approach of such a project were mainly related to the need of space that needed to be inflated to make place for a house. We chose to keep the cornice and the ridge at the same height in order not to interfere with the existing building architecture. As a result, the roof sometimes develops into several rooftops, within the limits of the ridge and in those of the technical necessities of cover sheet. Several “sails” in the roof open to the neighbourhood by tympanums that let the light pass through the slots between the existing cornice and the “sail”. Therefore, the space becomes generous, leaving place for an apartment with two areas of mezzanine, four terraces and a studio, and an apartment for the grandmother.
It was taken into account that the structure of the house in the attic not to change the structural requirements of the existing building. In order to avoid the reinforcement of the building, we evaluated the loads: the finished material tile was thus replaced with tin, while the new structures were light, made of wood. The house looks good today with the “sails” spread over the neighborhood’s rooftops and pots of plants on the terraces perched on top of the block.

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The project’s goal is to fragment the density required by the brief, amplifying the number of planning situations in different parts of the building. Therefore, the whole ensemble develops on a commercial base, accessible to pedestrians. The complicated volume emerges vertically developing crevasses that follow the public routes and frame the sky. At the same time, the development of the industrial area located in proximity is being controlled by encouraging the intense use of the public space, represented by the whole ground floor of the building.
The ensemble is connected to the rest of the city through the ground floor which is mainly developed as commercial space. At times, some types of commercial activities intertwine with spaces located on first floor. In addition to the commercial function, the ensemble consisting of houses and blocks dwells offices and residential units as well. This combination creates a hierarchy and encourages for the whole ensemble to be lived and beloved.

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Pimp my Bedroom is a campaign for Axe Romania, developed in partnership with a local TV Station. The TV Show invites young men to change the way their "cribs" look like. The winners of the competition run by AXE are helped by the hip-hop band Parazitii, the leaders of the new generation, to transform their bedroom „from a snake hole in a bedroom of a super conqueror”. They are, in fact, calling for Republic of Architects help.
The winners are chosen randomly from an online subscription site. From Caracal to Pascani, from Piatra Neamt to Constanta, the 10sqm bedrooms from mainly apartment blocks are converted into Axe spaces.
Green drapers, walls upholstered in red, stencils, "tropical beach" decorative wallpaper, plus retail furnishings and some design elements populate the bedrooms.
Fun and demanding project. To be debated by the three hip hoppers from Parazitii can only be honorable.