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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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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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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 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 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 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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“ 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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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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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.