Embassy
Roma
Disciplines
Host, Mentors & Collaborators
Political Philosophy
Urban Planning
Landscape Architecture
Socially Engaged Design
UAUIM Bucharest, RO
Angelica Stan
Alexandra Anton
Status
Independent & Collaborative Research Project
Proposal for Metropolitan Area of Bucharest - Development Plan
2013 - 2014
The never used Defence System of Bucharest (capital of Romania), a ring railway surrounding the city and connecting 18 defence structures is re-designed. Not much changes in the initial plan, but it is all repurposed by shifting the old strategy of war. The ‘enemies’ with whom Romania has now close cultural and economical relations are invited to raise their flags, as embassies, from within the defence forts once aimed against them.
In the south part of the city, in the vicinity of one of these forts, the democratic and multicultural Bucharest is questioned by a tight community of Roma people (often called gypsies). The core proposal of this project is reserving this fort and transforming it into the Roma Embassy. By doing this, the proposal doesn't aim to just redesign a building and further draw a Masterplan for the area, but act as a momentum where a segregated community can take space and have a voice.
Bucharest
Romania Map
The Task
Bucharest
a concrete, territorial imprint
The Task, in the beginning, had no political or social particular requirement. Bucharest has a very compact, coherent urban planning in its centre, where the public domain flows easily and continuous, but the more the city expands, the more this character is lost. This mirrors the capital's and country's political history, as it is also mirroring the political present.
The task of this project: Peripheral Bucharest - a proposal for development. Currently there are several Territorial Plans, in regard to the city developing towards a metropolis when it comes to the general blue-green structure, transport flow, business, more business, main airport, second airport, but all of the plans are minding general terms and are oriented to look beyond the ring circle encircling the city.
The proposal that follows goes much into the granularity of today's realm with the purpose to find consistency, traction towards the Territorial Plans and a developmental narrative that is aligned with the metropolitan aspirations.
The Thought
Process
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Historical Development
The Percentage of Negotiable
The development of the city came over time in several waves, each with its values, priorities and tempo, but the tempo slowed down significantly after 1989, when the communist regime fell and made room for democracy. However, before democracy, came confusion, poverty and a general lack of continuity in decision making. This may be read in the imprint of the city's development.
The peripheral landscape of the city consists of many grand and abandoned communist project (from large industrial sites to hydrographic planning projects), shady land take overs with unclear activity, poor and insalubrious dwelling areas, but also some flourishing areas, though clearly delimiting themselves with stark boundaries from the less prosperous. This does, once more, create a fragmented urban flux and a reserved sense of bienvenue.
Often, trust may be read around the corners.
The Percentage
of Negotiable
where the city starts to loose its coherence, its continuity in both function and distribution and where the urban space no longer conjoins
With who & what
is there to negotiate?
The first part of this study, more that landscape architects and urban planners, we felt like detectives, night-time cops, wildlife rangers, archeologists, politicians and, to an extend, aliens discovering their own history.
The study and research phase in understanding the Peripheral Bucharest was an extended and essential effort to build a solid foundation for a proposal and a vision that can withhold and align with the avalanche of stakeholders already with plans in mind.
Among the many forms of exploration and analysis we have done, our research narrative naturally led to the next question: With who and what is there to negotiate? If we ring around the city, looking into where the Percentage of Negotiable extends towards, possible candidates are the following:
- large industrial landscapes abandoned from the communist era
- 2 XXL garbage dumps
- 1 test field of launching grenades
- 1 research institute in atomic physics
- 1 chocolate factory
- 1 socks factory
- 1 high-profile jail
- 1 club for parachuting and aerobatics
- 4 strip clubs
- 1 "China Town" / gather of industrial deposits with imports from China
- 10 abandoned railways stations
- 1 almost forgotten architectural jewel, The Defence Belt of Bucharest, which we finally decided to take further in our wondrous journey
