arch. Andrei Kiss, arch. Andreea Kiss-Horvath, arch. stag. Ingrid Dragomir, arch. stud. Mădălina Olaru, arch. stud. Cristina Ilie
Kogălniceanu – Design Competition
Urban Development of Kogălniceanu Street – Description
Poetical
We are in a Margin and also in the Center. The margin of the medieval historic citadel at its south-eastern corner and the new center, that has widened itself through time and has outgrown its margins.
The main subject of this project can be seen as a margin – Kogălniceanu street is a margin to become a center – a center of interest for the human being, the community.
As architects, we are in a acknowledged urban space of heterogeneity.Different architectural styles of the built environment that construct this urban space, actually live segregated in the mind of the local citizen without being properly acknowledged for what it is.
A proper intervention in this heterogeneous space should catalyze the relationship of the community with the Built Environment – a true heritage of the city that speaks about different historical ethnicities and their different values and identities that have materialized, historically speaking through architecture – and at the same time it should promote a healthy relationship with the Natural Environment.
A balanced community is defined by the quality and diversity of the interactions that such an intervention promotes and this is the reason why this project promotes a cultural dialogue with the existing tissue and natural landscape in order to branch itself, feed, and live together with this historical layer.
Conceptual
Thinking from this perspective we see the intervention as an Organism that consists of a network of subordinated and integrated systems. Starting from the cell scale – which translates in this case in a multifunctional programable module – up to the scale of the specialized tissues and organs, this components inform a physical body that could live in commensalism or even symbiosis with the existing historical layer.
The keywords in this case are Connectivity and Continuity, qualities coming from the natural world, keywords that are also in reference to the topological space that the mathematician Janos Bolyai studied not long time ago.
An Ordering Matrix in this heterogeneous space would have the role of systematizing the intervention at the human scale and would be based on a repetitive, extrapolated, structural module measuring 3x3x3m that could provide the desideratum of flexibility, reversibility and adaptability
The idea of weaving the space using this module was adopted having in mind the possibility that this kind of weaving can also be an educational process
A green organism that grows, feeds and inserts itself in the heart of the existing urban space by promoting untapped spatial qualities in order to achieve better human interaction.
Structural
We’ve identified 5 critical areas of interest that are defined by their different functional typologies and qualities, and we’ve considered this spatial nodes as structural elements of the organism that develops itself on this premises.
There are two Educational Nodes – a node with a high concentration ofhigh-schools and a university node – a Spiritual Node, a Historical Node and a Public-Commercial Node, that are present in the same tissue and we want to specialize and further develop this key areas.
Analytical
A short analysis of the land area required in the exterior space of a high-school education facility reveals that there is a high demand for external , alternative spaces, because those facilities are not properly equipped with the minimum area that the law requires.
In this sense, at the Educational Node level the proposal is to generate an urban space with interaction based upon an educational character in which knowledge is gained through space exploration and the relation between the artificial and the natural. A pavilion that weaves its way horizontally and vertically has been proposed in order to accommodate nature and human being together.
The Historical Node marked by the Tailor’s Tower is a starting point in a journey that should inform you about the history of the city that you are living in or visiting by using a scaled 3D model of the old medieval town in order to better navigate the existing space. This space is also based on learning through interaction being thought at children’s scale.
The whole journey that takes you from a center of interest to another isactually populated with cells that construct educational and cultural tissues.
Taxonomies
Taxonomies with existing and newly proposed species are described in order to better visualize and understand the modulation and interdependence of this systems.
The vegetation layer has been preserved where the specialized studies indicated so, but a radical intervention has been proposed in the middle of the street that has the quality of transforming this urban experience in a relaxed green scenery promoting healthy interaction for the local community and tourists.
This green line has a width of 6 meters and through the urban modulation has the capacity to insert itself in the public courtyards and also develop vertically. The resulting lateral shared spaces are spaces of mobility for pedestrians,bicyclists and occasional vehicles having a width of approximately 5 meters.