damian alexandru: architecture portfolio. 2014

darchitecture

Personal information:

Name, surname: Alexandru Damian Date and place of birth: 12.04.1989, Timişoara, RomaniaTelephone: +40766600736Email: damian.aleksandar@gmail.comLanguages: English, Spanish, Romanian, Croatian, Serbian (cyrillic & latin)

Educational background:

Faculty of Architecture Polytechnic University Timişoara - RomaniaSuperior Technical School of ArchitectureUniversity of Seville - Spain

Work experience:

Studio Mjölk architekti - Prague & Liberec, Czech Republic (2013)Studio Tab - Timişoara, Romania (2013-2014)

Architectural competitions:

FIRST PRIZE: Local competition “Timisoara City Gate”, project: a city gate for Torontalului Entracnce.THIRD PRIZE: National competition “CASA” (2010), project: “A Sculptor’s house” in Bucharest.FINALIST: International competition “The Shelter Student Architectural Design Competition” (2013), project: “Time Shelter”.NOMINATED: National competition “Arhetipuri”(2011), project: “Step On”, a transformation of a public space.NOMINATED: Arch. national competition “Inspired - architecture” (2010), project: “Info Pavilion”, in Timisoara.

Published work:

Project: “Timisoara City Gate” was published on “Igloo” online architecture magazine and on local news.Project: “Colective Housing - Lörrach, Germany” was published on Igloo online arhchitecture magazine.Project: “Museum of the Revolution ‘89” was exhibited in the Memorial of the Romanian Revolution, from Timişoara.Project: “Mansarda” was published on www.arhgora.com, interior design for the Annual Architecture of Timişoara. Project: “Transformable Stool” was publised on the sustainable design website “www.greenspotter.ro”. Project: “CASA - A Sculptor’s house” was publicated in the national magazine “Arhitectura” no. 22.

Social skills and competences:

Communicative, a good team worker, optimistic, inspired, innovative, watchful during projects and workshops and always looking for the right solutions.

Skills and competences:

Artistic: graphical visualisation, interior, exterior renderings, axonometric & 2D schemes, hand sketches, conceptual design.Technical: drawing large scale details, technical axonometries, plans, sections, facades.Physical: Understanding and working with different materials, using natural textures, reusing good materials, building models.Programs: Revit, Autocad, Photoshop & PS plugins, Indesign, Illustrator, G. Sketchup, Microsoft Office programs, Prezi.

Written studies:

1. “Dobrovic’s master piese: The Generastab complex” An elaborate study about the buildings of the former Federal Ministry of Defense of Yugoslavia, located in central Belgrade, Serbia. The reaserch follows the theories and the story of the famous serbian architect Nikola Dobrovic and his Generalstab project, since it’s creation to it’s destruction, bombed by NATO in 1999.Language: Romanian, Serbian (latin)

2. “Identity without space, space without identity”A case study about Romanian gypsies since their arrival to Europe, their life through the communist era, to their euro-migrations since Romania became an EU member in 2007. The study concentartes on the transformation of the public space and the state of mind of the foreign residents, depending on where they migrate.Language: Spanish

Internship at Studio Mjölk architekti - Prague & Liberec, Czech Republic

PROJECTS

FENCE TM

MANSARDA

U HOUSE

SKYLIGHT HOUSE

ARTISANAL GLASS WORKSHOPS

HUNEDOARA LIVING MUSEUM

BELGRADE NATO BOMBING MUSEUM

LöRRACH HOUSING

MUSEUM OF THE REVOLUTION ‘89

HOUSE 123

NAKO CASTLE WOOD FRAMING

TRANSFORMABLE STOOL

WOOD PAVILION

HOUSE & SHOP

THRON HOUSE

HOUSE MMM

TIME SHELTER

TIMISOARA CITY GATE

HIDE & SEEK

A SCULPOR’S HOUSE

DA PHOTOGRAPHY

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Architecture photography

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01LOCATION: TIMISOARA, ROMANIAYEAR: 2013STATUS: REALIZED

FENCE TMThe project refers to a story of a fence in the Banat region of Romania, a region where people used to have and still have huge green gardens, due to it’s rich soil, giving me the opportunity to create a playfull rhythm of lights and shadows, and to manipulate the pedestrian’s eye inside the garden of my client. While passing by, I wanted to show people a small part of its beauty through the tight space between the vertical wood planks mounted on the fence’s steel structure and the three gates.

Adopting this type of a limit between private space (gar-den) and public space (street), I wanted to create an ex-ample for the street and for the most of the neighbors who after the ‘89 revolution against communism changed dramatically their property psychology and limit percep-tion (mostly fences) from transparent to opaque, chang-ing the street’s initial perception.

The street must regain its “transparency” and expand its space into the people’s gardens, and the people must feel a part of the street. The project involved family work from foundatitions to woodworking and frame painting. Due to it’s family work, this 17 meter long fence with three gates was finished without exceeding 2000 euros.

Door hande design (exterior)

Door hande design (interior)Street viewView into the garden

through the vertical planks

Total lenght: 17,1 m (2 x car gate = 2 x 3,4m, 1 pedestrian gate = 1,2m, fence = 9,1m

Post office design (interior)

Post office design (exterior)

MANSARDAThe concept was born from the desire to achieve a liv-ing space that preserves the atmosphere of the attic of a house (built in the 1930’s) in Timisoara, combined with a contemporary feeling and to continue supporting the lifestyle held in this house.

I wanted to preserve the visibility of the original materials, seeking a continuation of the dialog with its past and also introducing new materials and habits in a way that the re-lation between new and old would be pleasant and har-monious. The warm presence of the wood, embraces the space, and the burned red brick is used as a chromatic accent in different places of the attic, the old chimney remaining the main node of the space.

The attic space is harmoniously subdivided into several areas so that life in this space is warm and comfortable. Spatial fluidity, “home-made” objects, the manipulation of the visibility between the different areas and the play-ful natural and artificial light, transform the space into a dynamic but also relaxing shelter that responds correctly to all the needs of the client (living room, studying area, sleeping area, a place for reading and playing guitar and a bathroom).

Because of the very limited budget, I relied on reusing as much as possible of the existing materials (planks, wood beams, truss wood, bricks, old doors etc.), reminding of the past memory of the attic. This project also involved family work because of the limited budget. 80% of the ex-ecution of the project was made by the family members, from thermal insulating and sanitary instalation to furnish-ing the last pieces of furniture.

02LOCATION: TIMISOARA, TM, ROMANIAYEAR: 2011-2012STATUS: REALIZED

MANSARDAThe concept was born from the desire to achieve a liv-ing space that preserves the atmosphere of the attic of a house (built in the 1930’s) in Timisoara, combined with a contemporary feeling and to continue supporting the lifestyle held in this house.

I wanted to preserve the visibility of the original materials, seeking a continuation of the dialog with its past and also introducing new materials and habits in a way that the re-lation between new and old would be pleasant and har-monious. The warm presence of the wood, embraces the space, and the burned red brick is used as a chromatic accent in different places of the attic, the old chimney remaining the main node of the space.

The attic space is harmoniously subdivided into several areas so that life in this space is warm and comfortable. Spatial fluidity, “home-made” objects, the manipulation of the visibility between the different areas and the play-ful natural and artificial light, transform the space into a dynamic but also relaxing shelter that responds correctly to all the needs of the client (living room, studying area, sleeping area, a place for reading and playing guitar and a bathroom).

Because of the very limited budget, I relied on reusing as much as possible of the existing materials (planks, wood beams, truss wood, bricks, old doors etc.), reminding of the past memory of the attic. This project also involved family work because of the limited budget. 80% of the ex-ecution of the project was made by the family members, from thermal insulating and sanitary instalation to furnish-ing the last pieces of furniture.

The attic before renovation Future entrance door Old chimney

The first view after openingthe entrance door

Table design

wood

table

pencilsupport

fabric. white

metal. white

Living room area

Bedroom areaBackground: entrance door chimney and wardrobe

Building the wardrobeInsulating

Panorama: Study area, living room area, bedroom area

Building the new floor

Bed

Bath

room

Chimney detail Pencil support

03LOCATION: TIMISOARA, TM, ROMANIAYEAR: 2013STATUS: UNDER CONSTRUCTIONINTERSHIP AT: STUDIO TAB, ROMANIA

U HOUSEGiroc is suburb from Timisoara, that has develpoed like most of the Romanian suburbs, fast and randomly, with a strong disorganized and uncontrollable character. In such a place, on piece of architecture decided to com-pletely turn it’s back on its chaotic surroundings, creating its own universe through extreamly private interior and ex-terior spaces.

The house, shaped like a “U”, focuses its attention and openes its interior spaces toward the main central court-yard, containing a generous terrace in direct relation with the living room, dining room and kitchen. From this terrace, a long pool emerges that visualy connects the house’s interior to its garden located on the other side of the yard. A canteliver window floats above the pool wa-ter, where the owner can sit down during evenings, and admire the subtle water refletion of the night sky. Other two private courtyards are hidden between the walls of this house, being completly invisible from the outside, openening toward the sky. One has a strong relation with the living room and bathroom, the other communicating with the fitness room.

Our task was to take this minimal architectural composi-tion, that was left unfinished, in an unconceived urban texture, and design its interior and exterior spaces, includ-ing landscape design, strengthening the interior-exterior spatial relation. From finishes to furniture, we added and solved its details, completing this project in a manner that will satisfy the clients minimalistic passion and the house’s original spatiality and clean solid character.

This project was developed during my internship at the ar-chitecture office “Studio Tab”, from Timisoara, Romania.

KitchenBathroom &Courtyard 2

Pool Exterior facadeInterior: living room

Living room

Interior proposal: Dining room and kitchen

Exterior proposal

Ground floor

04LOCATION: ESELNITA, MH, ROMANIAYEAR: 2014STATUS: UNDER CONSTRUCTIONTEAM WORKER: OLIMPIA ONCI

SKYLIGHT HOUSEThe house from Eselnita, is located along the Danube river, in Southwestern Romania. This is where Danube is at its greatest beauty from its spring in the Black Forrest from Germany, on its way to the Black Sea.

The little house, from this little village, wich me and my colleague Olimpia Onci had to transform into a comfort-able vaccation home, is owned by a local czech person, who grew up there, sorrounded by a strong czech minor-ity living in those lands for many generations. Our client wanted to have his vacation house as a refuge from his busy city life, where he could find his memories from his long passed childhood, spent among his grandparents. The exteior of the house was kept simple, as the way it was before, repainted in traditional white and green col-ours and paved with local stone. One thing that he was certainly sure of, is that he wanted a strong presence of old brick and especialy natural wood in the interior spac-es. Wood reminded him of the old tools that he used to make as a child to sell for the local Romanians or Serbs on the other side of Danube river.

From the 3 different rooms located in the central part of the house, we transformed them into one generous living room. The main challenge of this space was the lack of natural light due to the other rooms that were souround-ing it on all sides. Our solution was to create a huge cen-tral skylight that would bring natural sunlight and moon-light, highlighting the old structral wooden beams.

Making the survey withmy collegue & team worker

Olimpia Onci Old storage room

Living room

Entrance Entrance

Old kitchen

Interior proposal: Kitchen (down), living room with a sky light (up)

05LOCATION: HUNEDOARA, HD, ROMANIAYEAR: 2013STATUS: PROJECT PROPOSALINTERSHIP AT: STUDIO TAB, ROMANIACOLABORATOR: STUDIO MODERNO, NORWAY

H LIVING MUSEUMHunedoara Living Museum comes as an extension to the Corvin Castle surroundings, which by adding elements that support the atmosphere that the castle generates and recreates the image of a small traditional settlement adjacent to the castle walls. The project contains three elements that together create an object linked to the nearby castle but at the same time remains complete by itself, being able to generate it’s own activity.

The first element would be the exterior museum, consist-ing of traditional houses which are to be rehabilitated and brought to today standards of accommodation. This will offer a unique experience to the visitors, allow-ing them to re-live in a small measure, the life of a person who lived on those lands centuries ago. This experience would be completed by reenactments, workshops and other events. These events that usually take place inside the castle, now would take place in the courtyard of the museum also.

The courtyard is a space located in the middle of the site, having the traditional houses in the background. It spreads across the rest of the site and on the top of the new construction, offering a viewpoint to the castle.

The third element of the project is a new construction. From the porch of a one of the houses it is almost an invis-ible object, offering a continuous surface and extending the courtyard. The interior opens towards the castle, al-lowing the outdoor scenery to be a part of the indoor. Looking at it from the castle, it looks as a horizontal slice in the surface of the hill, blending into the environment.

Situation plan Ground floor plan Basement floor plan

Concept & volumetric design

Relation with the landscapeVisual relation with Corvin Castle and the natural slope of the terrainHidden architecture

Back courtyard

Restaurant, bar, ball room, exhibition space

Multipurpose space

06LOCATION: BOLDESTI-SCAENI, ROMANIAYEAR: 2013STATUS: PROJECT PROPOSAL

H LIVING MUSEUMThe Romanian gypsy communities have always faced difficulties in integrating with the general society. Even to-day little things are done that try to diminish this problem, leading to the total exclusion of gypsies from our society and life style. Poor or wealthy, this led gypsies to live in an almost parallel universes, but right beside us, living by their own laws of life, exluding ours. Gypsies never had a good reputation of being smart or “normal”, but in the past they were among the best craftsman and artisans, every village or town was depending on their skilles of manual manufacturing.

This project aims to try to reintegrad these communities in our society in a different way, keeping them together as a strong identity and to recreate what has been mainly lost, but still savable, the art of manual creation.

The small town of Boldesti-Scaeni from Romania, contains a gypsy community that has been left unemployed - like most gypsy communities from Romania - due to the in-solvency of an industrial glass factory where they have worked for many years.

Using natural materials such as burned brick and wood, this project aimed to recreate this already mastered work with glass in a more artistical manner, where they can use, learn and regain their talent by following traditional methods for glass manufacturing. In this way they can continue practicing their skills and earn money honestly. Being located right next to the towns school and kinder-garten the new construction also has an educational purpose, where workshops and organised visits can be held, teaching others about this old art, conecting Roma-nian or foreign citizens with this gypsy community.

The main concept was to distribute all the necessary spaces for the new artisanal glass workshops around a central courtyard, being the main space for open air events. The pedestrian circulation was organised by at-taching a porch along all sides of the new construction, becoming a buffer zone between the insde and the out-side.

ARTISANAL GLASS WORKSHOPS

Ground floor plan

Exterior dining room, porch

Exterior working terrace

Workshop and oven 100 sqm

Interior workshop 22 sqm

Interior workshop 20 sqm

Cloakroom, shower, toilets 37 sqm

Projection room, multifunctional room 30 sqm

Exterior dining room

Interior dining room 33 sqm

Kitchen and storage 37 sqm

Reception and storage 24 sqm

Store, exposition room and storage 30 sqm

In the bacground: Exterior work space, and oven chimney

07

LOCATION: BELGRADE, SERBIAYEAR: 2014STATUS: DIPLOMA PROJECT - in progressSUPERVISING PROFESSOR: Drd. Arh. Cristian Blidariu

Year 2014 marks 15 years since one of the most tragical moments of Serbian mod-ern history, the punitive 78 day NATO bombing, since 24 March untill 11 June 1999, led to the last act of phisical and ideological disintegration of Yugoslavia.

H LIVING MUSEUMMy study is based on the bomebed buildings of the former Federal Ministry of Defence of Yugoslavia from Belgrade(“Generalštab”), designed by serbian modern-ist architect Nikola Dobrović in 1953, being the symbol of progress and independence of the Iugoslav nation, but on the other hand, representing the moment of defeat and the end of this national project. The building that once represented the righ arm of freedom and sover-eignty, for NATO was clasified as “the heart of the war machine”, bombing it together among other important architectural jewls, trying to put an end to the “new fas-cism” of the 90’s. This event introduced new meaning to these buildings, transforming NATO into an authentic ar-chitectural critic.

As a multi-symbol of Serbian modern-progressive archi-tecture, of destruction and of the surviving identity of the city, the ruins of “Generalštab” are in this sense, the most significant place we could start a discussion, based on the idea of creating a museum dedicated to the destruc-tion and victims left beind by the NATO siege of Serbia. Ironically, the celebrity of these buildings “exploded” af-ter they were bombed, becomeing one of the main at-tractions for foreign tourist, due to the “NATO sculptors”, wich had remodeled this masterpiece and introducing a new “aesthetic” and new meanings over the old ones.

After 15 year of bombings, as Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss mentioned, the Generalštab buildings possess the folow-ing problem: “Wich void to identify with and witch void to remember, the one created by Nikola Dobrovic or the one created by NATO?”

BELGRADE BOMBING MUSEUM 1999

BELGRADE. NATO BOMBING 1999DISTRUCTION OF THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE

PROPOSAL 1The first vision is focused on the keeping of the partialy destroyed parts of Generalstab by embed-ding them visualy and phisicaly into the museum. With it’s opened wounds, it will create a sceno-graphic background and the memorial itself. This solution will concentrate on adopting and re-interpretating the main concept of the buildings: the relation between “solid” and “void” and on the creation of a new “visual tension” and “sensorial experiences”. The scenography of the museum will be contain 3 different acts. In the first act, visitors will experience the virtual world of the war, ascending from darkness to a better future.

The first vision is focused on the keeping of the partialy destroyed parts of Generalstab by embedding them visualy and phisicaly into the museum. With it’s opened wounds, it will create a scenographic background and the me-morial itself. This solution will concentrate on adopting and reinterpretating the main concept of the buildings: the relation between “solid” and “void” and on the creation of a new “visual tension” and “sensorial experiences”. The scenography of the museum will be contain 3 different acts. In the first act, visitors will experience the virtual world of the war, ascending from darkness to a better future.

Concept

CONCEPT

Street Section

PROPOSAL 2

The architecture of the sec-ond possible intervention highlights the “underground” character of the museum and the “bunker” feeling wich characterized Belgrade and other cities from Serbia for 78 days of bombing. The museum is “present” through “absence”, while the his-tory and memory of these moments are being locked up genuine Pandora’s box, carefully buried under the new city layers.

This absence that clears the space in front of the Generalstab com-plex, is announced only through subtle use of vegetation - the only natural element that remaind, was reborn, and cohabitated among the ruins of war. The undergorund bunker introduces it’s visitors in a hid-den world, through the medium of a memorial courtyard containing 78 trees, wich symbolize the 78 days of bombing. The solution thus aim-ing toward a subtle and hidden presence, is adaptable to any future formal or functional reinterpretation of Dobrovic’s complex.

08LOCATION: LöRRACH, GERMANYYEAR: 2013STATUS: FACULTY PROJECT

H LIVING MUSEUMLocated in the South of Germany, the small town of Lor-rach presented it’s desire to create a housing complex on a big empty lot, right at the base of the hill dominated by the presence of Rötteln castle.

This new neighbourhood had to respect the natural sur-roundings and to fit in with the existent urban texture and streetscape in order to offer continues public spaces and opening views toward the hill behind the city.

My proposal contains two different types of housing thereby manageing to create different micro-communi-ties contained by a larger macro-community defined by the whole proposal. The two types of collective housing also define two different types of life styles, one based on 4-floor freestanding houses, and the other on 2-floor row houses, each containg a frontyard and a backyard with a terrace, related to the proposed small stream of water or to the green wild-looking landscape proposal in the public spaces between the buildings. Each freestanding house, contains 4-5 appartaments, some of them devel-oped on one single floor, others being more spatialy dy-namic, containing rooms also in upper or lower floors, like connecting with other appartaments like puzzle pieces. Each freestanding house is developed on a vertical axis, containing underground parking spaces, while row hous-es show a stronger connection with ground level, street and garden.

LöRRACH HOUSING

Situation plan: marked buildings

Neighbourhood proposalSituation planCirculation planMarking the detailed buildings3 row houses

Freetstanding houseGround floor plan

Freetstanding house Central Section

Freetstanding houseSecond floor plan

Row housesGournd floor plan

VisualisationPublic space in between freestanding and row housesBackground: Rötteln castle

Third floor planMarking the detailed section

Detailed section

Language: Romanian

Detailed sectionMarking detailed elements

West facade

East facade

Facade detail: view

Facade detail: plan

09LOCATION: TIMISOARA, TM, ROMANIAYEAR: 2012STATUS: FACULTY PROJECT

H LIVING MUSEUMThe Romanian revolution against the communist regime started in December ‘89 15, in my hometown, Timişoara. It was the first city to proclaim its freedom. Nowadays, this event is perceived as a “whole” but it was actually felt differently by every single person or group of persons that took part to this fight for freedom. This fact challenged me to create a museum that would be “split” on days, and that it would show the most important events that hap-pened every day. This way the concept of the “memorial calendar” gained life.

The role of the “calendar” of the past is to manipulate the visitor ’s feelings and to make him relive the atmosphere of the events of revolution, even if he participated or not. Every space will describe a day of the revolution and it will be materialized in a form that expresses those events in the best way possible. The will be in a relation with the outside or introverted, designed to emotionally link the visitors with earth or sky.

To emphasize the memory of the events I chose to bury the museum’s route and its spaces, interrupting the visitors visual contact with present reality and detaching them from the present time. In this way I wish to concentrate their attention to their past, the city’s memory and the way that it manifests and it continues living through us. The “burial” also symbolizes the passing time and gen-erations which had a direct or indirect contact with the spark of the revolution. In the same time, the noise from the streets are free to flood this space of commemoration and create a better connection between the history and the city’s actual pulse.

MUSEUM OF THE REVOLUTION ‘89

InteriorStreet levelPublic space

Longitudinal section

Transversal section

Axonometries: museum & proposed housing

Ground floorlevel

Underground floor level

Librarycourtyard

ReceptionShop

Museum courtyard memorial “Operei/Victory Square, Timisoara”

10LOCATION: TIMISOARA, TM, ROMANIAYEAR: 2011STATUS: FACULTY PROJECT

H LIVING MUSEUMHouse 123 was designed as an “infill” in a very quiet and rural neighborhood from Timişoara where once stood an old little corner house that was demolished.

The provocation was to create a new form of architec-ture that will relate to it’s existing neighbors. That meant decent interior space in a small volume for a family with one child. The task was also to create the opportunity to rent the basement or to be used as a small family business. It was also necessary to offer a small court yard for the basement to be used as semipublic space for exhibition/relaxation for the future business that will be conducted in the basement level. In other words the house had to entrances, on from the ground floor, connected with the house, and one from the basement connected with the working area. The two were also connected through an interior stair.

This is how the concept of 123 was born, by offering a dif-ferent exterior appearance for every level of the house, that had different functions.1: Basement - working area2: Ground floor - day spaces (living room, dining, kitchen)3: Night spaces - Bedrooms and a terrace.

HOUSE 123

Main street view

Basement: comercial/for rent, officeGround floor: House, living room, dining room & kitchen

First floor: Bedrooms & terraces

Secondary street view

Concept sketches

Neighbour’s houseStreet house tipology

Aligning to cornice & roof

Creating 3 different zonesfor: ground floor,

1st floor and basement

Creating 3 different volumesfor ground floor,

1st floor and basement

11LOCATION: SANICOLAU MARE, ROMANIAYEAR: 2012STATUS: FACULTY PROJECT

H LIVING MUSEUMThe Nakó castle is situated in the center of Sânnicolau Mare town, in western Romania near the Serbo-Hungari-an border. Built by count Kálmán Nakó in 1864, during the Austro-Hunagrian empire. Today it is the main attarcyion of this small town, but it’s lack of protection in the past decades brought structural degradation to it’s wooden roof frame, exterior walls, ceilings etc.

My task was to study and survey the upper roof of the castle including the tower, and detect all the structural problems of the beams, poles, rafters and other structural elements including brick walls and chimney structures. It was also very important to understand the way this com-plex wooden structure works from top to bottom, to un-derstand the complexity of the wooden joints and the way they connect to the exterior structural brick walls. After the survey, structural meseaures were taken for the degrated elements, studying and proposing modern te-chiniques to repair and to protect the original wooden frame as musch as possible.

This project was developed by different teams of stu-dents, each team acting on different parts or places of the castle, from roof, walls, ceilings, interior rooms, base-ment to the original garden plan proposal.

NAKó CASTLE

Structural axonometries

Wooden frame planHeight: 1/2

Wooden frame planHeight: frame base

Marking structural problems of the wooden frame

Wooden frame longitudinal sections

Wooden frame transversal sections

LOCATION: TIMISOARA, TM, ROMANIAYEAR: 2013STATUS: FACULTY PROJECT

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H LIVING MUSEUM“Reuse” is the principle that stood behind the creation of this transformable stool, composed out of 88 wooden modules which resulted from the shortening of the bat-tens of a fence. These small modules are connected with threaded rods, nuts and washers, contributing to the stool’s mechanical design, through which it can change its geometrical shape, being able to completely open itself and to be used as a small table, picnic pad or any-thing that would be useful at a certain moment.

Easy to build, easy to pack and fun to use... a transform-able wooden stool made out of tinny wooden battens can shape up your day!

TRANSFORMABLE STOOL

Joint system Work in progress

Shape ithow you like

Pad Pack

90% complete

Mechanical systemthreaded rods, nuts and washers

Use it as a pad ...or as chair

Shape it in a cube

LOCATION: TIMISOARA, TM, ROMANIAYEAR: 2009STATUS: FACULTY PROJECT

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H LIVING MUSEUMA wooden pavilion was constructed over an utopian site far away from planet Earth. The site was covered by a sur-face of perfectly smoothed rock, with a carved whole in the middle of it, wich had to become the buffer zone be-tween the underground carved spaces and the wood-en frame construction.

Man had nowhere else to go, because all that was left is a small cylindrical shaped volume with a smooth slope in which he could excavate to create his main spaces for living. A bedroom, kitchen and a bathroom.

Then he created a wooden pavilion that was connected to the monolithic excavated spaces, by a system of stairs. It was used as an observatory during day time, and this way “man” could spend his every day and night watch-ing the past glory of planet Earth .

WOOD PAVILION

Wooden pavilion Section

Wooden pavilion Facade &underground section

Stairs & balcony Model, scale 1:50

Wooden pavilion &underground Section

H LIVING MU-SEUMThe drawings were made using hard “H” pencils for the light grey textures combined with black pastel pencils.

LOCATION: MOSNITA, TM, ROMANIAYEAR: 2011STATUS: FACULTY PROJECT

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H LIVING MUSEUMThe house is located in a central part of the village Moşniţa, a typical village from the Banat region. The empty site was for the construction of a modern house for a family with two children. The aim of the project was also to create a small market or a multi-product shop on the ground floor which would serve the residents of the village and would bring a higher profit for the family.

The challange of this project was how could these two functions (housing and commercial) work together un-der the same roof and how to separate them in the best way possible, to avoid unpleasant situations between the public space of the shop and the private space of the house and backyard.

The solution was the creation of an artificial hill behind the house and under the living room terrace, that will block the view towards the private yard, but also create a pleasant view from inside the shop, a small rocky garden. These small relations between public and private space were essential to this project.

HOUSE & SHOP

Street view

Ground floor - shopUpper floors - house

Back yard, terrace & pool

Conceptual sketches

Transversal SectionStreet facade

Back yard & terrace

LOCATION: TIMISOARA, TM, ROMANIAYEAR: 2009STATUS: FACULTY PROJECT

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H LIVING MUSEUMA “house in nature” located only ten kilometers away from Timişoara took shape in a place surrounded by wild vegetation, animals and old forests. It’s main goal was to relate with nature and it’s surrounding landscape.

The concept of the house was inspired by a thorny plant that I stepped on flatten it to the ground. That is why I decided to situate the house in the most inconvenient place of the field, in “the field of thorns”, and to spear the beautiful parts and offer them as landscape panoramas or framing the landscape from inside the house. Every “day” space is oriented towards the forest, and every “night” space is oriented towards the small hill from the back of the house. The structure of the house is mainly made out of cast-in-situ concrete.

As a plant, the house has its roots in the ground, buried in the hill, and it opens its eyes towards the sun and natural beauty.

THORN HOUSE

Conceptual sketches

Situation plan

Interior spaces:Day spaces - opened toward the landscape and lightNight spaces - opened toward the backyard

Connecting the house with the the natural souroundings, making possible to walk to the rooftop from the small hill behind it.

LOCATION: POIENILE DE SUB MUNTE, MM, ROMANIAYEAR: 2012STATUS: COMPETITION

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H LIVING MUSEUMMaramures Mountain House. The Story: By choosing a mystical place that still retains the core and the symbols of the past, I wanted to create a sincere, friendly and play-ful architecture that would continue the process of tradi-tional ukranian “maramureşan” creation and respect the local laws of nature.

Thus, the home from “Poienile de sub Munte” - ”Mead-ows beneath the Mountain” - a small urkainian town, was shaped by different methods underlying visual, tactile, and acoustic memory of this corner of Romania, where the lives of people, animals and nature are one with ar-chitecture, and each object has its own ‘s story.

Therefore, MMMhouse concept aims to highlight these values and offer to the local residents hope that this is not the last chapter of their story. The story will continue in the coming years by new ones with new events and new characters that will give life forgotten place. The connec-tion between old and new will arise, the village will con-tinue living, and the tradition will continue to flourish.

The forest will become a symbol of nature and freedom, it will adopt a more important meaning, and people will talk about the past, present and future with the same faith as before.

MMM HOUSES

Cooking/dining space Interior: Resting/hobby space

Approaching thecooking/dining space

Sleepling spaceHobby space

Exterior: Resting/hobby space

Section

Form inspiration - Poienile de Sub Munte

Your needs = no. of treehouses

LOCATION: CARSKA BARA LAKES, SERBIAYEAR: 2013STATUS: COMPETITION

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H LIVING MUSEUM

Located in Vojvodina Province, Serbia, on the wa-ter surface of Belo Jezero (White Lake) from Carska Bara, this shelter is in the heart of the old Pannonian sea wich today stands as a vast plain with a neutral landscape where space loses its limits to man, and man looses scale to its surroundings. Here the sky acts as a curved surface covering this “infinite” horizontal space from east to west, surrounded by the sounds of wind and rain, offers you a strong presence of time, in a continuously changing landscape.

Our concept is to enclose a small space in this vast horizontal land, lift it from the ground and position it on water to emphasize the absence of any kind of natural landscape, or any type of connection to society. Therefore, in this space you lose every presence of your daily life and gain the presence of the moment, the true expression of present time, where abstract elements as light and sound, guide your way to the roots of life.

It is here where me and my team worker Olimpia Onci, chose to create a vertical axis, penetrating our shelter by a circular void, and creating a con-nection between earth and sky through water. From the vast horizontal axis you use to arrive to the shelter, it suddenly changes to a vertical void, and under the entrance of the shelter you are be-ing right at the intersection of these two axis.

TIME SHELTER

The only way getting to the shelter is by using a boat, making the visitors from Carska Bara curios about the lonely freestanding wooden structure seen from the surrounding shores. Once inside the view over the plains disappears, and you enter inside a space that celebrates itself. You take part of a ceremony of si-lence where the only thing you can see is the chang-ing colors of the sky and it’s reflection in the water surface through this circular void where time itself seems tangible.

Here we wanted to create a space where time exists at its own scale and isn’t influenced by any-thing from our everyday lives. We wanted modern day people or any kind of people to experience the opposite relation with time, where times scale isn’t influenced by people, no matter what, and the only thing that transforms are the wooden ele-ments and their texture being exposed to all natu-ral elements and having their own lifetime. All the wood used for the structure is from local trees and

its exterior facade is made out of local wooden shingles creating a pleasant relationship with its exterior surroundings. They create an interesting texture of lights and shades and age beautifully by changing their color in time. The round facade makes the shelter have the same aspect and pro-portions seen from any side of the lake, gaining a neutral expression towards the landscape and acting as a space defining element capturing the viewers attention and curiosity who mainly try to

retreat from their daily city life. We speak of this shelter as an instrument capable of creating a connection between man and pure time, with-out an imposed scale, only expressions of sudden moments, where your everyday life stands outside the shelter walls and where time relates to you and links you with the architecture you are standing in and its lifetime.Out of 251 international projects we succeded be-ing among the finalists, being in the top 10 projects.

LOCATION: TIMISOARA, TM, ROMANIAYEAR: 2013STATUS: COMPETITION

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H LIVING MUSEUM

The concept was inspired by the desire to inform drivers and pasangers from the entrance of the city what “Timisoara” means, what it has to offer and what can be visited. This solution proposes to highlight the main attractions and events of the city wich many times can be hard to reach after enter-ing from the main roads. The porpuse of this project is to introduce drivers and pasangers in this beautiful city’s story in an infant manner.

If in the past, the “gate” had the role tu enclose and protect a city, today it can be used as a source of information. The gate - a “digital summary” dedi-cated for those who enter the city, a rich lesson and presentation of the past, present and future wich de-scribe Timisoara’s glory and succes, inviting the curi-ous ones to explore it. Because of a large number of information that will be desplayed I chose to create a sequence of panels, made out of corten, dividing the information on different important themes. Every theme / subject will be displayed on a different pan-el, composing a unitary composition through a ver-tical rhythm, each of them having a different story about my city’s life. The panels are slightely offsetted and rotated, placed at the right distance one from another, in order to be able to see, read, and re-member the presented information.

My proposal wone the first prize for the “Calea To-rontalului” entrance from Timisoara, a multi-cultural city, waiting to be discovered, with great stories to tell.

TIMISOARA CITY GATE

Panel rotation

Concept

View 1 View 2

perforated letters

digital screens

LOCATION: ARAD, AR, ROMANIAYEAR: 2012STATUS: COMPETITION

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H LIVING MUSEUM

The principles behind the concept is preserving and emphasizing specific details of traditional wooden houses from Arad region. The house shows only a few details to the exterior and the only ones who benefit of the whole beauty of the house are those who step inside it - the house is “hiding” from the rest of the people who are outside.

The proximate exterior becomes interior by attach-ing modules to the old house and articulated by a transparent roof, the house becomes an exhibit. All the circulations are moved in this area linking all the other functions between them. The entrance in the house is made by keeping the old principle of using a step (up or down).

The old porch is extended to the interior space managing functional and metaphorical relations between the two day spaces - exterior and interior. The transfer of powers between the old main living space (the kitchen) to living room (the old sleep-ing room) is realized by reorientation the fireplace. The version of the house fits with the natural environ-ment, but it is also suitable with more urbanized ar-eas of the villages from the region.

This typology is for families with two children who want to live in a rural area or who wish to preserve the typical architecture and to save a traditional house or build a new one based on the same prin-ciples, but without compromising the contemporary comfort with generous spaces.

HIDE & SEEK

Proposed details

Old house facades & sections Proposed plansGround floor (up)Attic (down)

Plant courtyard Bedroom view Cherry courtyard Bathroom Bedroom

Rammed earthexterior walls

Facades

Section C1 Section D1

LOCATION: BUCHAREST, ROMANIAYEAR: 2010STATUS: COMPETITION

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H LIVING MUSEUM

Bucharest, a city of two million inhabitants, where the public space is staring to disappear more and more every day, and the streets from the city center become occupied by cars. This was the location of a future house and workshop of a famous Roma-nian sculptor. The first decision was to offer a small part of its property to the street, to activate a public space by creating a small sitting area in front of the house.

The house is divided in 3 volumes, creating interest-ing spaces between them with different degrees of privacy, depending on the space’s purpose. The highest volume is the sculptor’s workshop; it has its own entrance from the street so that visitors may have an easy access to it. It is also related with a semi-private courtyard which is the exterior working place of the sculptor and an area for exhibitions. Its win is that it can be easily opened for the public, without disturbing the privacy of the family.

The other 2 volumes are for the family life in relation with a private back yard connected with the living room. All these 3 volumes that compose the house, are articulated in such ways that the interior and exterior space bind perfectly together and form a positive spaces.

My project won the 3rd prize of the student national competition CASA, during my second year of faculty.

A SCULPTOR’S HOUSE

Site Main facade

Backyardfacade & terrace

Street view Backyard

Site: street view

Situation plan Concept: 3 volumes

Section

Ground floor plan

Main facade

publicprivate

private

livingdiningkitchen

bed-rooms

work-shop

Sahara desert, Morroco21

H LIVING MUSEUM

Through my photographs I try expressing primordial elements that compose architecture, such as tex-tures, colors, rhythm, materials, lights or shadows. I also take shots of random people when I feel that they are relating in a certain way with architecture, as well as animals that gain a powerful human be-havior relating to everyday architectural elements.

I also use a method that i like to call “framing the frame”, framing urban or natural landscapes through every day openings such as doors or win-dows. When I’m traveling, I always carry my camera with me, and when the right moment and oportuni-ty occurs to photograph interesting buildings, urban contexts or life scenes, through my photos they ex-pand and develop into something else that reality shows it to be. Sometimes it can become whatever runs through the viewers mind.

DA PHOTOGRAPHY

Amsterdam, Holland

Wroclaw, Poland

Berlin, Germany

Madrid, Spain

Hermanice, Czech Republic

Zagreb, Croatia

Wien, AustriaAlcala de Guadaira, Spain

Seville, SpainWroclaw, Poland

Sumita, Romania

Madinat al Zahra, Spain

Cordoba, Spain

Seville, Spain

Prague, Czech Republic

Sumita, Romania

Ghiroda, Romania

THANK YOU

GRACIAS

MULţUMESC

HVALA

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