Studio A19 is an architecture office founded in 2013 by Cosmin Dragomir and Alina Dragomir. The team started to grow in 2016 with both permanent members and occasional collaborators on different projects.
At the heart of the practice stands the belief that architecture through its form and spaces has the ability to facilitate a more dignified life.
Project description in English
Catted Family residential complex is located in the city of Voluntari, on the outskirts of Bucharest, in an area where, in 2021—the time when the design process began—the only neighbors were a related residential complex, Catted Residences, the commercial and office buildings in the Pipera Plaza area, and a few residential buildings with a P+8 height regime situated at a considerable distance, enough so they did not affect the atmosphere of the neighborhood we aimed to create.
Starting from a lack of landmarks—in a disorganized and uncoordinated area on an urban scale, in the absence of a consistent, coherent, and clearly defined built environment—we intended to create our own universe within the boundaries of the lot.
As a result of the administrative blockages experienced by Bucharest in recent years, the Voluntari area has developed intensively. Across from the studied site, high-density P+8 collective housing buildings have been erected.
Therefore, our vision for peri-urban living remains an exception in the area: a neighborhood with low-rise buildings, with airy spaces between the buildings, well-sized interiors to ensure dignified living, vegetation buffers along the street and lot boundaries, public spaces that emphasize resident interaction and community life, territorial connections, and transparency of the urban fabric.
The project spans a lot of 20,072 square meters and consists of a mix of collective and individual housing modules, totaling 140 units and 250 square meters of commercial space.
Being constrained to work with a simplified architectural language, basic details, easily procurable materials, and easy-to-implement techniques, we aimed to compensate through a high degree of formal variation within the residential complex and a pleasant urban atmosphere, inviting outdoor spaces to become part of everyday life. Thus, the complex incorporates playgrounds for children, community lawns, water features, wide promenades, façade gardens, and private yards and terraces, which, due to the intimate scale of the neighborhood, are already filled by groups of neighbors.
The four housing modules have been repeated and arranged variably on the site to avoid a sense of repetition. The types of housing are extremely varied, and each module has a specific, unique solution, but they all follow the wish to replicate traditional housing, with strong connections between interior and exterior.
