Atelier MASS is an architecture firm established in 2011 in Cluj (RO) by a team of architects who shared a passion for projects that push the boundaries of professional practice. The founding members are Camelia Sisak, Silviu Aldea, and Tamás Sisak, and over the years, they have developed a team committed to providing detailed and personalized solutions tailored to each local context. Atelier Mass demonstrates the ability to work on various scales, from complex urban projects to fine details of architecture or interior design. With a clear vision and a passion for innovation, the firm successfully transforms ideas into tangible realities, thereby contributing to the creation of spaces that inspire and enhance quality of life.

The brief from the local administration for the new structure was to house 6 nursery groups, practically to double the capacity of the existing one, as well to place at the upper floors the offices of the Budget Center for Nursery Administration. The need of developing the vertical function and the local urban regulation conduct to successive withdrawal of the floors from the property. The concept of a unitary compact volume was born to accommodate all functions, percieved like a spatial Tetris, where functions intersect vertically to generate unexpected geometries. Functional separation is transformed into dialogue by dissolving the usual division between group room and bedroom, inside and outside, upstairs and downstairs, etc. The space must be discovered entirely: safari in a miniature universe populated by multifunctional characters and permeable boundaries. Group rooms extend vertically into the office floor, amplifying the feeling of space and light. The skylights add a 5th facade to the interior space, so the ceiling also becomes a canvas of the imagination. The partitions are transitory: removable walls and textile dividers make up the props of a scenography where the space is always resized according to needs. Relating to nature was an essential theme that the architecture had to respond. It opens to the outside through direct access to the courtyard in each group, and upstairs through framing the landscape. The need for privacy on the ground floor leads us to the usage of translucent materials and successive filters. The wide terrace above the main entrance creates a courtyard for children upstairs and reduces the perceived silhouette of the building. The terraces on the upper floors cut the roof plane, breaking the monotony of the roof structure, creating an opening to the Făget forest. The architecture is modest, simple, functional, colors are used to induce a calm, positive atmosphere, using natural materials. The pieces of furniture are thought like abstract characters that populate this inner world.