From the End of the Line to the Next Entry: Educational Infrastructure, Social Housing and Public Garden in Bucharest

Oana graduated from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism in Cluj-Napoca. She is interested in the urban dimension of projects, which she experiences through Erasmus mobility in Paris, followed by an internship in the same city. She participates in several international competitions and collaborates on a project published in Koozarch magazine. Oana is currently a PhD student and teaching associate at the FAU Cluj-Napoca.

The problem starts from the presence of an urban and architectural situation that bears the characteristics of an enclave - the Victoria Tramway Depot in Bucharest, dating from 1871, a site with closed boundaries, on a contrasting scale to the adjacent plot, an exception in terms of function, configuration, accessibility. The project proposes a three-component program in response to some of the deficiencies present in the territory - social housing, a public garden and a center for culture and urban education. The intervention talks about the urban and social impact that these structures have on the territory and focuses on some of the responses that the site's opportunities can offer the city. Thus, from an infrastructure for transportation, a new infrastructure will be proposed with a strong social, urban and educational character. The intervention strategy interweaves the logic present on the site, following the tram tracks and composing an ensemble that works with what already exists; it capitalizes on the exception in the weaving, the boundaries become a permeable membrane, the existing fences are preserved, but gates to the ensemble are created.