Mora Housing

Bucharest, Romania

Client:
private

Project duration
2011 - 2014

Gross area
2.020 m²

^nominated

The Mornand plotting, which means the area situated between Aviatorilor Avenue, Dorobanti Street and Zambaccian Museum Street, was from the very beginning a select residential area of Bucharest, designed with definite principles and rigorous rules, and, especially, enjoying a particular architecture which was not found but in a few other areas of the capital. In this way, it became one of the most representative areas of the city, a feature that it kept in a certain degree until today, even under the pressure of the recent gestures (like demolition, modification, construction of new buildings), which are putting in shade the elegance and the nobility which used to be the defining features of this area.

We have made the first studies for the plot situated at the junction between Dr. Grigore Mora Street and Ing. Gheorghe Bals Street in 2004, and then followed, along the years, a long series of suggestions, in which our first concern was to respect the certain stature which we considered that this place deserves. By stature we mean both the physical presence of a new building and also what we appreciated that living here must imply.

Therefore we have chosen a natural stone shell (Vratza limestone) which covers the whole building and gives it a monolithical, but luminous layout. Our intention was to make the building’s figure and the way the corner details, the vertical and horizontal edges and empty spaces were solved, show that it is just a stone facade, a light coat, not a massive structural setup. The different scale of windows and loggias cuttings suggests different degrees and types of relation between the interior space and the street or the near surroundings. The apartments, that are a few, have generous spaces and are tooled and automated adequately to the very high standard of the whole project, a standard that exceeds any of our projects so far.

PROJECT TEAM:

Architects
Adrian Untaru
Andrei Șerbescu
Bogdan Brădăţeanu
Marius Dumitrașcu
Ruxandra Bardaș
Carmen Petrea

Collaborators
Raluca Răescu