Triangle. An Urban Experiment is the materialization of a project won after a tendering procedure organized by the Campia-Turzii City Hall. The specifications mentioned both a technical and detailed project for a foiled fountain.
After carefully analyzing the details and the current condition of the project, our intention has been to make an inventory of the public spaces from the proletarian quarter, which has been built in the ‘80s in order to accommodate the families of the integrated iron and still work labourers. These spaces have been transformed in time into parking lots, garages or fenced spaces, thus becoming semi-private areas. The results this analysis lead us to the necessity of a radical change of the project brief, by conceiving the fountain as a secondary element in relation to the new priorities – on the one hand, the creation of a public space meant to function as a social catalyst capable of establishing a relational intersection around the fountain; on the other hand, an infusion of new green spaces, against the typology engaged in constructing the surrounding buildings.
Once the municipality approved the new strategy, we’ve begun the design process of the new space by starting from the triangular shape of the site. Two “blocks” of vegetation protect both the pedestrian area against the street, and the surrounding collective apartments against urban noise. Our intention has been to back away from the idea of a purely decorative fountain and to create an object that would allow interaction, while being integrated into the surrounding space at the same time. The object creates a contrast and defines a new space, where the citizens are empowered to interact and imprint a new dynamics in space circulation. The triangle thus functions as a multi-directional sense and creates a field of social activity and interaction, parting with the old and ineffectual typological conventions.
We believe the interaction generated by the new space modeling represents a proof that the creation of social reflexes is part of the architectural practice as an active and ecological solution, in order to redeem the individual’s capacity to participate to a public consciousness in a concerned way.
Triangle. An Urban Experiment is the result of a collaborative process and defines a space that none of the team members could have conceived individually. And the quasi-permanent human presence into this space, regardless of weather conditions or the water flow, is a testimony that this project’s role as a social and spatial catalyst has been fully accomplished.
Design Team: Paul-Mihai Moldovan, Florin-Vasile Lazar
Collaborators: s.c. Eddan Construct s.r.l.
Design Year: 2010
Status: Completed
Execution | Completion year: 2010
Location: Campia-Turzii, Romania
Gross area: 565 sqm
General Contractor: s.c. Eddan Construct s.r.l.
Text: ateliercetrei
Photographer[s]: Dacian Groza