The project operates with two diametrically opposed features of the site: its strongest and its weakest. The two features become agents in placing, shaping and materializing the 5 room guesthouse.
The strongest feature of the 1ha site, its breathtaking view of Arieș river from its Carpathian mountains valley in the west to the vastness of Transylvanian Plateau to the east, is instrumental in establishing the shape and position of the guesthouse on the site. Due to the sinuous route, to and from the site, through the orchards of Cheia village the view is only perceptible upon entering the site at its highest point on the northwest ridge. The guesthouse takes, on the one hand, a bar shape plan that acts like a barrier destined to delay one’s encounter with the view, and on the other, a forced perspective cross section shape destined to amplify the impact of ones encounter with the view.
The weakest feature, the lack of any and all traditional Romanian houses, is due to the position on the village near the city of Turda. The project sources, therefore, its materials and building techniques within the realm of the traditional houses, that used to compose the architecture of the village until not so long ago.
Stone masonry for the cellar, brick masonry covered in plaster for the first floor, fretted wooden railings and wooden walls for the porches of the rooms and the collective lodge, shingle for the roof are here reinterpreted on/by a contemporary volume ready to offer a mix of traditional and contemporary Romanian hospitality for tourists from around the world.
Design Team: Paul-Mihai Moldovan, Florin-Vasile Lazar, Anamaria Moldovan
Collaborator[s]:
Design Year: 2014
Status: Design development
Execution | Completion Year: -
Location: Cheia, com. Mihai Viteazu, Romania
Gross area: 200 sqm
Text: ateliercetrei
Photographer[s]: Google, ateliercetrei