Urban Studies Portfolio

Portfolio Razvan Zamfira

Projects

Poiana lui Iocan

Street Delivery

Map your city

I kiss Bucharest

Cinema Favorit

Built pavilion, urban think-tank & open office Bucharest Architecture Festival 2013

Participatory mapping installation

Online mapping project 2013

Interactive exhibition, MNAC

Temporary community center

Bucharest 2013

Bucharest, Romania, 2014

Bucharest 2013

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Bucharest

Urban design competition brief

Competition entry, city visions Galati, Romania, 2013

Targu Jiu, Romania, 2012

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Industrial Arts Center Architectural Design and Management Plan “Ion Mincu� University Diploma Project

Galati 2050 | The Would-Be City

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Matasea Populara

Targu Jiu Tourism Strategy

Unfolding Bucharest On-line city development analysis platform Bucharest, Romania, 2012

Poiana lui Iocan

Built pavilion, urban think-tank & open office http://www.poianaluiiocan.org/annual-architecture-festival-bucharest-2013-pavilion/

Part think-tank, part community centre and public gathering space, the proposed intervention took the form of a timber-framed urban laboratory. The pavilion is a modern interpretation of the debating space from the novel Morometii, with the goal of exploring new ideas through experimentation and ultimately, creating forward thinking visions for Bucharest.

Poiana lui Iocan hosted NGO working groups, workshops, mapping exercises with the public, as well as guided tours, board games and activities for children; our goal was to produce a set of strategies for systemic city change, as well as creating a social meeting point that emphasizes conversations about the built environment.

A series of roundtable meetings has deepend the discussion, inviting representatives to reflect on the existing practices and bringing different perspectives: grassroots projects and local leaderships, academia and researchers, artists and cultural figures and business sector representatives.

Poiana lui Iocan Pavilion plan

Mobile Office

Open office

Spontaneous Consultation Areacity | mapping MAP 1 MAP 2

Debate & Workshop Space Debate and workshop space

Consultation Area | MAP 3 Forgotten spaces mapping

Street Delivery

participatory mapping installation http://www.poianaluiiocan.org/en/poiana-lui-iocan-street-delivery-2013/

I believe that the only way in which we can establish better collaborations for city decision making is by building new tools and frameworks for people rather than making rules that they have to follow.

What we proposed through this project is delivering a unified set of tools adapted to community driven projects that will tackle all stages of project development from initiation to completion.

The urban furniture proposed for the Street Delivery Festival represents an experiment on what this toolkit could look like and how would it operate, both complementing the public space around it and bringing people together to communicate their ideas about the city.

Street Delivery has been since 2006, a framework in which civil society, artists, architects, musicians, tenants may provide an alternative to the way the city is perceived housing and thus it represented the perfect excuse to put our ideas into action.

Pavilion plan closed

Pavilion plan open

Pavilion module

Map your city

online mapping project http://map.poianaluiiocan.org

Map your City is a digital tool designed to promote urban participatory and collective input, facilitating consultation, exploration and visualisation tasks of a great variety of data.

It’s a web and mobile application designed for geolocated message publishing: users write their ideas, opinions or proposals and classify them by category and location so that they can be viewed, rated and shared in real time.

We chose to analyse three aspects of Bucharest: How do residents understand their neighbourhoods?

What are the empty or unused parts of the city and what would resident change about them?

What spontaneous uses of space and makeshift solutions exist?

maps.poianaluiiocan.org

Galati 2050 | The Would-Be City - city vision, competition entry

www.plusminusgalati.wordpress.com/despre/galeria-proiectelor/

The competition entry uses the unexploited potential of two adjuvant cities - Braila and Galati -, and their status of local university centres to rethink their relationship with the Danube river and redefine their public realm.

By creating a strong icon of public transport and by positioning the stations in key urban “rooms�, each with its own personality and feel, the proposal seeks to transform the area into a vibrant space for the young generation which usually leave after finalising their academic studies affecting both cities economic and development prospects.

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Bucharest

Interactive exhibition, MNAC

I kiss Bucharest consisted of a playful participatory map that invited visitors to identify and share the place where they like to kiss, their favourite spot for pondering, their perfect imaginary space and a third place; a space which is neither home nor work. Over the course of the exhibition an alternative map of Bucharest emerged that revealed the public’s more personal and intimate connection with the city.

The installation actively showed how imaginative means of participating with different people can reveal new unpredictable possibilities and

Where do you especially like to kiss?

Where do you particularly like to ponder?

What would your perfect space be like?

Where is your “third place”?

questions about the future of our cities. It demonstrates the way we work, from the bottom-up, by using people’s intimate spaces and associated stories as the catalyst for discussing locally born alternative visions of Bucharest. These stories are the key to understanding one’s relationship with the city, and are the foundation for further discussing what our future dreams, desires and visions are.

Matasea Populara

Industrial Arts Center Architectural Design and Management Plan After 1989 Bucharest’s development undertook many transformation stages ranging from the 90s urban sprawl to the development of new office and shopping areas at he periphery. Non of them tackled the area surrounding the city centre.

This somewhat curios decision has led to an interesting contemporary situation. Many of the buildings are empty or in state of disrepair, the standard of living is in many areas considered to be lower then average and some of the abandoned houses have been illegally put into use by homeless people.

A sustainable urban renewal is highly needed!

This situation sounds dramatic but analysing it through the right lens you may suddenly understand it’s potential. Because of the low quality services the rental prices are extremely low compared to the ones in

modern office buildings so many of the small creative entrepreneurs have moved into the area creating a large scale incubator for the economic future of the city in a time when large companies and the service sector can’t cope with change.

Every crisis, Sigmund Freud said, ‘is potentially a stimulant to the positive side of the personality and an opportunity to start afresh.’

“Matasea Populara” capitalises on the existing potential of the area and explores scenarios of promoting cultural entrepreneurship as a viable future economic and community model for disused central industrial areas.

The built projects was used as pretext for a wider exploration concerning economic viability of reconversions and the development of new types of stakeholder collaboration networks.

Light Industry

Live/Work

Showroom/Retail Business Incubator

Matasea Populara

Industrial Arts Center Architectural Design and Management Plan The existing local stakeholder context, as outlined in the adjuvant diagram, is very segregated with complementary actors not collaborating in order to develop stronger economic thighs from which everyone, including the local community could profit.

The diagram created with the Gephi network analysis software takes in consideration all the stakeholders active in the vicinity of the site and their past collaborations as outlined in their internal documents and during interviews.

Architect -Strategic Designer -

Actor-Network

existing connections new connections Public - Privat Partnership Law

Bucharest City Hall

Bucharest 2035 Development Strategy

Creative Industries Fund NL

SEMACON current owner

Private Sector Developers

UNDP EC - BIC

Central Bucharest Integrated Strategy

Anchor Group - real-estate developer -

International Organizations Micro-Entrepreneur

Public Sector

GEA Strategy & Consulting

Business Incubator

Bucharest District 2 Minicipality

Ministry for Research & Develop.

RoGBC

Politechnic Unviersity of Bucharest

Organizations in the field of economics

Higher Education Institutions

Home Owners National Art Associations College

“Ion Mincu�

Architecture Urban Planning University

Center for Culture Related Research Academy for Economic Studies

Institute for National Economy

Romanian for Copyright

Classification:

Type:

Legislation Location

MicroEntreprenorial Agency for Programs & Projects

Organization

Institution

Logistics

Politics

Environment

Knowledge

Industry

Potential Clients

Funding

Matasea Populara

Industrial Arts Center Architectural Design and Management Plan In order to facilitate a sustainable project development the project was split up in several stages which ensure a flexible and adaptable use of the site and leave space for contextualised mutations.

Diploma Thesis

The adaptive reuse process of the industrial heritage of the former “MATASEA POPULARA” silk factory in Bucharest - the dynamic between cultural and economic values

The thesis investigated the aspect of cultural economics in the process of adaptive reuse of Matasea Populara, a former silk factory in Bucharest. By means of a stakeholder approach and a process model analysis I investigated how the worlds of reason and emotion connect and intertwine. Moreover, the research was an attempt to reveal the layer of value creation.

The aim of the theses was to answer the research question: How to create space for the dynamic between economic and other values that matter in the adaptive reuse process of industrial heritage?

Key figures in the process of adaptive reuse are the stakeholders.

Mapping these stakeholders and their roles in the realization of adaptive reuse of industrial built heritage requires context in which the activities take place. Therefore, the first chapters of the thesis was dedicated to this context. First of all the notion of built heritage was discussed by using Benhamou (2003), Woestenburg (2004), Nijhof (2004 & 1994), Nelissen, Smits, Bogie

& Voorzee, (1999) and Ball (1999) as references. Consequently the context in which the adaptive reuse of built industrial heritage takes place, needed to be established. Reuse of built heritage in large cities is embedded in the creative economy. Therefore, I started with the relation between urban development and the creative economy by discussing Florida´s (2005) notion of Creative Capital and Saris’ (2008) so Soft called ‘DNA’ a new approach to the reuse of wa re industrial heritage for creative purposes. Then, in chapter 3 the thought behind process analysis of the adaptive reuse of industrial built heritage was disputed based on theory on Klamer´s (2003, 1996) values, the link between common good theory and stakeholder theory by Argandoña (1998) and Klamer´s (2004) common good interpretation. Chapter 4 deals with stakeholder classification by Mitchell (1997) among others and a more contextual paragraph on stakeholder roles in urban development by Huffstadt (2005) and Stroink (2006).

Consequently, process models by Schulte (1994) and Saris (2008) where also discussed.

Po we r Stakehol de r type s

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Demanding Stakeholde

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Dominant Stakeholder

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Dangerous Stakeholde

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Dependent Stakeholde

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Definitive Stakeholde

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Non Stakeholders

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Cu lture/ so ci al affai r

Urba n de sign / p lann ing Econ om ic s

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Sc ienc e Consul ta nts Univer sity

Sc ienc e Ne twork Organi sa tion s Consul ta nts Univer sity Institutions

Soft wa re (Creat ive Indu stry)

Urgenc y

Hard wa re

Legitimacy

Figure 1 Ba sed on :S ta ke ho lder Typ ology: O ne, Two or Thr ee A ttribu te s Presen t( Mitche ll et a l., 1997:874 )

Gove rnment

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Dormant Stakeholde

Discretionary Stakeholde

Figure 2 En vironment (© Re née Hoog en door n. In: Sar is & H oo ge nd oorn, 20 08:135 )

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Hard wa re

Targu Jiu Tourism Strategy urban design competition brief

www.arhiforum.ro/concursuri/modernizare-si-reabilitar- eazonei-protejate-ansamblului-monumental-calea-eroilor-din-targ Targu Jiu is a small town in south-western Romania facing the commune problem of depopulation and lack of economic development opportunities which can be seen all across the country in similar remote areas.

Compared to others the city is host to a spectacular sculptural ensemble designed by the famous Romanian French sculptor Constantin Brancusi in 1937 which can transform it into a a local touristic hub for the entire Oltenia region.

For years the city has been struggling to add the ensemble to the UNESCO Heritage Sites List but although the area has an unquestionable cultural value the project was rejected due to inexistent tourist management and economic strategies as well as a clear area heritage protection plan.

As part of PZP Arhitectura we where commissioned to create a brief for a future urban design competition which will transform the axis that joins the three monuments together into a vibrant tourist and economic attraction and at the same time maintain its traditional character which many say was an important part of the monumental ensemble initial conception.

01. Proposed visiting routs BUS CITY ACCESS LONG VISITING ROUT SHORT VISITING ROUT

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02. Analysis and management of potential economic development pols ACTIVE FRONTS (PRE-DEVELOPMENT) HIGH POTENTIAL FRONTS (TOURISTIC ACTIVITIES) ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AREA

03. Car traffic fluidization TWO-WAY CAR A CCESS ONE- WAY CAR A CCESS LIMITED CAR A CCESS

Targu Jiu Tourism Strategy urban design competition brief

www.arhiforum.ro/concursuri/modernizare-si-reabilitar- eazonei-protejate-ansamblului-monumental-calea-eroilor-din-targ

For the redevelopment part of the project our team identified 6 important areas that need restructuring either due to pedestrian/car traffic requirments or in order to enhance thier existing public space potential.

The area based regeneration strategy will be undertaken in two stages: Stage 1: - development of a pedestrian friendly realm

2 1 PEDESTRIAN UNDER PASS

- improvment or addition of tourist information pannels - restructuring cross axis car traffic Stage 2 - refinement: - refurbisment of adjuvant public facilities (regional history museum, public library and cultural center)

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An important issue observed during our research was the lack of a clear area heritage protection plan.

Although the local council had released the necessary planning regulation documentation for the area they where to abstract and hard to understand by the general population.

We decided on creating a graphical brochure outlining important aspects that have to be taken in consideration in construction and renovation projects around the axis.

04. Protected areas around the site

AREA 02

AREA 01

AREA 03

Unfolding Bucharest

on-line city development analysis platform

At first sight, it looks rather risky: to try and explain how the so-called chaos works. And moreover, to foresee the direction of that whole chaos - this is as risky as any step on unsafe ground. After 20 years of transition, Bucharest is so full of con- trasts, energy disorders and collisions, that its problems could hardly be expressed properly. From illegal mansions to collapsing investments, from pirate radio stations to a political instability and various social shortcomings - everything points out to a difficult urbanity, a non-standard territory, with an unpredictable and warring pro- gress. At a closer look on the postsocialist trend, one could notice that certain changes occur similarly in comparable cases, following an internal logic, adjusted on the way to all sorts of crises and abuses.

The effervescence of the non-stop society in our Eastern cities has its own im- peratives: huge energies are forced to find their own dynamics.

In the absence of an urban strategy with clear rules and laws valid for

all, such disparate evolution takes place following internal regulations, clearly pragmatic, without rendering the city something in return. Such self-regulated processes turn into a standard of the tur- bo-urbanism.

The goal of the Unfolding Bucharest Project is to document this process under construction, constantly influenced by lots of factors (the social and political back- ground, the economic evolution, the education, the specific cultural context, the opening to European contemporary values etc.) and to attempt to imagine the future of eastern cities beyond clichĂŠs, in a positive and balanced perspective, fol- lowing how shortages turn into opportunities.

The project started from the idea that mapping this various small, individual processes could, by their clustering in time and space, reveal a history of ongoing change and adaptation to the unstable social grounds on which the city of Bucharest stands.

Unfolding Bucharest ADRESS:Sos.Straulesti 34 BUILDING TYPE: residenti al DATE: 24 Jun. 2010 BUILT SUR FACE: 37.331 m2 POT: 40% CUT: 2.8

BUILDING TYPE HOUSING

M AX H: 60m SUBZONA M3

OFFICE BUILDINGS SHOPPING

BUILT SURFACE HIGHT

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MARKET VALUE

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NR.OF ROJE P CTS/MONTH

22 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Septem ber 2004 M arch 2005

20000

Septem ber 2005

M arch 2006

Septem ber 2006

M arch 2007

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60000 80000 100000 120000 140000 160000

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M arch 2012

APPARTMENT PRICE

40000

M arch 2008

Bucures ti Noi Studio Prices Bucures ti Noi 3 Room Appart. Bucures ti Noi 2 Room Appart. Price

Cinema Favorit

temporary community center The “Cinema Favorit” project represents an ongoing work started in 2010 as a volunteer at CeRe (The Resource Centre for Public Participation).

The initial goal of the exercise was to form a core of people interested in solving problems that they relate to in the Drumul Taberei area of Bucharest. As part of the process we helped the core leadership organise community meetings to prioritise and choose democratically the issues they want to work on, and to attract new members.

In the problem identification stage the group unanimously settled on fighting to restore an old cinema building and to transform it into a cultural centre and after only one year of advocacy campaigns, the 6th district City Hall of Bucharest made important steps towards the Cultural Centre.

‘Cinema Favorit’ is a temporary intervention that will activate the space in front of the disused 1960s cinema.

The meanwhile use of the cinema will act as a pilot project for community-led regeneration, making the case for temporary uses as a way to sidestep red tape and influence its future redevelopment into a cultural and community centre.

The project has both a built component (an open air cinema and gathering space, designed and built by post-graduate students from the Royal College of Art, London and the Ion Mincu Architecture University, Bucharest) and a programmatic component co-curated with the residents’ group (a film festival, participative community workshops, recreational activities).

Since then the group has been organising weekly meetings and constant lobbying for this cause but local bureaucracy and the unclear ownership status of the building has slowed down the overall process.

Cinema Favorit in the ‘70, one of 700 new cinemas built as part of the national housing program of the former communist regime.

Schematic proposal for a temporary community centre in the forecourt of the abandoned cinema

Cinema Favorit

temporary community center

The proposal has the following main points: • Improvment of the public space through place specific urban furniture: the intervention will be designed and built by Royal College of Art students, through a European Youth Exchange programme • Public event series: film screenings, library, music evenings, in partnership with the French Institute - these are meant to attract the wider Bucharest public and re-establish the Cinema as a cultural venue • Locally aimed events: co-curated with the residents’ group, this side of the project is to deliver workshops and experience exchanges in order to build the capacity of self-organisation of the local community. Ideally, this would ensure the sustainability of the project meaning that after our departure, they would have the knowledge and the connections to sustain similar project in the future.

• Exhibition: Civic Architecture in the Communist Era - this documents projects similar in programme to the Cinema Favorit and aims to alert the public regarding a type of crumbling heritage

LEGEND 1. Cinema 2. Exhibition 3. Workshop space 4. Library 5. Foyer: Tickets / bar