A Place for Displacement
The city of Bucharest holds many elements, juxtapositions and contradictions. Within this a number of dualities can be traced, which relate to the theme of the everyday and the emergency. The investigation of the city uses this structure as a means of exploring how the urban environment is shaped both by the broad impact of political, economic and societal shifts, and by the everyday lives of its inhabitants.
This focuses in to the site of the former Bragadiru brewery; a surviving relic of old industrial heritage within a neighbourhood razed for the construction of the monumental ‘People’s House’. Now lying in decay, the site has been swept along in the story of Bucharest over the last century. Envisioning the adaptation of this site links into a new phase of reuse happening across the south of the city, and establishes a theoretical dialogue with former phases of urban displacement.
The project works with the long, linear existing building on Bulevardul George Coșbuc and the deserted landscape of the wider brewery complex which lies beyond it. Operating on the boundary of these two spaces, the intervention creates links between the two, establishing a series of spaces which create layers of thresholds and transitions where before there was a clear barrier. This aims to consolidate and bring back into use both building and landscape and facilitate a diverse and open use of these spaces.
