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Radu Tîrcă and Ștefania Hîrleață are students at University of Architecture and Urbanism 'Ion Mincu', Bucharest. At present, they lead their theoretical research on the subject of thermal towns and diploma projects in Govora Baths under the guidance of Stefan Simion, Irina Tulbure and Ilinca Paun Constantinescu. As students, they won second prize and best student project in a BeeBreeders international architecture competition - Mango Vynil Hub, third prize in a Zeppelin national competition - Prototip pentru comunitate, as well as other mentions in other competitions.
How will migration influence architecture and the city?
Photo:Total by Tudor Vlăsceanu, 2019
Migration means change, adaptation, bottom up, infor mal, reuse, challenge the status quo, inclusiveness, juxtaposition, living the everyday. Migration is a phenomenon of belonging, through which “you discover, that your longings are universal longings, but you are not lonely and isolated from anyone, you belong” (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Our cities are being shaped by complicated mechanisms and a multitude of forces and conditions. More and more present, these complexities generate a whole ar ray of spaces that speak to nobody and yet, they ex ist, almost as an accepted anomaly of the system.
Content Aware 2.0
Ever since I started moving and living from once city to another, I have started photographing, in an un conscious way, residual, forgotten or left-over spac es. I don’t know still, why I developed this prac tice, but I guess, while the collection slowly builds up, that this fascination comes from, partly the ubiquitous nature of such a typology of space in our cities, and also from, let’s call it, an immediate immense imaginative potential to easily transform these spaces into something not yet encountered. In that sense, I have started to play around, ma nipulating these images, to the point they present a SPACE and hence a new possibility for their exis tence, while carefully preserving much of the initial root scenario. The result is something still very much content aware, while at the same time, an un known quality and quantity begins to unfold.
I see immense potential in these spaces, as I see im mense potential in people, that are actively looking to their own universal way of belonging. Architecture is a fundamental factor in this equation.
Tudor Vlăsceanu (b. 1981) studied architecture at the Technical University Cluj, University of Architecture and Urbanism “Ion Mincu” Bucharest and at the Technical University Delft.
Since 2006, he worked for several architecture offices, OMA / Rem Koolhaas - Rotterdam, Graft - Berlin, On Office - Oslo/Dubai, Spacegroup - Oslo.
In 2010, after winning the competition, and then, building the Romanian Pavilion at the 12th Venice Biennale, Tudor co-founded UNULAUNU, an architectural studio and in counterpart, he also co-established TEGMARK, a visualization company.
Over the years, Tudor has been involved in the academic field, guest teaching at University of Architecture and Urbanism “Ion Mincu”, University of Architecture Spiru Haret, University of Kassel and Porto Academy.
In 2020, he started his own architectural practice.