Graduation projects
Visitor center and cultural route in the natural hydrographic landscape of the Timiș river meadows
Project description
The project started from a broad territorial level strategy that is based on the regeneration of the Banat hydrographic landscape through contemporary ecosystem solutions. A response was elaborated in the form of a masterplan for the entire area, which through the green protection corridor strengthens the narrative path of the proposed cultural route. It is the basis for the development of the project and represents the first of the four working scales within it - the Territorial Strategy. The second scale - the landscape, includes the area of influence and the proposed interventions. These objects are meant to serve the needs identified on a territorial level. The presence of objects in the site is accentuated by the important visual directions. They enhance the feeling of connection and belonging to the landscape that man constantly feels throughout the natural route. A single object cannot activate the area, so a complex device must be designed that rethinks the paths and strengthens multiple connections between the landscape components. The third scale facilitates connections in the territory. In response to the need to reunite the local infrastructure, a wooden bridge is proposed, carefully related to the cultural route by taking over some important directions from the local landscape. And the bird corridor that crosses the area requires the proposed observation tower in response to the need for a vertical connection. The last scale of the project represents the Visitor Center - a reinterpretation of an existing architectural program. In theory, this is an Anti-object that is lost in its landscape. This is achieved by redefining the functional scheme and fragmenting the functions into carefully arranged volumes, spreaded in the territory. The Center evokes a playful, almost naïve atmosphere, which the whole project adopts and develops along the way. The project is shaped by formal languages, references, awareness to the landscape and themes of connections - regulated only by a slight tendency for clarity. The architecture produced wanting to be both intuitive and rhetorical. All the objects encountered along the route are integrated into the landscape of which they are part, shifting the focus to it and evoking its importance. Thus, the narrative path, the cultural rouths, the important visual directions and connections strengthen the continuous process of interaction between man and nature.
Author's presentation text
Sergiu is a recent graduate from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Timisoara. During his studies he acquired a contextual sensitivity in relation to the landscape, but also theoretical having in the center of the discourse a playful approach, in a constant search for simplicity and clarity.
