From urbanism and industrial design projects to interior arrangement and furniture conception, from the ephemeral architecture to the installation, scenography and exhibitionism design, Zaha Hadid was permanently preoccupied by a critical approach of the limits of the built public space. Born in Baghdad in 1950, Zaha Hadid studied architecture at the Architectural Association, to become later a member of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture. Visiting professor of many universities and winner of numerous international competitions, Zaha Hadid gained fame and academic and public recognition. The seduction towards a utopian thinking was the subject of many reproaches addressed to the architect Zaha Hadid, and her argument for such a collocation sounded like this: utopia is, in the eyes of many people, equal only with the naivety and dangerous arrogance. What Hadid proposes, especially trough a theoretic demarche like the one finalized in Graz exhibition (October 2002 " March 2003), "Latent Utopias", is something more than the ability of a computerized programs alchemist to imagine "waved"constructions.
PROIECTE: ZAHA HADID
TEXT: OANA TANASE

There is a poor quality ground-floor-building on the studied allotment. Our intervention was one of filling, of site repair, occupying entirely the narrow street-side of the allotment; considering also the client's express wish to have a small intermediary area towards the street, the alignment regime of the demolished house was kept with a slightly retreat. A double screen towards the street resulted, the transparent one was the fence and the opaque, the façade, and between them, within the transit area, a big window-box appeared, the access stairs and the big dome protecting the entrance, metamorphosed in jamb and then in parapet. This house is located at the border between two totally opposite situations: the one from the street " sunset light, public space, the noise, the dust, the asphalt " and the one from the garden " Southside: the sun, the morning light, the tranquility, the intimacy, the property, the nature. The major route of horizontal movement mediates these two realities, crossing the parallel stripes of different diurnal functions. The materialities of the two sides are in opposition as well.
PROIECT: SC ANDREESCU & GAIVORONSCHI SRL
AUTOR, SEF DE PROIECT: CONF. DR. ARH. VLAD ALEX. GAIVORONSCHI
COAUTOR, RESPONSABIL PROIECT: ARH. OANA SARBU
TEXT: CONF. DR. ARH. VLAD ALEX. GAIVORONSCHI
FOTO: VLAD ALEX. GAIVORONSCHI, MARIUS HARTA

On top of the other eight floors of a building situated on the Maria Rosetti Street, the apartment presented in the next pages hovers over Bucharest with the relaxed and triumphal attitude of the terrace on top of the Empire State Building. The apartment was in a very severe state, with the access-way from the open terrace of the building, turning to the stair-well and the elevator a useless store-room and, generally, presenting a complex subdivision that nobody would want. The first thing the architect did was, of course, to operate a direct access from the stair-well removing the store-room which became a small entrance lobby. The second thing was to draw an axis about twenty degrees from the apartment parallels to undermine the insipid orthogonality of the rooms, an axis that from now on orientated the apartment, both to the exterior and as interior organization. Then the demolishing of the de subdivision walls followed. The sequence of spaces is the natural one: a welcome lobby with bar plus minimal kitchen plus service bathroom caught in the right side; living; the office of the man who's bored of his office; bedroom and bathroom. The accessories are chosen with great inspiration (design Prospero Quadro) and introduce an asymmetrical note intended to be funny.
PROIECT AMENAJARE: BIROU PROGRAPHIC SRL
AUTORI: ARH. STEFAN ALBERTO BIANCO, ARH. ANDA MANU, STUDENT OANA PANOIU
TEXT: SILVIA GUGU
FOTO: GEORGE VASILACHE

To arrange a shoe store is the dream of every architect. But a shoe store is more than we would be tempted to think, because also the shoe is more than it seems to be. That is why arranging a shoe store is not an easy task. A shoe store is not just any space. Although, lately, shoe stores illicitly combines the shoes with other vestiary accessories (accessories as accessorial, optional, dispensable elements), a part of the shoe essence still flows within these stores. I want to suggest the psychological density of a space like this, compared by the great mystics with heaven or hell's lobby (depends on the mystic), where there is a great crowd of spirits, they say"¦ That's why I hope, from this day on, to share the certitude that a shoe store, be it a boutique or a supermarket, is first of all a profound spiritual experience.
PROIECT: FAB GROUP ASSOCIATES
AUTORI: ARH. BRUNO ANDRESOIU, ARH. ARTHUR TINTU
TEXT: BRUNO ANDRESOIU, 3D ARTHUR TINTU
FOTO: SERBAN BONCIOCAT, GEORGE VASILACHE