In an interview, architects NL were saying that they are interested by the “still unexploited potential of the common things”. Common things? A parking lot, a street, a naval transport container, a thermal point, a billboard… Their projects take the shape of complex discoursers, which involve urban strategies, ecology and social investigation. The point of departure is always a dysfunction of the city, an oversized street that occupies the green areas excessively, a suburbia with no public functions, an absolutely necessary industrial building but which occupies with no right the public space… The answer to each of these problems is more than a politically correct architecture. It is a new social scenario.
PROIECT: NL ARCHITECTS
TEXT: IOANA PAUNESCU
FOTO: NL ARCHITECTS, BAS PRINCEN, LUUK KRAMER, JEROEN MUSCH, HANS VAN LEEUWEN

If Europe House from Victoriei Square explains an insertion into an existent front, relaxing its opacity by an extrovert presence, the Charles de Gaulle building plays the role of the “vertical accent”, performing a dusty collocation by the unexpected presence of an introvert corner building, with a veil-curtain bashfully hiding a virtual tower – a postmodern game of images and concepts questioning many myths of Bucharest’s architecture. The building is transparent on the inside, an unusual and noncommercial approach for office buildings, ambiguous as an urban presence – in a city ambiguous itself, hating rules and certainties – and it has the generosity to offer an idyllic perspective upon Bucharest – as if the imagine would pass through the retina of architect Vladimir Arsene, for whom Charles de Gaulle Square is the place of childhood and Bucharest - the ideal city.
PROIECT: ARH. VLADIMIR ARSENE, ARH. CALIN NEGOESCU, ARH. SON NGUYEN ONAR GERELIOGLU, ARH. ZZING LEE, ARH. RAL
TEXT: SILVIA GUGU
FOTO: SERBAN BONCIOCAT, VLADIMIR ARSENE, ZZING LEE

How can white, usually associated to a cold elitism, define the stylistic profile of the arrangement of a dwelling meant for a young couple? The answer is not very complicated. By fine chromatic associations, by playing with textures and finishings, by a discreet mix of opacity and transparence, all under the – all-comprising - sign of a decorative ingenuity , the arrangement „in white” of a spacious apartment in an inter-war block of flats manages to have a fresh, youthful, dynamic and, at the same time, extremely refined air. The interior architecture of the inter-war building in the Arcul de Triumf area was exploited to the maximum by igloo design, the resulted stylistic discourse following concomitantly the functional needs and the creation of a unconstrained, excess-free image.
PROIECT: IGLOO DESIGN
TEXT: VIORICA BUICA
FOTO: SERBAN BONCIOCAT