Parks are very important to the contemporary society, as they constitute a fundamental social catalyst: they are perhaps the best known and most used open spaces of a city. In this context, throughout Europe, people are intensely lobbying for the regeneration of urban parks and for their diversification. The wish is to make the cities appealing to different social groups, as well as disabled people, teenagers, senior citizens and ethnic minorities.
San Dona di Piave is a medium-sized city in the Veneto region in the Province of Venice. Until thirty years ago, this territory, structured by the meanderings of the River Piave, was characterised by the presence of a series of small, compact urban nuclei surrounded by large areas of land mainly devoted to agriculture. As a result of rapid and unexpected economic growth, these towns began to spread over the territory in the form of new low-density suburban developments. Today, the area functions as an extensive industrial and commercial zone, crisscrossed by new intercity roads in a landscape in which earthwork embankments against flooding alternate with a series of parks that have been carved out in the territory and a number of not very meaningful public spaces. If the old compact urban settlements enjoyed some public spaces that fulfilled the sociological needs of a small town, the new extensions frequently revealed they were unable to provide convincing public spaces that would respond to the territorial expansion and lack of density.

Leisure architecture must be fundamentally different from its urban counterpart. Meant to shelter those who need to take a break from the city, the sidewalks, the colours, the crowds, the loud dialogue between one building and the other, leisure architecture must be at the same time interesting and discreet, relaxing, but not repetitive, cheerful and calm, protective and open. The architectural concept of organizing the lodging units on the ground floor, throughout a long corridor, illuminated through a series of sockets oriented towards the outside terrace, so that every room has access to the green surface, is later developed in a free game of sloping volumes of varying heights.
The lower volumes host the single rooms, while the higher volumes host duplex apartments, each one with its own terrace on the upper level. Although full volumes are dominant, the spectacular ever-changing lighting creates a pleasant sensation of warmth and clean air. The walls, parchment, ceilings and outdoor finishings are built in wood, with a natural looking varnish.
In order to create a contrast, the walls in some of the rooms are painted white, creating cold, calm surfaces, opposed to the dynamic, knotty texture of the wood. The reception, the terraced restaurant, the lobby with its fireplace are a combination of wood and plaster. The indoor lighting devices, most of them white and simple - either linear, cylindrical or spherical, are enough to create a spectacular architectural lighting, the wood appearing to change its colour to orange during the nighttime.

According to the critics of automobile, the road infrastructure involves major public investments year by year, it disfigures the landscape, and it is a threat for ecosystems, wasting the natural and creative resources which would lead to efficient and long lasting networks, if invested in alternative or public transportation. The automobile is also considered a source of social pollution: the poor and the fragile are directly affected by the automobile and road structure related problems (noises, accidents, segregation etc.). Even if it was fervently criticized, the automobile is and will remain a great piece of technology, and it continues to evolve. It is very important to many persons for their daily transportation needs, a metaphor of our times.
In the context of the present “crisis” of the automobile and due to an increasing interest in systems and processes, the contemporary architectural discourse recovers the infrastructure, seen as an instrument in the attempt to regenerate the urban areas. The studies carried out at present employ infrastructure as a fundamental element for solving the problems of the contemporary cities: overcrowding, density, waste of resources, pollution, congestion etc.

After an almost resigned silence, architects from Cluj are making a return: at the 2008 Biennale, most of the awards went to Planwerk and SKBD, not to mention the other projects by Cluj architects entered in the competition. The Planwerk team is well known for their preoccupation towards the public space, but little is known about their younger colleagues. Therefore, we invited Attila Kim, Tiberiu Bucsa and Ada Diaconu to talk to us about their projects, about cities and nature, about generations and their wishes.

"The level we reached is that of medium scale projects, and it's closer to the small scale than to the larger scale. We're open to the idea of collaborating with other practices on larger projects. But our main goal is to enter more projects in architectural competition and, generally speaking, we wish to maintain the control on the quality of work on all projects and their development."