The project presented here – Green Hybrid Buildings – was planned by the ȘIC architectural students team and won the first prize in an inside contest by the „Ion Mincu” Architecture and Urbanism University. The site is located in Romania, right in the centre of it’s capital –Bucharest- on Calea Victoriei boulevard and is designed to host a large commercial centre but also providing offices and appartments spaces in the centre of the city.
Given its characteristics, the infrastructure shall serve as a pole of attraction for high technology companies in the context of an architectural proposal that is moving towards innovative solutions to the environmental issues of today. The project is trying to establish a relationship between the building and its context, the artificial and the natural, hoping to reflect a facility that maintains a dialogue with its surrounding landscape while exploring technological solutions.
This responds to a functional program with appropriate solutions while simultaneously introducing differentiating factors that make the architectonic object a contemporary and innovative proposal capable of ensuring its status as a benchmark in energy efficiency and sustainability.
This building is programmed to function as a commercial and cultural center, in the basement and ground floor, as well as offices combined with apartments on the remaining floors. At the top floor is found a terrace with a bar and lounge area that allows a panoramic top view across Bucharest.
Through the process of urban renewal, the downtown of Bucharest that has a predominantly public character will be developed and will enable a continuity of green space, creating a public trail. The extension of the green space from the park of the Palace Hall to the two sites where these two buildings are located can be found at pedestrian level but also inside the buildings.
This type of “green” path extends the leisure route and enable the opportunity of adding a mix of public functionalities on the ground floor that generates a new urban island, that is so specific to Bucharest of the nineteenth century, characterized by passages entrances in private courtyards with beautiful gardens decorated with floral ornaments.
These two buildings are linked together by a pedestrian road, which allows an improved mobility in the ground level but also by treating the facades in the same orthogonal system of fullness and emptiness. Green Hybrid is the expression of a new and futuristic intervention, suggesting this orthogonality, both in plan and facade, having inside this natural element that enables continuity of green space. Green Hybrid Tower is an expression of modernity, with an exterior layout –like a skin structure that covers interior public spaces.
The entrance is done through a circular courtyard with shops, bookstores and retail space. The other floors are divided into two registers in the office area and living area, separated by a core plant between two structural nodes that marks the transition and continuity of natural element through the mineral shell represented by the building itself. The detachment from the near building’s blind wall allow the tower to gain slenderness. That area is solved by a green vegetation wall that gives a pleasant ambient for the office area.
To stimulate the activities that are developed inside was required sustainable design characterized by the use of units of air-conditioning system that with greenery from the inside ensure reduced energy consumption during summer and create pleasant and friendly ambient during winter. The green route continues with the Green Hybrid Garden that completes the urban island and accentuate the vertical element that has a big importance in the history of this place – Telephone Palace. This proposal building has an open ground floor with more commercial spaces.
The upper floors are designed to accommodate office spaces and living apartment-hotel type. The garden is put into light by treating the enclosure with terraces and platforms that have a spiral staircase which is a sculpture surrounded by the garden. Both circular staircases in front of the tower and inside the garden have a considerable role in terms of accentuating the access (one goes down, another climb). Source by Șain Andrei.
Location: Calea Victoriei, Bucharest, Romania
Students: Crețeanu Mihai-Cosmin, Ion Mădălina, Șain Andrei
Project Team: ȘIC team (Șain Andrei, Ion Madalina, Crețeanu Mihai)
Structure: ȘIC team
Award: 1st prize winners Competition:”Insert buildings in the protected area on Calea Victoriei´´
University:‘’Ion Mincu’’ Architecture and Urban Planning University, Bucharest
Year: 2016
Images: ȘIC team, Courtesy of Șain Andrei
