From Terminus to Entrance.

The project focuses on a tram depot in the heart of a capital city in Eastern Europe, and examines how to intervene in a location that could serves as a vast spatial reserve for the city, offering new gateways into the ensemble. The discussion goes further, proposing nuanced relationships and advocating for preserving the unique qualities an enclave conceals rather than dissolving it into the urban fabric. This way of working can be generally applicable to continental enclaves (those belonging to urbanized territories) addressing issues of contrasts and exceptions in the city.

The enclave can be described as a location with closed borders, an exception in the fabric, a black hole – it talks about exceptions to the rules, the location of contrasting functions in historical fabrics, with which they do not participate in any dialog. The problem of enclaves is present on several scales and brings together vast fields - whether we are talking about urban geography, the state within the state, or urban and architectural enclaves present in many different configurations (airports, shopping malls, industrial complexes, prisons, etc.), we can see that the situations differ, but the rules are the same. The problem starts from the presence of an urban and architectural situation that bears the characteristics of an enclave - the Victoria Tramway Depot in Bucharest, dating from 1871, a site with closed boundaries, on a contrasting scale to the adjacent plot, an exception in terms of function, configuration, accessibility. The project proposes a three-component program in response to some of the deficiencies present in the territory - social housing, a public garden and a center for culture and urban education. The intervention talks about the urban and social impact that these structures have on the territory and focuses on some of the responses that the site's opportunities can offer the city. Thus, from an infrastructure for transportation, a new infrastructure will be proposed with a strong social, urban and educational character. The intervention strategy interweaves the logic present on the site, following the tram tracks and composing an ensemble that works with what already exists; it capitalizes on the exception in the weaving, the boundaries become a permeable membrane, the existing fences are preserved, but gates to the ensemble are created.