Bucharest, Romania

Floreasca Masterplan

The Brief
Squire and Partners won this mixed use masterplan in competition with two other practices in early 2007. The client’s aspirations for the three-hectare site, housing the 1938 Bucharest Ford factory, was to create a top end district for living, shopping and working, and to form a landmark gateway to the city as approached from the international airports to the North. Public open spaces include international brand shopping, restaurants/cafes and iconic HQ office buildings for blue chip companies, as well as a series of high end residential and hotel parkside towers.

Design Approach
The Ford Factory is viewed as symbol of strength, durability and ambition for international commerce and relations. Squire and Partners’ concept builds upon this symbolism and informs the key physical elements of the buildings. The external shell of the factory holds and formalises a framework for the new life of the site.Desire lines flow freely through existing footprints breaking up the historical mass and defining new plots, creating pedestrian, vehicular and visual permeability through the side and connecting Floreasca Avenue with the park. The composition of the fractured plan relates strongly to the Dada movement of Bucharest and Marcel Iancu’s ‘Abstract Construction’. The desire lines carve a new connecting street and open spaces in the centre of the site and at the south of the site.

An existing 6m space at the front of the factory, facing onto Floreasca Avenue, becomes a generous boulevard and linear park creating a retail and social destination which benefits from the midday sun. The existing arches become openings to Bucharest’s best shops as well as connecting with the park.Residential plots take their lead from the primary and secondary grids of the historical building. Geometries are disturbed above ground and eroded by the affecting desire lines across and through the site, which seeks to optimise orientation and outlook on each level. Each tower displays a ‘cut’ within the primary footprint, sweeping across the façade organically in response to the available views. The towers house an international hotel, headquarters office buildings and high quality residential accommodation.

The buildings work together to create a single composition rising from within the shell of the factory. All built from the same glazing system of fritted and clear glass, the towers only reveal their use in the floor to floor ceiling heights, night lighting patterns and the nature of its response to the environment. The white crystalline towers rise high in contrast to the heavy robust brick base of the factory.

Landscaping
Landscaping is designed to create public realm and semi-private external space relevant to the site and its context. In particular the scheme creates a new link between Calea Floreasca and the park, and prioritises pedestrian circulation around the site. The scheme will define and create a strong centre to the district of Floreasca, and an international modern and historical icon for Romania.

Europaconcorsi Beta

Floreasca Masterplan