GROSU, G. Radauti Municipal (Co)housing [online]. Brno: Vysoké učení technické v Brně. Fakulta architektury. .
There is quite a unique and complicated story and process behind the project. The diploma semester started on 14th February 2022. In the beginning, Andrei´s topic was to design a municipal co-housing project for his hometown Rădăui. Everything changed just 10 days later. On 24th February 2022 Russian army attacked Ukraine. Rădăui is located just on the border with Ukraine and it became a very important crossing point for Ukrainian refugees. At that point, just at the beginning of the semester, Andrei decided to come back home to help the refugees on the border. The project was very influenced by this serious situation. We had to change the time management and also we decided to adapt the diploma topic for the actual problem of the refugee crisis. In that situation, Andrei had the data and information directly from refugees and he observed their basic problems and everyday situation. He implemented these observations and his experience from working with refugees into the design of the housing project for a community of refugees. In Andrei’s work, we can discuss or argue some things and something could be deeply elaborated, but it is mostly given by the limited time he had for his diploma. He decided to devote part of this time to helping refugees. According to me, it was a great and praiseworthy decision in this difficult situation.
| Kritérium | Známka | Body | Slovní hodnocení |
|---|---|---|---|
| Přístup studenta ke zpracování |
Grosu in their work raises an important question. How can we as architects help in times of a refugee crisis? With hands-on experience, personal drive and compassion, the Author brings new information, articulates conclusions and sets a clear agenda for the thesis. The thesis identifies the main problems of the refugee camps and creates new, more sustainable solutions in repurposing abandoned agricultural complexes. They draw a sensible masterplan, design all the buildings and then focus on the housing quarter with greater detail. This is a strong point of the thesis. However, it lacks a long-term thinking about what is going to happen to the areas where only the refugees are living and what happens with the housing in case they leave back to their homes. Weaker points of the design are also public spaces in general - besides community gardens in the housing quarters - the street sections, community park and a parking concept in general. It is in my belief, that projects of such importance would never be in competence of architects themselves but would and should be always done in teams – a collaboration with at least sociologists, landscape architects, traffic experts and a municipality. If such collaboration existed, I am sure all of these shortcomings could be fixed and the project further developed. This work with its passion transcendents a final year school project and makes us reflect on our own involvement in the help to the needed. Therefore, despite its limitations, I gladly recommend this thesis for a defense and wish the candidate good luck in their future work.
| Kritérium | Známka | Body | Slovní hodnocení |
|---|---|---|---|
| Urbanistické řešení | B | Grosu in their diploma thesis analyses seven existing abandoned agricultural complexes to repurpose them into new refugee villages. This could be viewed as both genius or potentially socially highly problematic, all depending on how specifically the sites will be repurposed. While I think refurbishing existing brownfields into housing is always a great and sustainable idea, I would encourage the author into reading sociological studies about forming of the secluded areas and how to prevent it. In the chosen scenario, where the complex is situated outside of the city and therefore disconnected, could be a potential of creating socially secluded area. This might be prevented by steps such as adding less temporary housing – maybe whole apartments or family homes. Creating even more soft connections to Radauti city, apart from job opportunities in the new public institutions, e.g. creating well connected public transport with several stops in the area could be a viable option. | |
| Architektonické řešení | B | The author develops in detail the housing for the refugees, the rest keeps in schematic plans. This is a smart decision as it is not necessary to design everything and it shows a maturity of the author. Former buildings of the new housing quarters are concrete warehouses in various stages of disintegration. They are refurbished with affordable, durable and realistic materials, white plaster and wooden floors in the interior and timber cladding on the façade and black window frames. The cladding and the design of the common gardens with nooks ads a human scale to the otherwise monotonous and long forms of the former warehouses. It would be interesting to further develop this with staining the cladding with various colours on different buildings. It would be also interesting to see an investigation into adding participative elements into the design or further elaborate on the idea of refurbishment possibly with recycled materials. The public spaces offer only two types of communication – either fully pedestrian or roads for cars with narrow pavements. It would be great to see some kind of hierarchy in the communications – maybe separated pavements in the backbone roads, on the others having cars on the same level, adding cyclo-paths, bus stops etc. Current trends are also leaning from creating big separated parking places into dispersing the spaces in the area and if needed, combining bigger parking places with tree groups. | |
| Provozní řešení | B | Overall masterplan of the new “village” seems sensible, the public buildings could create new opportunities and attractors for the citizens of Radauti as well. Adding housing for the employed workers, that could help with creating a mix of social groups would be welcomed. The housing quarters consist of one type of building, that is designed as a dormitory separated in the middle by a connecting common room with several bathrooms. This one typology is designed well despite its limitations (only single or double room, missing wheelchair friendly bathroom, pet friendly x pet alergic people). I could see this as an immediate and somewhat temporary accommodation for passing refugees or housing for bigger families/communities. However, smaller families that would like to stay for longer, maybe forever and create more personal, private space for themselves, should be taken into account. Variations on the plan with apartments of various sizes and different degrees of privacy could be a possible solution. | |
| Technicko konstrukční řešení | A | Construction of the refurbishment is realistic, affordable and is well documented with presented details. However, it lacks any mention of a heating system or a connection to an engineering infrastructure. Are these housing quarters powered and heated individually or do they have common community network with one central amenity? Where is it located (is it the technical plant)? What type of power are they using? | |
| Formální úroveň | A | The Author shows maturity in properly articulating the topic of interest, providing substantial amount of data with sources and quotations, adding their own original research and drawing new and comprehensive conclusions with clear goals for the design. These goals are then well reflected. The thesis contains some minor grammar and typesetting mistakes but overall graphics are simple, well made and easy to understand. |
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