Arhitecture on the rise

DE3 GRUP, Cluj

In 2006, the decision of a group of three design firms led to the formation of an architectural office with fellow architects of the same generation in Cluj-Napoca. There are now seven architects in the office: Adrian Roșca, Oliver Nemeș, Zoltan Szoke, Laura Nemeș, Radu Rusu, Florin Popescu, Dorin Popescu.

Implementation of standardized projects for bank branches, commercial halls, commercial spaces in retail complexes. Identity and pilot projects for commercial brands, standard commercial hall project for supermarket network. Housing, public buildings for services. The list is a window into the office's area of concern and expertise. Probably at least 80% of the activity is occupied with technical design services for private investments. It is the professional formula that has ensured our continuity of operation in recent years, with a number of architects ranging from 7 to 15, and the knowledge that has allowed us to evolve in our proposals towards clear geometric compositions, freed from the constraints of the design context.

Our distinguished professional portfolio includes several projects that for us are the concretization in a built reality of our concerns and attempts at formal inventiveness. Three housing projects executed between 2005-2012, a hotel, a travel retail project, the extension of a shopping mall and the rehabilitation of an old structure into a small office building, are interesting projects that have allowed and demanded us to control architecture.

The opportunities were not numerous. And they didn't start with a pre-established framework with the beneficiary. The context was built each time over time, with effort, availability and professional expectations. A reality that we have often faced is the clients' demand for diversity and complexity in the early proposals for ideas. The result is that some of our projects evolve from complicated, baroque compositions and solutions to concise, clear resolutions in compositional detail. Long design and execution times have been another feature of many of our representative projects: Casa M 2005-2010, Casa P 2006-2012, Hotel Privo 2007-2013. Developments for commercial retail or travel retail spaces require much shorter timeframes for the investment and have a high pace in re-evaluating technical and architectural solutions. It is a highly specialized design niche and the result is that the stores designed are machines dedicated to the commercial purpose. The furniture, although appearing to be the result of industrial mass production, is in fact a sum of objects with unique designs and execution.

The stake of the design effort was, in many cases, to free the various elements of the construction from physical and functional constraints. The results that we consider exemplary contain atypical uses of materials in ways free of formal constraints. The consistency of the materials and the forms dictated by their use are secondary. The simple composition is a sum of abstract quotations.

Hotel Privo, project 2007-2013, completion 2013, total built area 4,560 square meters;