System. Ecosystem. Initiative. Architecture

The last few years we have been more than professionally linked to the Danube Delta, because it is impossible to be present in this place and in this community without somehow becoming part of it. It's a climate with a very special personality, it makes you feel somehow beyond time and reminds you of living in rhythm with nature, stripped of all the decorations that we have gradually added and got used to. It is both a simple life and a hard life. From the role of architect it is good to realize as early as possible that we are just one piece in a system. Fortunately, and sometimes unfortunately, we are a piece with a relevant impact on the whole. It is a question of awareness, ownership and, ultimately, responsibility.
A lot can be said about the Delta from the point of view of architecture, but it would be relevant to put architecture in the macro context of the natural ecosystem, but also in the context of the economic and cultural system. We are not alone and, as long as we try to isolate architecture from context, the results may be at best nil. But most likely they will be damaging.

Why the Danube Delta and why should we care?

The Danube Delta is valuable not only because it has a triple international status, not only because it is a Biosphere Reserve and at the same time a Ramsar site - an Area of International Importance and a World Natural and Cultural Heritage Site. The Danube Delta must be valuable to us in a much more intimate and much more awake on a personal level, in an active way because it is unique and because each of us has the opportunity now to be an actor in the scenario of its protection and transformation. As with other rural communities, the decline is affecting the potential of the place in a generalized way, through the departure of young people, a shrinking workforce, an ageing population, the loss of crafts and traditions, but also strictly in terms of the built environment, through low quality interventions, ignorant of context and immune to the challenge of sustainability.

Area of interest

As in other communities, the localities of the Danube Delta suffer from harmful interventions, interventions that assault the environment and the eye of the beholder. Entire settlements have been mutilated over the years by architecture and planning that lacks understanding and discernment. From volume, size and positioning to color and materiality, the architecture of recent years has succeeded in destroying the image of built heritage. It has been built chaotically, disproportionately, without structure and medium and long-term planning. It has even intervened in infrastructure and public spaces, sometimes denying any understanding of the values of the place. Concrete has been poured, urban lighting has been installed, everything has been tried, sometimes under the direction of good intentions without good will or common sense. There is no lack of interest in this place. The Danube Delta is at the crossroads of many organizations and bodies, with specific or extensive activity and imprint, among which I would mention just a few, starting with the local authorities, the ARBDD - Administration of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, the Association of Municipalities in Romania, the Ecotourism Association, Destination Management Association, Ivan Patzaichin Association - Mila 23, National Association of Rural, Ecological and Cultural Tourism Tulcea, Association of Tourism Employers of the Danube Delta, Federation of Fishermen Organizations of the Danube Delta to the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests and obviously the local community. The list is much longer. Interest is there. There is activity.

So what are the challenges?

For a child with so many midwives, a real challenge is to align interests, to define a vision that everyone in the gears can adhere to, one that they feel close to and embrace, including the local community. A real challenge is to define the framework and the action steps in the context of shared values that take into account biodiversity, the need for protection, but also the development directions. It is also a challenge to create a climate of mutual trust so that all the pieces of this system can move together to achieve the goals, to make the vision a tangible reality.

The value of "together"

It is not utopian. It is an extremely earthy approach, based on the understanding of a healthy thought of Romanian wisdom, that where there are many, power grows. But power only grows where there are many and aligned in mentality and values. Alongside this, another key element is for everyone to understand their role well and to make every effort, beyond what is strictly necessary, to generate more value in their own area. Only now we come to the field of architecture and the role of the architect. It is only in the context and in the system that our efforts make sense because they are contextual and closely linked to the efforts of all the others. Extra-contextual architecture should not exist, and in the Danube Delta this is even clearer than usual. Architecture must be honest and understanding, able to bring together conservation, resource use and development in a sustainable way. It must be wise and want the good, without seeking to assert itself at all costs, it must be subordinate to the vision of the big picture.

So YES, so NO

The Danube Delta needs an altruistic and sustainability-oriented thinking. We, as architects, need to understand that our mission is a guild mission and not a personal one in order to ensure sustainability in the long term. Each one of us is transient and of very little relevance. The value we generate can only be sustainable, lasting, transformative if we too work in a coordinated way under an assumed umbrella of beneficial intervention. Initiatives exist for us too. The Romanian Order of Architects has developed and published, as part of a broader nationwide initiative, the Architectural Guide for the Danube Delta Area, which is designed to fit in with the specific local features of the rural environment. These guides clearly structure the context and formulate clear directions of approach, covering most categories of interventions in an easily understandable form. It is a YES / NO guide.

The natural thread of sustainability

Understanding the context is the starting point for any approach in/to architecture, it is a kind of foundation that needs to be solid and well anchored. An understanding of context brings together characteristics of all kinds, from geographical, climatic, demographic and technographic, and extends to natural resources, craft specificities and industrial possibilities. Why all this concern? Because there is a causality of the healthy way of doing things in this place and a natural thread that we need to follow in order to achieve a smooth transition from tradition to the contemporary and to intervene sustainably. Over the years, I have been part of both the approaches to implementing projects and opposing implementation in the case of intervention attempts that lack real understanding and sustainability, intervention attempts that are downright harmful. The Delta is an ecosystem which, in terms of resources, has a very well defined specificity. It has its own renewable resources. It has, developed on the healthy basis of these resources, an architectural specificity. In the Delta, people work with wood, reeds, wicker, and papyrus. The harvesting and processing of reed and papure are traditional activities which have been an essential part of the local economy. It has always been built on a human scale, integrated into the natural setting, with good measure and common sense. Except lately.

10 years of projects in the Danube Delta

Unfortunately, the experience of almost ten years spent on projects in the Delta has made us realize the relationships and dependencies in this economic system, namely that it takes more than architectural vision. It takes understanding and confidence in professionalism, it takes economic strength, and it takes craftsmen and craftsmanship. The realization of quality architecture has as its first condition the existence of a point of overlap between ideas of quality and financial and human resources. This is how we start to get to the root of the problem and realize that this is an issue with many ramifications, that there is a need for schooling, support and sometimes the revival of crafts, there is a need for local labor, there is a need for economic development and conditions that will encourage young people to stay in or return to the localities in the Delta. And as a first step in solving any problem, a correct diagnosis and a multidisciplinary intervention, a coordinated, systematic intervention, are needed.

Do you go out?

An initiative of which we are a part and which was born precisely for these reasons is the project Antreprenorești - Adopt a Village, coordinated by Romanian Business Leaders. As we emphasized in the definition of the project, we know that the Romanian village has a substantial potential for growth, but also a lack of management expertise, a poorly developed entrepreneurial spirit, a lack of community empowerment skills in rural areas, all of which lead to low business performance and attractiveness.
Entrepreneurship - Adopt a Village is a project initiated within the RBL which, together with the related project Roboost, tries to find the best tools to stimulate entrepreneurship in rural areas. A main pillar is the embrace and binding implementation of the aforementioned SRO Guidelines, so that, on the built environment side, we can move towards a coherent picture and start to correct some of the slippages of the last decades.
We believe that involving responsible companies and entrepreneurs in saving Romanian villages is a healthy solution. In practical terms, we put the entrepreneurial mindset of innovation, of capitalizing on opportunities as well as knowledge of management and strategy at the service of the rural environment. As architects and entrepreneurs we cannot talk about architecture without a macro vision. And we believe that the whole guild should adopt the broadest possible perspective and a broad understanding of the situation, perspective and motivations of all those involved. We believe in the impact of architecture and we believe that we can generate relevant change, but most of all we believe in the responsibility of architecture.
We need initiative.
We need involvement.
We need to work together.
I wanted to talk about local architecture, but my message has turned into a call to action. Especially if you are an architect or a future architect, find or generate an initiative that you believe in and get involved as early as possible, because only in this way you can have a transformation of vision on the situation, but especially a transformation of perception on your own power to generate change. And once that happens, it is an unstoppable process.