Urbanism

A good project on badly regulated land stays on paper. That is why urban planning is not an administrative stage for us, but the moment when density, access, heights and the relationship between the future building and the city are actually decided. We lay the groundwork for responsible development beyond the scale of a single building.

Zoning studies and planning documentation

We prepare complex zoning studies, urban planning documentation and planning schemes, from the initial analysis of a site through to approval of the documentation. We check the legal and technical status, easements, setbacks, permissible planning indicators and the capacity of the infrastructure, then build development scenarios that an investor can compare in figures.

Protected areas and industrial sites

An important part of our experience comes from difficult situations: protected areas next to listed monuments, where any change of volume has to be argued, and sites with hazardous materials or an industrial history, where regulation has to be correlated with decontamination and with the phasing of the investment.

Masterplans and the mix of uses

At masterplan scale we work on the mix of uses and the links between them. In Bacău we integrated retail, housing, a hotel and a theme park into a single scheme, and in Constanța and in Sector 6 of Bucharest we organised residential developments in relation to the existing streets, local amenities and public space.

Urban design competitions

Urban design and public space competitions have given us the chance to test ideas at city scale: Victoria Square in Timișoara, awarded second prize in an international competition, Feroviarilor Park in Cluj-Napoca with over 53,000 sqm, the regeneration of the Rulmentul industrial site in Brașov and of the Tractorul platform, and the urban NODE project in an international competition in Beijing.

We think about the sustainable city, attentive to the way inhabited spaces influence how we live and how a community grows. We care about distances that can be walked, shade, water, public space that is actually used and the mix of uses that keeps a neighbourhood alive outside office hours.

Approvals and public consultation

Planning documentation is negotiated, not simply submitted. We work with local authorities, with the specialists behind each approval and, where relevant, with the public consultation process. A plan approved quickly but rejected by its neighbours produces longer delays than one discussed from the beginning.

Because we are a design office at the same time, the planning we propose is immediately tested through architecture: we check whether the indicators proposed produce a building that can be built, permitted and worth living in. That removes the surprises between the planning stage and the design stage.

If you have a site and want to know what can be developed there, or you need planning documentation for an investment in preparation, write to us.