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Architects: Westfourth Architecture
- Area: 3000 m²
- Year: 2009
- Photographs: Andrei Mărgulescu
Text description provided by the architects. This 5 story apartment building is located in the Dorobanţi section of Bucharest, Romania.. This area became in recent years a fashionable district, full of cafes and upper scale boutiques, and a number of high end apartment buildings were built next to the existing residential structures that define the traditional urban fabric.
The apartment building presented here, is an insertion in this rather dense residential fabric, consisting in 4 and 5 levels buildings, raised mostly in the 50's and 60's.
The building, confined to the zoning envelope, is configured as a linear structure, having the narrow northern façade, fronting the G. Călinescu Street, while the southern end of the building is facing the dead ended Aricescu Street. The rest of the building constitutes a "book end" to the row of double residential lots on the East and is almost hidden behind the buildings that line up along the Beller Street, the main thoroughfare in the neighborhood.
Facing the back of close surrounding structures, the building closes into itself by limiting the size and number of its widows on its long western and eastern facades. While reducing the size of the openings, the design allows each apartment to have exposures on two elevations, and this way to be able to receive plenty of daylight. The two core configuration service two one bedroom apartments each per floor and facilitate the presence of two exterior walls in each living room. The openings to two different exposures will permit the owners to experience the sunlight's daily progression in each apartment. The penthouse floor's two apartments are surrounded by a wrap around terrace. On the ground floor, a linear lobby constitutes a spine that allows entries on both ends, at G. Călinescu and Aricescu Streets. The small courtyard set between the cores facilitates daylight penetration in the central section of the elongated ground floor lobby. A glass enclosed six cars garage, a shop and the ramp to the underground parking occupy the western end of the building's footprint.
