Constructed culture
Competition: Planning the central public of Sibiel
Mention
Team: Alex Axinte, Cristi Borcan, Anna Eckenweber, George Marinescu (studioBASAR), Irina Meliţă, Ştefan Simion (POSTER), Diana Culescu, Mihai Culescu (RPR)
Location: Sibiel, Romania
Period: 2013
Sibiel-reConstructed Culture
Sibiel is a place where the general downfall of the rural communities was somehow softened by the economic support given by tourism, but is sharing with the rest of the rural communities the downfall of the practices, principles and traditional economic models. The global tourism, as a form of consuming the free time, brings a view that is simplified, comfortable and dominates these places, which, in order to survive, are forced to redirect and transform themselves into a product (or brand) where the frame of life and of the everyday practices are valued following these new criteria. In this process of orientation of a community towards a consumer client, the need for community is becoming secondary or even useless and the communal spirit is slowly perishing. In the same time the search for alternative model to the contemporary crisis of the economic systems, production means and resource management, of the social and ethical practices, had identified among others, an emerging revaluation of the agricultural life combined with new forms of tourism, where the reconstruction of the local community and the space for it are central and inseparable actions. The practice of the common space had survived in places like Sibiel, diminished, marginal, or even just as a form of collective memory, but this is an important local resource that can be reactivated. The pilot project is an opportunity where the design of the public space can generate also some components of common space, by involving the inhabitants after the closing of the competition, trough actions of co-design and co-production, self-management, take over and caring for longer periods of time, because beyond making objects and spaces these have to sustain and generate relations, initiate structures and even organizations, that are centered on the user, seen not just as consumer.
The first action in the community is the opening of a Planning Agency, hosted in an accessible public place, as a concrete and direct manifest of the intentions of the intervention as a process, that will be composed of or associate with local organizations from the competition organizations, local administration, specialists (architects, sociologists) but also local people (specialists in Sibiel). The Planning Agency wishes to function as the village’s traditional “weighing machine”: an open, accessible and inclusive territory that could be a framework where different parties involved in the project, with diverse, different or even conflicting interest can start to manifest themselves, to open a dialog and negotiations, to get involved, and to get responsible. The Planning Agency aims to reconstruct the rural communities as a complex process of planning on-site, as an open way to adapt the proposals, and to involve the inhabitants in the project, by triggering a process of mutual learning, from the locals to the participants, from craftsmen to volunteers, from specialists to the community, through a series of Interventions that will take form during the project.
Central area of Sibiel
1. Pavilionul şi 2. Laviţa
2. Laviţa
5. Podul
8. Grădina şi 9. Coborârea spre apă
11. Terasa cu Pietriş
11. Terasa cu Pietriş - Banca
14. Poteca
The Interventions aim: 1. to regulate the internal or transitory uses through Connective Structures (5. The Big Bridge, 10. The Path from the River, 9. The Link with the Water, 14. The Alley to the Church); 2. consolidate emerging uses, already existing on the site through Support Structures (11. The Pebbles Terrace, 8. The Garden, 13. The Barnyard, 2. The Bench, 7. The Bed stone, 3. The Meadow, 6. The Resting Place); and 3. introduce new uses that generate intensive points of uses through Event Structures (1. The Pavilion, 4. The Sitting Place, 12. The New Fountain).
Implementing these interventions will be done in stages, following priorities such as: logistics, climatic conditions, economic environment and cultural background, and the interventions will be realized through a series of: a. Community Activities that will create the participatory frame (Meeting, Debates, Workshops, Communication); b. Preliminary Actions that are preparing the stage for the Interventions (Cleaning, Collecting Materials, Prepare the Ground); and c. Construction Work realized in different formula, depending on complexity and expertise (Workshops, Volunteer School, Local Craftsmen).
Areas
The timeline of these actions follows three major steps: The Spring Camp, The Summer Camp and The Autumn Camp, supported by other intermediary smaller actions. By realizing step-by-step the Interventions, several Areas will take shape around the area, with different but connected characters: A. The Meadow, B. The Garden, C. The Barnyard, D. The Bed stone, E. The Resting Place, F. The River.
Vegetation
In terms of vegetation there were targeted several minimal interventions capable to generate strong impact at the landscape level, but also fit to introduce new practices that may cause the “coagulation” of the local community. Thus, the spring pruning of the vegetation or meadow’s mowing can become moments when Sibiel’s inhabitants can work together for the good preservation of their village emblematic elements.