Atelier MASS Counting back the years

7 years ago…

We started our studio in a small apartment in the center of Cluj with views over the central square, looking at the tower of the catholic church from two large windows. We were friends, former colleagues who shared the same passion for projects that expand the boundaries of professional practice and have been working together on competitions for several years. Our work began with small but ambitious projects, with full engagement at a time of the latest financial crises. In Blaj, at TransilvaniaFest we found the perfect place to experiment with a project with a very small budget, where we were involved in the building from the beginning to the end. Our effort was very soon awarded with national recognition, by winning the first prize at BNAB – the national architectural biennale from Bucharest with our project for temporary design in Blaj. We learned the importance of using our creativity to maximum for every project.

5 years ago…

That year we began a collaboration with a music festival soon to be renowned – Electric Castle. The event was set apart from the usual expectations of a music festival, and has turned into a complex sensorial and spatial experience, more like a celebration of contemporary art. It was a beautiful challenge to work at the historic site of the Bontida castle. It wasn’t the first time we worked with temporary structures but it was the most visible. The whole setting was an invitation to exploration, several paths and different ways of perception of the old Banffy estate. All interventions stand apart from the historical material, keeping in parallel and not in competition with it. In this sense the festival does not consume its site, rather activates it by a temporary (re)set into light. We were aware of the importance of using temporary architecture to reactivate and help regenerate a space.

Also, we were back in Venice, for the Architectural Biennale, as part of the Romanian national exhibition, with the project for IRCCU – Head up where we explored the utopian dream for the Romanian cities of tomorrow.

3 years ago…

We moved into a larger space, at the location we are now, and our team got bigger. We realized that our portfolio kept growing and so we launched a more complex website. Over the years we worked on various projects: houses; interior design – residential, offices, hotels, hospitals and cafes; temporary events; exhibitions and architectural contests. We were interested in exploring and learning about space in different projects. Big or small, located in the city or in a rural site – like K house; new buildings or historical restoration like Pistruiatu House, our goal is to take every project as a challenge and try to make the best of it.

Interior design became a big part of our work, but we didn’t mind it because, after all, interior spaces are a big part of our everyday life – we spend 90% of our life indoor. We strongly believe that good design has value and we are grateful that we got the chance to experiment through projects like S House. Our goal is more about creating an experience and making spaces that feel as good as they look, than it is about following trends.

With our sister NGO – miniMass we had the chance to get involved and to make a change for the better through an annual temporary event – Somes Delivery. For us it is about getting involved in the community and giving something back to the city.

3 months ago…

We sat down and asked ourselves where are we going, we wanted to define our goals and values and to decide what path we want to follow next. We decided that it’s important for us to be a professional model of avantgarde creativity and to have exceptional quality in our projects. We also decided to take on new challenges, but to stay true to our values that had guided us so far, doing that with a more mature approach and with much more experience behind us. We will always make time for  competitions, like SkyLightHouse in order to challenge ourselves to new architectural experiments.