61 – MS9318 – SC PLANWERK ARHITECTURĂ ȘI URBANISM SRL

Primary Author: SC PLANWERK ARHITECTURĂ ȘI URBANISM SRL

Coauthors: Cristina Balogh, Tiberiu Ciolacu, Ruth Coman, Vlad Creoșteanu, Benjamin Kohl, Daniela Ioniță, Alexandra Man, Iulia Miclea

Architectural collaborators: Ana-Maria Cosma

Specialty collaborators: – 

By position and size, Sopor opens a chance of integrating Cluj east limit’s endangered potentials and complex conflicts into an sustainable place to live and into a ground for building up new communities. Turning barriers into meeting places, using gaps as open communication channels to both city and landscape and, finally, uniting private and public interests into one major project, are the main challenges in the new Sopor.

Standing between the densely built, over-populated socialist estates and the landscape, Sopor is cut off from the City by the future bypass road and by the railway (also a future major motorized corridor). It is also diagonally crossed by a major gas supply pipe entering the City from south-east.

East Park, with its most biodiverse mixture of lakes, streams and wetlands, but also subject  to real estate pressure, needs to preserve open channels, both to the landscape and to the hearts&minds of the community. Part of this channels run through Sopor.

East Park breaches the gap between the old neighborhoods and Sopor, simultaneously reaching out into the landscape and inviting it back into the city. Green branches of the Park irrigate treelike the future streets and squares, bringing neighbors together along them.  And an open, enjoyable roof park over the bypass road is the bridge where they all meet: people, nature and city.

A continuous network of public space runs through Sopor, buffering and connecting a lively puzzle of typologies and activities. Pedestrian green trails are stepping down the quiet  terraced housing on the hillsides, becoming urban promenades, converging into the main squares and finally leading into East Park, the green gate to the city.