The ten year plan

In the final stage of the tender only one other offer was under consideration, a proposal from a consortium led by Metroul, with German architectural studio Albert Speer and two Romanian studios - IHS Romania and Western Outdoor. The previous plan for the city was drawn up in 2000 and was meant to expire in 2010, but has now been extended to 2016, by which time the so-called 'Dynamic Masterplan' should have been completed, which is again intended to last for another ten years. Without such a plan there is no legal basis to issue building or demolition permits within the city.

Nothing unusual

Why has a university been heading up such a consortium to draw up these plans? Associate professor Tiberiu Florescu, the dean of the university's faculty of urbanism, explains: "It's not unusual. The university has a powerful urban design research centre." He goes on to point out that the earlier urban plan was too inflexible for the city's further development. "The previous masterplan was conventional and some of its guidelines were not followed by the city due to the interest of investors, who developed outside the plans," he elaborates, "and as a result a lot of modifications to the plan were approved on a piece-meal basis. The new rules take in more development scenarios. The urban rules will follow three patterns of development. The idea is to focus on the identity and character of the city." During the communist era, Bucharest became a hotchpotch of architectural styles, with the sort of drab pre-fabricated housing that is now typical of much of Eastern Europe standing alongside historic buildings from the 1930s built in the French classical style (for which Bucharest was sometimes described as the 'Little Paris'). In an attempt to address this, the new masterplan will divide the city into 60 neighbourhoods. For certain areas the plan is to be very strict, but for others it will be flexible, depending on the nature of the particular neighbourhood and the equilibrium of the whole system. The plan allows for different rules to be applied to different areas and attempts to create a unity from a non-homogenous city. All development is to be achieved through a participatory process, which Dr Florescu describes as an economical and social approach. Residents and businesses within each area will have the opportunity to voice their opinions regarding the development of their particular neighbourhood - a process that would be impossible, according to Tiberiu Florescu, on a city-wide scale.

One plan, many scenarios

Flexibility is ensured by covering a large number of development scenarios. When one investment is made, certain scenarios may be excluded and thus subsequent projects would still have to follow a directed plan. All the details of the masterplan are to be made available online utilising GIS technology (Geographic Information Systems), making all the latest updates accessible to the general public. "Three to four years ago there was no strategic vision, but there was a lot of pressure to develop from investors. Developers built wherever they could. The Romanian economy is still growing and investment is still coming, but the city now needs to put together an offer for investors," says Dr Florescu. The plan is designed to improve a number of aspects of city life: it considers the city as a residential area and as a place to do business, how to make development more sustainable (including the use of more green-energy sources), how to improve transport both within the city and between other towns both in Romania and abroad, and also how to bring Bucharest to prominence as a European capital.

Alex Hayes