The site raises a legitimate question: should anything be built here at all?
Its irregular geometry, the steep southern embankment, the scale of the neighbouring buildings and the succession of large architectural gestures around it seem to discourage yet another object. The proposal begins with this hesitation. Rather than adding a building to an already crowded context, it considers architecture as an instrument for ordering the site - establishing appropriate distances, mediating between existing structures and generating public space where there is currently none.
The resulting triangular prism is conceived as a simple and precise urban device. Acting almost as a wedge, the building defines three complementary conditions around it: a mineral esplanade towards Calea Dorobanților to the north, an intimate garden opening onto the southern slope, and a shared space along its western edge providing access to the underground parking. Between them, the building becomes both a connecting element and a filter between city and landscape.
The esplanade is conceived as an adaptable public surface for events, temporary installations and contemporary art. The transparent ground floor extends this public realm into the building, bringing together the reception and administrative interface with a café/bistro and gallery that can operate independently from the offices above. Together with the conference spaces on the first floor, they allow the building to remain active beyond the conventional working day.
The rotation of the volume establishes a visual relationship between the Olympia Business Center and the Library while avoiding direct confrontation with either. Starting from the northern façade, the other two sides gradually recede from their neighbours and converge towards the south. Rather than competing with the existing buildings, the new volume positions them in relation to one another, negotiating light, views and scale. A glazed envelope reinforces this strategy: transparent corners reduce the perceived mass of the building, while dynamic textile awnings provide solar protection and give the façades a continuously changing appearance.
To the south, the existing embankment ceases to be residual ground and becomes an active landscape. Its natural profile is largely preserved and reinforced with resilient local vegetation. A single Ginkgo biloba marks the intimate garden as a discreet landmark. Above the public levels, five floors of flexible office spaces are organised around natural light and views towards either the city or the landscape, while the roof becomes an accessible, naturalised garden - both a social space and an ecological extension of the southern slope.
Sustainability is approached not as an additional technological layer, but as a consequence of the building's siting, geometry and construction. Its compact form, controlled orientation, protected glazing and dynamic shading reduce energy demand, while planted surfaces contribute to biodiversity and mitigate the urban heat-island effect. Ground-source heat pumps connected to energy piles transform the foundation system into part of the building's renewable-energy infrastructure. Photovoltaics, a high-performance envelope and hybrid ventilation complete the strategy.
The proposal ultimately understands the new ADR-NV headquarters not simply as an administrative building, but as a piece of urban infrastructure: compact and precise in its form, open and adaptable in its use, and capable of transforming a difficult residual site into a sequence of public spaces connecting architecture, city and landscape.
Design Team: Paul-Mihai Moldovan, Anamaria Moldovan, Diana Veress-Canta, Bianca-Laura Suciu, Oana Cezara-Brescanu, Flavia Marginean
Collaborators: Andrei Pop, Stefania Rus, Luca Moise, Arh Service Guttmann&Comp, SDC Proiect, QMEK Works, Proiect Peisaj, ADP Arhitectura si Inginerie
Design Year: 2025
Status: Competition
Execution | Completion year: -
Location: Cluj-Napoca, Cluj County, Romania
Gross area: 7.452 sqm
Text: ateliercetrei
Photographer[s]: -