Former sawmill factory of Brezoi

Type: Diploma project

Location: Brezoi, Romania

Year: 2022 (6th year, 2nd semester)

Team: Diana Stanciu, Radu Dragomir

| ABOUT |

The city of Brezoi, located in the southern part of Romania, in Valcea County, presents a favorable positioning, developing parallel to the Lotru river and being surrounded by forests. These advantages made Brezoi attractive for the development of the forest industry, due to the transport of logs on water. In order to develop forestry in the area on a larger scale, in 1873, the Brezoi Timber Factory was established, which came to gather the entire community in the process of evolution, each inhabitant of the village becoming a factory worker. Nowadays, the former sawmill factory is abandoned, but a new festival has appeared in the city (Open Air Blues Festival) and this could be an opportunity for the factory to be transformed.

| LOCATION |

| substantiation study|

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| ACCESSIBILITY |

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The project is located in the southern part of Romania, in Valcea County, Brezoi. Although the city is currently crossed by two important roads (one European and one national), the area has poor accessibility. In this sense, a completion of the highway will be built nearby, which will be part of the pan-European corridor IV, connecting the city of Brezoi with important capitals of Europe, in just a few hours. This is an advantage, as an investment in this area is required.

Another advantage of Brezoi is that, is surrounded by a natural park, allowing tourists to discover diverse flora and fauna through existing mountain trails. The city comes with a good location as is developing next to the Lotru river, and has in its composition the locality Brezoi and nine adjacent villages, showing a vast expanse of forests (out of 21 hectares, approximately 20 are forests). This proximity of the city to the rivers Lotru and Olt, made Brezoi attractive for the development of the forest industry, due to the transport of logs on water.

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| urban analysis |

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| historical analysis |

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In order to develop forestry in the area on a larger scale, in 1873, the Brezoi Timber Factory was established, which has gathered the entire community in the process of evolution of the city, because most of the inhabitants of the city became a factory worker. The factory, in this case, is not only the place where wood products are produced but also a place where interpersonal relationships developed. It was a community that wanted to be united in times when, in exchange for renting some forests, workers received the right to free electricity as per family. For the forests located in hard-to-reach areas, the factory built funiculars, the longest of which was 17 km long. For the areas near a river, the logs were transported on the water to the factory through arranged canals.

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| FORMER PROPERTIES OF THE CARPATHIANS |

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The factory prospered over time, managing to build around it what we call today "Former Properties of the Carpathians" (buildings marked in red in axonometry), these being: "Castelul Mare"/The Big Castle (now the City Hospital), "Micul Castel"/ The little Castle (former kindergarten, today abandoned), the Carpathian Society Offices and the Metal Parts Workshop (now abandoned), the "Floors" of the Factory (the collective housing), the Casino and the Bakery (today abandoned).

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| ON THE SITE OF THE FORMER FACTORY |

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On the site of the former Brezoi Timber Factory are found today the buildings that helped wood processing: the sawmill hall, the former thermal power plant and the chimney (which most probably dates back to 1873), the former sorting area, workshops, the workshop specialized in wooden parts "Atelierul de frize", the "Twins" and the "Overhead crane".

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After analyzing the whole area, we proposed demolishing the buildings that were gradually attached to the main buildings and creating a scenario of staging the intervention in time.

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| REFERENCES |

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| PRELIMINARY PROPOSAL 1 |

| PRELIMINARY PROPOSAL 2 |

| FINAL PROPOSAL |

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At the masterplan level, we proposed the creation of a cultural ensemble (performance hall, museum, exhibition pavilion, hotel, restaurant, and café) supported by programs dedicated to the community (vocational retraining school and workshops), all surrounded by parks and dedicated squares, both to the community and to the visitors.
The place is divided into parks and small squares: in the north, there is a park with an opening entry to the sawmill, between the buildings we have created an interior street to guide you to a pocket of the restaurant, a square for shows up to 10,000 people and in the south, an area of caravans, food trucks and tents that will be developed in the third stage of construction of the project and that would defer with various functions the pedestrian street (and here we thought of some activities like parade of vintage cars, log cutting contest, "Mercato" type market, snowmen contest, chalk drawing contest on asphalt, skating rink, allegorical carts, city day, cooking contest, eggs hunt, open-air blues festival, movie nights and more).

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| FORMER SAWMILL HALL - PERFORMANCE HALL|

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Recently the area has become more attractive for cultural activities, due to the Open Air Blues Festival that takes place in Brezoi, therefore, a flexible performance hall was the chosen solution for the rehabilitation of the sawmill. In addition, following a storm, several roof beams were destroyed, where the stage tower will develop. In order to achieve a shape that does not alter the emblematic image of the former factory, we made several alternatives for the stage tower until the choice of the one that we considered appropriate.

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Regarding the flexibility of the performance hall, it has three options of use: the first option, presented from top to bottom, is that in which the room would be divided into two performance halls and a common, central lobby. In this case, there is a dance hall, a lobby, and a performance hall. In the other two variants, the floor is unitary, over the existing chairs being superimposed a metal structure to give more flexibility to the building. In case the room is being divided into four different area, the lobby for these will be the entrance hall and its "pockets." In addition, the flexibility of the auditorium would not be possible without using a wall with a metallic interior structure, soundproofed and doubled on each side with a light structure, filled with mineral wool.

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| FORMER THERMAL POWER PLANT - MUSEUM|

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| DETAILS|

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Regarding the relationship between existing and proposed, the CLT steps are adapted according to the rhythm and shape of the existing beams, acquiring on the 1st floor a stepped soffit that not only molds to the shape of the existing beam but also hides the various ventilation systems, sprinklers and lights required.

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| former wood sorting area - EXHIBITION PAVILION|

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On the place where before the timber was waiting to be loaded into wagons and transported, we proposed the delimitation, through paving, of a mineral area, with an area of 12,000 sqm. This area was designed to move the Open Air Blues Festival Brezoi, here. Towards the formed square are opened: the café, the workshops, the hypostyle, and visually the hotel. From this public square, the space gradually becomes semipublic through the appearance of gardens: between the hotel and the workshops and between "the twins" and the café.

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| former chipboard factory - hotel and restaurant|

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The hotel was designed as a light CLT structure due to the installation and the low negative impact on the environment, which relies on the existing concrete structure, ground floor and the mezzanine being found in the old "shell" of the former hall. The hotel is double-oriented, with balconies on the two long facades, developed on three floors and a technical floor with two concrete traffic nodes.

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| FORMER WOOD WORKSHOP - CAFÉ|

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The intervention on the hypostyle is performed so as not to reach the existing structure, by introducing a metal structure to support a coffered floor, the pillars used to take the shape of the current pillars, bypassing them. The hypostyle thus becomes an exhibition pavilion, both for the works of artists from nearby workshops and for artists from outside the community. The exhibition takes place on two levels, the ground floor and the first floor. The platform on the first floor is slightly withdrawn from the side facades to allow light to pass to the exposure on the ground floor.

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