Concept 

Our team's concept is based on and represented by the analogy between a university campus and a computer motherboard with all its components, because, like a motherboard is to a computer, a university campus is the basis and support on which scientific development and evolution take place.

Thus the campus of the future for the Polytechnic University of Bucharest will have to be (in our vision) adaptable, adjustable, flexible, extensible, updatable, in order to keep up with the constant and rapid evolution of technology. When designing the Polytechnic Campus, we took into account the fact that in the field of technological development, the quantity of information doubles almost every two years, therefore for the students in this type of university, half of the information they learned in their first year will be obsolete by their third year of study.

This is the reason why a campus must give its students the possibility of preparing for jobs that don't exist yet, which use technologies that haven't been invented, in order for them to be able to solve problems that haven't been determined yet.

In order to respond to the exponential times we live in, the components of a campus must be well interconnected, forming an open circuit in which the flow of people, information, matter, can travel with maximum speed and efficiency. Also, this circuit must increase connectivity and exchanges within the campus, but also outside of it, at a local, regional and global level.

This motherboard and open-circuit concept helped us develop the project in the formal sense of design, but also structurally and functionally. Therefore, it represented a model for the layout of the main directions for the pedestrian, cycling and vehicle traffic, but also for the layout and connection between the buildings and activities, and the connection to the city.

Also, we noticed that we could easily relate between certain components present on a motherboard and the components of a campus.

 

Existing site features

The existing campus was built during the communist regime in Romania, in a central area of Bucharest. But the campus buildings are deteriorated and aren’t energy efficient, because of the building techniques used back then, so we proposed a complete restructuring of the campus, in order for it to become sustainable and to create a quality environment for students.

In order to better illustrate the proposals and the concept of the project, we broke it down into several layers which explain the bas ics of the development.

The base layer consists of the natural elements, green spaces and other landscape interventions. the next is the mobility pattern, which mainly consists of pedestrian friendly streets, pedestrian paths, a cycle route system and 3 streets with allowed car access. Also, a local electric minibus helps the students get around the campus.

The next layer shows the gross floor area of buildings, and defines density and ratio between built and opes spaces. 

Next are the major land uses, which show that the project tried to define a mixed-use campus, in order to increase walkability and to strengthen the connection between the city activities and the educational ones.

Last but not least, the terrace layer illustrates how the project gives a sustainable use of the terraces of buildings, by proposing photovoltaic panels and green roofs on top of all the buildings.