Beros Abdul
Location: Bucharest, Romania
Client: Prime Kapital
Architecture and master planning:
ADNBA, www.adnba.ro
Landscape: Beros Abdul
Cristiano del Toro, Claudia Trufas
2018-2024
Photography: Vlad Patru
The project designed by ADNBA consists of 600 residential units, grouped as town houses, apartments, and individual units. The building are arranged along a central park from which a system of green pedestrian alleys connect each one of the buildings.
The main intension of the landscape proposal is to use the green areas as green infrastructure working together with the adjacent canals. A system of bio swales collects the rainwater from the perimetral streets and alleys, which is then guided to the central park, where water filtration basins help in filtering and absorbing the excess of water to avoid flooding, and then discharged as clean water into the lake. The selection of areas and species plays an important role in lowering the future maintenance costs as well as in producing a complex ecosystem, which can enrich the biodiversity of the site as well as to enhance the public spaces.
Storm-water management strategies
The project consist in a green water management system, with a central park and a linear sequential structure organized in a set of functional/thematic islands, each one with a specific leisure character, extending the existing natural bio-system along the lakes, into the new urban development.
From an ecological perspective the wide use of native species, which are more adapted to local climatic conditions, responds to the idea of establishing a resilient plant community, providing connection with the existing wet woodland, minimizing maintenance needs in the long term. Some of the species are attractive to birds and pollinators (Sorbus aucuparia, Crataegus sp., Prunus sp., Tilia sp.) and many others can be considered air-cleaning species, removing atmospheric particulates out of the air by trapping them on their leaves (Carpinus, Tilia, Corylus, Quercus, Acer).
– A formal welcoming plaza, mostly mineral, connecting the more urban blocks of apartments, the commercial ground floors on the southern edge and the kindergarten.
– A quiet meadow patched with clusters of trees, open for informal picnics
– A denser forest type were one can roam and wander, refreshing in summer days
– A sports island and a children’s playground well protected by taller vegetation isolating the noisier activities. Surrounded by two 45 meters long benches stretching over two entire islands, that can gather all the neighbours around.
– Smaller clearings, pavilions and one more water feature where small ones can deep their feet
– The islands are traversed by a continuous path and a meandering linear bioswale invaded by water loving vegetation, ending in a large filtration pond, planted with colourful Iris pseudocorus, Iris sibirica, Nelumbo lucifera and dense Juncus effusus. This final island surrounded by smaller scale individual houses, opening the park towards the lake front and leading to the Club, which boosts a lush garden and naturally filtered swimming pool.
There is a dialogue between the existing green urban structure along shores of the lakes and the newly introduced expressions of nature.
The species are selected to define different moments in the experience of the spaces, but also to create a movement and an evolution of the natural element over time, in colours, volumes and textures, through seasons and years.
Starting from the bulbs that are the first to spring up at the end of winter, just for a few weeks, followed by the grasses that put up the bright greens in late spring, flowers through the whole summer, and the deciduous tree species that bring rich colours in autumn, on the background of the evergreen ground covers. Fruits provide a different type of interaction for people and birds, delimiting spaces for sports and leisure activities for all residents.