N.J.-Based Architect to Design 200-Acre Community in Romania

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorBucharest, ROMANIA–Hasbrouck Heights, N.J.-based DMR Architects has been chosen to develop a 200-acre mixed-use project on the outskirts of Romania’s capital city, Bucharest.The unnamed project includes 1,400 residential units (of which 40 percent are condos and apartments while the rest are single-family homes), a school and retail space, as well as parking, municipal buildings and outdoor space. This is DMR’s first project in Romania, though it has completed various design work for companies in China, Nigeria and throughout the Middle East.The developer, Talisker, had seen some of DMR’s projects and contacted the firm to help design this community.“This type of project is very exciting, because it is design work that you don’t have the chance to do very often in the U.S.,” Lloyd Rosenberg, DMR founder and president, tells MHN. The architecture around the planned site is traditional, antique and contemporary and the project will incorporate all those elements. “Traveling to another country, meeting new people and taking new ideas to a developing city, has been exciting. Eastern Europe is booming right now. Their economic engine is in full throttle.”The project, which is expected to take five years to complete, is designed to be a community. Construction will begin by the end of the year.Rosenberg says the overcrowded city is encouraging more people to consider a suburban existence, with a traditional front lawn and other typically suburban amenities. “Because much of the country outside of the city is sparsely populated farmland, the need for infrastructure and modern housing is great,” he says. “The demand for a project like this is certainly there, and we’re happy to be involved in what is essentially the creation of a new community.The project abuts a national forest and there are small villages dotted around the perimeter of the development. “Our challenge is to create an area that gives people what they want – a new, suburban development – while retaining the character and identity of the existing land,” says Rosenberg.