A Sustainable Approach Towards Energy Savings in the Cities of Romania, Bucharest: A Case Study

Abstract

Romania is a country geographically situated in the southeastern part of Europe. Politically, it was a kingdom until 1947 when it became first a popular republic and eventually a socialist republic, in the cone of influence of the USSR, for the next 45 years. 1989 brought a revolution that changed the political regime as well as the social and economic geography of the country. In the years of the socialist regime, the industry (taken over from the previous owners, by the state) was developed on the existing basis, and new industrial fields were approached, in the aim of leading the country to an economic independence. In this effervescent context, the need to provide industrial workers led to two changes: a social change, of people living in the country (an important change for women who gave up on being only housewives) that migrated from village to the town, where new jobs were available, and an economic change of the built landscape, as the need to provide dwellings for the workers had to be fulfilled. The boundaries of the towns were extended with new quarters, to provide dwellings for this population in migration. New towns appeared, in the neighbourhood of the industrial areas. 1989 ended with a revolution that was followed by the collapse of the whole economic edifice, the industrial sites being abandoned and the population of workers needing to be professionally reoriented. After decades of living in collective residential buildings, some newly enriched wanted to move to the dream house, “a house on the ground”, so the outskirts of the cities were populated with houses, before the infrastructure was even designed. In Bucharest, it happened in the north of the city, at the cost of cutting the surrounding forest. The development of the tertiary economic sector led to the rise of office buildings, malls, and hypermarkets, in the cities but also in the areas surrounding the cities. In Bucharest, more trees were cut to make way to commercial platforms. Slowly, in 30 years of abandonment, the industrial areas look like ghosts, surrounded by weeds and negligence. In this brindle landscape the EPBD of the EU came with requirements for saving energy in the building sector. The easy approach was adopted, by wrapping buildings in thermal blankets. The more refined approach is still expected to come. What we propose is a possibility of intervention that doesn’t strip the buildings, the quartiers, and the cities of their individuality while providing energy efficiency.