Firm： CUMULUS

Type： Commercial › Exhibition Center Office Educational › Other

STATUS： Built

YEAR： 2017

SIZE： 10,000 sqft - 25,000 sqft

BUDGET： $100K - 500K

Architecture: CUMULUS, Elena Dragu, Cosmin Anghelache, Simina Ignat

Furniture and wood works: Except Custom Solutions

Concrete floor finishes: Concrete art

Constructor: Constar Group

Photographer: Andrei Margulescu

Client: Foundation “Dreptul la Educație”, partnership with OTP Bank Romania

Area: 1.000 sqm

Location: Traian Street no 1, 3rd district, Bucharest

Status: built

TIC-TAC-TOE

The Tic-Tac-Toe game inspired us because it's simple, at hand and fun. It is good against "yawning" during a boring class, good for face to face socializing but it’s also used on the other side of the chair to exemplify some mathematical concepts.

OK Center is a center for informal and friendly courses. As amenity and space, OK Center is not just a location for classes: it is an anti-boredom place, open to dialogue and directly involved in the learning process. Space speaks of itself, about the materials it is made of and its connection to the world: installations and raw building materials (concrete, plaster, wood) are intentionally visible. The user can touch, perhaps understand where the yellow pipe comes from and where it goes, learn the source of the wood for furniture and the cost of the bench he is sitting on.

In terms of spatiality, we aimed for a fluid, flowing and surprising place. In this sense we enhanced a feature that initially seemed to be a constraint, namely the long and maze-like corridors, developing them in an exhibition route marked by elements of interest: the "pockets" of play.

Simple materials such as concrete and wood are strategically duplicated by large splashes of color in order to gain a strong visual impact. We were inspired by the programs’ dynamics, the limitations of the space as well as the challenge to materialize abstract concepts.

Key words that would describe the space best are: dynamism, flexibility, informality and nonetheless, its educational purpose.