The POST IMPACT project represents the outdoor space for hosting events within the HazarDance and ACT - arthouse cinema&theatre festivals, and is the winning project of the solutions competition with implementation organized by the Order of Architects of Romania Iași Branch, in collaboration with Romanian Creative Week.
POST IMPACT is about deformation and formation, about cause and effect, starting from micro scale – the fertilized egg divides and grows life, drops touch the water surface and create waves, to macro scale – the comet deforms the earth, but an enormous amount of energy forms in the crater.
What happens after people are hit by art?
We metaphorically mirrored the impact that a comet creates when it hits the earth with what the performing arts produce both on a personal level and in society, from the one practicing their art to the spectator, both feeding on the exchange of energy created at the moment of the artistic act. All this energy propagates, from individual to individual, makes them ask questions, vibrate, move, connect, and thus communities are formed that produce changes. The comet hits a random place, the square heats up and deforms, society/community is formed.
The proposal represents a stylization of the comet crater and shock waves. The stage, the impact site, is the element around which the planarity of the ground changes and the two red corridors that embrace it rise organically, alternating in a movement of growth and decrease. The frame, composed of the ample, circular stage (7.5m diameter) and all radially arranged elements, aims to outline a strong, expressive presence, with impact and visibility to the general public.
We used the characteristics of the square to place and orient the stage so that it remains visible but set back from the intense pedestrian circulation. The proposed ensemble is correlated to the scale of the space in which it is inserted, but blends with it through form and transparency, allowing the movement of performing artists to overlap with the movement of residents transiting the square in their daily routine.
On the POST IMPACT stage, students from theater and choreography faculties across the country performed, people from the community experienced the space both during the day and at night, walking through it or dancing without (almost) anyone seeing them, and children ran, played, and danced, enlivening the place during the two weeks of Romanian Creative Week.
The project received a mention in the Exterior Arrangement and Ephemeral Interventions sections at the Moldova Regional Architecture Awards 2024.
