Colentina Lakes

The collection of bodies of water generated along the Colentina Lakes has serves as a thriving platform for diverse communities across centuries. However, due to uncontrolled urban development, pollution and fragmentation, the “lake necklace” has nowadays become disconnected, highly anthropogenized and neglected. Therefore, this project aims to restore the ecological habitats native to the lake shores. It also aims to reconnect the different communities that live in their vicinity. Finally, it transforms the lakefronts into a positive space where city dwellers from the entire Bucharest and beyond can carry out leisure activities in direct connection to their surrounding natural ecosystem.

The project does so by deeply understanding and emphasizing the site’s connections with the surrounding networks of green spaces, mobility and public amenities. It restores and reinforces these links, turning the “lake necklace” into a chain of vital connection pieces in the neurological grid of the city.

The most relevant points of connectivity with the surrounding networks are highlighted as milestones, marking a sequence of nodes of activity along the lakefronts. When these milestones are additionally placed in direct connection with the main mobility arteries of the city, they become the main gateways into the project.

Among these gateways and milestones, a continuous pedestrian and bike promenade is laid out, connecting the different communities and neighborhoods along the way. The promenade leads to five newly enhanced parks, that offer green, open, public spaces to areas of the city that were previously in need to one.

The entire project is materialized through natural, non-polluting materials, and non-invasive and reversible construction methods, ensuring the lasting recovery of the displaced natural habitats of the Colentina Lakes.