This is a list with answers to the most frequent questions we receive. If you don’t find your answer here please write to us: office@de-a-arhitectura.ro.
Formally, De-a Arhitectura Association was founded in January 2013. But it had function as early as 2011 as the De-a Arhitectura work group, composed of six founding memebers that got together to write the „De-a arhitectura în oraşul meu” course. Here are some more details in Romanian.
The official name is De-a Arhitectura Association, but we often use De-a Arhitectura. In our internal communication we usually abbreviate the name DAA.
After five years of activity, in 2017 we reviewed our mission as follows: We build through education. Our building grows when:
De-a Arhitectura association was founded by 6 architects, mothers: The associations has many associated members and collaborators. You can find a list here.
De-a Arhitectura proposes an enrichment of the architectural and urban culture of the present Romanian society by educating the children who are also “opinion makers” of their parents. Our goal is to help children understand the architecture and the built environment and to connect what they learn at school with the complex processes that transform the places they live in. As adults, they will be both city users and architects’ clients, as well as citizens and decision-makers who will have to actively participate in shaping the place they will live in, create communities with a healthy and harmonious life, using both cultural heritage and innovation. Through its ongoing work, De-a Arhitectura Association aims to:
De-a arhitectura courses are an opening to a field that does not appear in the curriculum, but which is part of our lives and influences it. Thus, children will know the specific language of architecture, familiarizing themselves with its characteristic features, and enrich their visual culture. Our programs are designed and built to help children develop a range of skills and attitudes that are perhaps less used in traditional education. They have the opportunity to discover and practice a way of thinking and a “design thinking” approach, specific to architects and designers, thus being involved in an active learning process,through projects and hands-on activities, who use their practical sense and creativity.
NO. De-a arhitectura team has set out on the way to help as many children as possible become conscious consumers of architecture and, therefore, as youngsters and adults, promoters of a quality built environment. We want to give children a few basic principles to help them decipher, analyze, understand, appreciate the surrounding built environment with a minimum of elements that are now lacking in the general knowledge. Indirectly, students find that there are professions such as architect, urban planner, designer and landscape planner, that can inspire them later. We hope that when they will be adults they will communicate with these specialists when needed. Just as math classes do not turn students into mathematicians or history classes into historians, De-a arhitectura programs do not intend to turn them into “small architects”!
In the De-a arhitectura assistance programme, only the classes in state schools can be registered. Private schools wishing the support of the association can contact De-a Arhitectura using the e-mail address: inscrieri@de-a-arhitectura.ro.
De-a Arhitectura Courses in state schools are free of charge within the limits of the funding the association enters in that school year. From 2016, the Cultural Architecture program is a priority project of the Architects’ Order in Romania (OAR), being financed by the „Timbrul arhitecturii” tax.
The De-a arhitectura courses about architecture and the city are a complex experience for schoolchildren, especially due to the presence of a specialist in class. Beyond the richness of knowledge, the volunteer brings to the youngsters the passion for this profession and a novel way to tackle them in play on serious themes. The schoolchildren find, invariably, in the architect who comes to each De-a arhitectura class, a model that during a school year they have the time to observe, question, call for help when they get stuck in the hardships of teamwork. And the architect feels the weight of this trusty investment and, almost without exception, rises to the expectations of his “children.”
„In order to have safer, more beautiful cities and a higher quality of life, education is increasingly seen as the most efficient investment with real and consistent results sustained in the long run. It is part of our mission to teach children what their role is in developing tomorrow’s cities as users and future beneficiaries or investors of buildings and cities. The city and its safety is the result of the activities and involvement of all its inhabitants and team work is essential..” „Without volunteers there would be no fullfilled goals, there would not be thousands of inspired children, there would be no appreciation of the parents of students and professional organizations in the field, there would not be De-a Arhitectura. The activity of the Association exists thanks to the hundreds of volunteers who joined us for a workshop, for a school year or more, in bad or good weather, with dedication and maximum seriousness.” „The involvement of volunteer architects in such a large number brings benefits to the profession as a whole, as advocated by the guild associations, the Architects Order of Romania (OAR) (2012-) and the Union of Architects in Romania (UAR) (2013-2017) supporting this process of transformation. Visibility. Awareness of the role of the architect by a broad audience (do not forget that we are talking about children and their families). We, as professionals, present ourselves to the most curious and open members of the community. We rediscover and rethink as we re-invent the basic concepts of architecture and the city in order to portray them to the children. We practice communicating with a careful, interested and clever «beneficiary».” „Without the knowledge, resources and energy our partners brought along with us, we could not have done much. That’s why we are glad everytime someone discovers us and wants to join us in this journey towards the education of little ones and big ones, towards the involvement of all inhabitants in the urban life. Support, at any given time, helps us continue and develop present and future projects. Along with our partners and sponsors, we provide access to De-a Arhitectura courses for many children in schools throughout the country, we provide them with the necessary teaching material (student’s notebook, DIY materials, materials for city expeditions, etc.). Partnerships help us continue organizing inspirational meetings of children with architects, continue and expand the training of architects and teachers for educational projects of the De-a Arhitectura programme.”