It’s with a touch of sadness that I write this post, drawing to a close the Tarlungeni Live Project 2007. It has been a tumultous few days since our ‘Final Countdown’ post. Those in Sheffield will probably be aware of this, but I shall fill in the gaps for the rest of you…
Sitting in the Arts Tower on Thursday night, we were suddenly plunged into darkness (4.30pm) and here began probably the most interesting 24 hours we’ve ever had leading up to a presentation. A fire in the local electricity substation had taken out supply to the university campus. With all our work on the university server we relocated to not one but two different venues, each of which suffered the same fate! It was ironic that the same problem which hampered our best construction efforts in Romania had returned to haunt us in Sheffield! And so, with the university closed and our presentation cancelled, we sat down for dinner (6.00pm) and reflected on the project and our time spent together in Romania.
The story doesn’t end there, and Friday morning then carried its own rude awakening, as the university found an alternative venue (9.30 am) in which to hold the Whole School Event and Live Project presentations . Faced with the prospect of presenting empty-handed, we quickly put together another presentation and, dare I say it, probably gave a much better presentation (10.30 am) than we may have otherwise given. The powercut brought home to us once more the realities of this project, and the real, lived implications. This project was about much more than architecture, much more than us - it was about the twelve people we were there to help.
Just a quick note to say thank you to everybody who attended and supported our Romanian Party at DQ last night. We would like to extend special thanks to SUAS who provided funds for the room and DJ, the live project Workshop group and DQ for putting up with us all!
We raised about £400, so coupled with the money raised earlier and equipment donations we have raised enough for a quarter of a new house, so well done guys!
If anyone wants more info about the project please email us at
tarlungeni2007@hotmail.co.uk
If the prize winners could email me back as soon as possible so we can agree to meet, and let me know if anyone would rather have chocolate than alcohol!
A quick post as we’re all very busy – we have three days to gather together all our sketches and ideas and get them into our ‘Ideas Book’ for Daniel; put together our presentation and plan the Whole School Event workshop. The ‘Ideas Book’ will contain all of our thoughts on how to improve the Better Homes; inspiration for Daniel on all matters of design and construction and step by step instruction guides for future volunteers.
All are agreed that our workshop should continue what we started, so it will focus on fundraising, spreading the word about ‘Better Homes’ and possibly putting together another team for Daniel… watch this space…
With Team 1 leaving, we met at lunch for a leisurely meal and final discussion. A mad dash across town in the rain followed, with all the taxis in Bucharest refusing to go to the airport, and no buses to be seen. With half an hour before check-in closed, we managed to enlist the help of Christian, a German business man from our hostel who had happened to mention earlier that he had a car. Some persuading from Tony later, we arrived at check-in with 4 minutes to spare, and eventually headed home.
So with the whole team in Bucharest we wandered through the city, taking in some Soviet architecture, perusing antique shops and ending up (via the ‘Dracula Club’) at the appropriately named ‘House of Beer’. Residing at a table with our own beer tap we settled in to celebrate Emina’s birthday. Shocking the waiter with their ability to eat, Tom and Tony munched their way through basically a whole pig, whilst Lorenzo and Tao attempted the dubiously named ‘Pig Killing Feast’!
A cheesy club called ‘Revenge’ followed, with music including Hanson, requested by a group member who shalt not be named (Lorenzo)……goodbye to Romania in style!
With 3 of the team gone, we found further depletion in number with Lorenzo and Simon succumbing to a rather nasty stomach bug (blamed partly on the amount of pig eaten at the weekend!). Tom, Tao, Emina and Sarah carried on, with the stairs in house 1, and the noticeboard components finished by the end of a long day! Pietro the carpenter looked slightly confused by our ‘contemporary’ scala, but after a little wander up and down, declared it as ‘foarte frumos’, very beautiful – phew!
Some sad goodbyes followed, from the families, Daniel and Pietro, but hopefully the work we produce in Sheffield will be able to continue the work we started.
After a relaxing weekend it was back to the hard graft.
Whilst Tony, Tao and Tom began assembling the staircase for Casa 1 (an ingenious space-saver), and Lorenzo and Emina fitted the front door for Casa 3, the rest of the team got on with exhibitions and notice board construction.
Looking at the ideas that Daniel had put to us, we started construction a noticeboard structure, for the display of events/photos/notices. Sarah, John and Anna also constructed a football goal post on an area of land ear-marked by Daniel for a playground.
As the day wore on, it became aparent that the photo exhibtion we had proposed to hold would not be able to be held on the noticeboard and we would have to rethink. With Anna, John and Tony leaving for Bucharest that evening, plan B was put into action. With the help of string strung up around the goal posts, and clothes pegs securing photographs we created quite a storm in Tarlungeni, with streams of people coming to look, and hyperactive children in their droves playing football!
As a bit of a thank you Sorin offered us a ride around the village in his horse and cart, we felt slightly sorry for the two horses with 9 hyperactive live project people and 9 children to carry!
