How do we live? How will we live in the future? -Talking for architect Mihai Luben

Mihai Luben is an illustrious stranger. If you are looking for Google, you can only find those mentioned. In fact, there is no Google for him because he is not interested in the same way as most of his generation. But for the few tens or hundreds of people for whom he worked it could mean a lot. Even a lot.

It will not create a house if you don’t understand yourself or if you are obtuse or unprepared. And you will never pay too much because it is not in the category of those who convince you to build a lot because the branch is loaded to the square meter designed, on the contrary!

It is difficult for me to write about a man who, after the first job for me, became my friend. A friend older than me, a much more wise and more skilled connoisseur than man and life. You will know him by discussing topics in these articles.

GT: We live badly in Bucharest. Very stupid. People choose apartments built on the field, without structures of any kind and without the prospect of the future. The «modern» ghettos who do not have green spaces, have no parking spaces, have no schools or kindergartens. The «bedrooms» that go from work often go dozens of km every day. If I still choose to go to the fields around Bucharest because they don’t choose to build their homes? On small ground plots, but with a small courtyard in which their children are growing, they have plants, they have nature …

Arh. Mihai Luben: «They are probably not informed or stupidly recommended. As we both know today you can build a house on earth at the price of a two -room apartment!»

GT: For many people the house is only a place of «stop». That is, a «peel» according to which part of life takes place. Whether they live in the blockage or build large buildings on earth. Too big and too important. Hasn’t the connection with the earth with nature lost? «

Arh. Mihai Luben: YES. Because people buy an apartment or make a house. I do not explicitly propose a way of life. Many don’t even know what it means to live on earth and feel a plant while growing close to you. But young people learn, you will be surprised more than those of over 40 years.

GT: I read that in «intelligent» countries, for example the northern countries, the blockage overlaps the houses and releases a common land for the park, for recreation, for sport, that is, to improve human life. And … it is not higher than a maturity tree so that the blocks are huge parks. I saw in us in Bucharest, blocks between houses, on average land of width up to 20 meters or blocks of 4-6 levels face to face in front of 10 m! People cannot go over there, they have nothing to do because they don’t even have to walk their children. I only look at the windows in the houses of the houses on the ground. Local authorities accept, developers sell in such conditions. This means that there are buyers who want to live that way.

Arh. Mihai Luben: Things will change in the coming years. Unfortunately difficult. These areas will be «bubble» on the body of the locations.

GT: More and more people have problems with excessively large houses that have built 5-10 years ago. Whether they lose them in favor of the banks or have to remode them because they are unusable. Do you accept the world now smaller houses? Not the other, but you are an expert in «small spaces», that is, you have always fought with the customer not to do more than you should and knew how to give «dimensions» to decent spaces.

Arh. Mihai Luben: The crisis brought it to the ground. They are not yet aware of the fact that «less means more», that is, making a smaller construction more space for the garden, for plants, to live as God has made us. They want less because there is no money and because in the near future maintenance energy will cost more!

GT: A small house, which consumes a bit both modern but also natural. A house whose interior will concentrate mainly on natural materials. A house that lives in symbiosis with the surrounding nature that can be easily supported and the people who live it. This is what I think and I would like to talk about among others. Do you agree?

Arh. Mihai Luben: With pleasure.