Styro City

Styro City is a study of thermal insulation in Romanian architecture. The sequence of photographs is a reference to the urban transformations that marked most Romanian cities in the last two decades. The process of thermal insulation started as the premise of rehabilitating the housing blocks in the early 2000s. After what was considered at the time a grand success, western European styrofoam suppliers saturated the local market. Thus the material has become the most affordable solution among private owners, as well as residential developers. Through this process the constructions are being uniformized and standardized, bringing all the architecture styles together under the same material. This project imagines the predefined styrofoam as an architectural object, a hint to the face of contemporary Romanian architecture.