1. PORTFOLIO
Alexandru Matei
PORTFOLIO
Alexandru Matei

2. 2
Table of content
5 Who I am?
6 Sibiel regeneration project
12 Rehabilitation and Design of Johannes Honterus Courtyard
18 Cycle your way - Rediscover Sestao
24 Regeneration of Soveja Tourist Resort
30 Creative Centre for Students ‘Factory of Ideas’
32 Urban Regeneration City Center Brasov
40 Floodplain redevelopment Room for the Danube river
44 Photography & Drowing
46 Contacts:

3. I am a passionate urban and spatial planner
interested in understanding the complex
processes and phenomena which take place
in human settlements and to (co-)create smart
and just solutions for them. This passion gave
rise to a varied urban experience combining
continuous learning and practical work in the
European context.
My main professional interest lies in integrated
urban regeneration. Additional interests such
as: alternative area transformation, temporary
(re)use, placemaking, community development,
integrated mobility, urban resilience and
cultural tourism compliment my main interest.
These interests had been tackled in various
urban research, strategies, projects, design
competitions and professional events.
In my work, I’ve been involved in European
projects and funding proposals and later
developed my one initiatives as a freelancer.
The“Refresh Soveja 2012 rural regeneration
initiative”that I initiated, developed and
implemented was considered by participants a
remarkable event.
The academic experience in United Kingdom
and The Netherlands coupled with close
cooperation with Italian, Spanish and Dutch
experts offered me a complex understanding of
the EU professional and cultural realities.
Last but not least, I am pensioned about
photography which is for me great observation
and exploration instrument.
In order to achieve high quality results and
positive urban changes in everything I do, I
build my work on the pillars of trust, leadership,
good communication, wise management,
careful observation, thorough analysis,
continuous (re)thinking, creative proposals and
openness for new experiences.
Let’s get in touch! Let’s meet! Let’s act! Let’s
improve!
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Who I am?

4. 6
Sibiel regeneration project
Romania National Competition
January 2013
Team project

5. 8

6. 10

7. 12
Rehabilitation and Design of
Johannes Honterus Courtyard
Brasov, Romania
September - November 2011
National Competition
Team project

8. 14

9. 16

10. 18
Cycle your way - Rediscover
Sestao
Sestao (ES)
May - June 2011
International Competition - Europan 11
Team project
Cycling Sestao’s way into the future
We propose an innovative urban design
scheme as well as an exploration of ways in
which Sestao can see itself evolve in the future,
capitalizing and reinterpreting the assets of
the place and the skills of the community.
At the center of this vision is a venture to
capitalize on the region’s strong cycling
culture, thus we see this project as cycling
Sestao’s way into the future: cycling it out
spatially, through promoting an alternative
mobility scheme, seen as a backbone for a
new, vibrant neighborhood, cycling it out
economically, through proposing a possible
framework for economic development which
revamps the region’s steel tradition into an
industry for the future, cycling it out socially,
by promoting a community-based approach
for a vibrant new neighborhood of Sestao.
These three dimensions- spatial-environmental,
social, economic are the three basic pillars of
sustainability and of the resilient city.
(Re)cycling tradition
The backbone of our design project is the
creation of a network of cycle lanes that will be
distributed among the topography to provide
an exciting cycling environment for residents
of the neighborhood, but also for other people
in Sestao, linking the central area to the youth
center on the Nervion valley. This will dwell on
the Basque tradition of biking, but also provide
an incentive to adopt bicycle making as a new
interpretation of the area’s metalwork history.
This might be also connected with a strategy of
the local government to promote workshops
and small businesses which make bicycles, in
order to appropriate the industrial past and
provide a new identity for the future.
Place-making through community
colonization
Another focus of our plan is to bring forward
a community-based place-making through
colonization and appropriation of spaces by
their residents. The idea is to provide the
community with the space and the tools to
make their own places. It is by integrating
both the rich traditions and the thriving youth
cultures of the region that we envision the
shaping of these places. We want the spaces
to become places through the energy and
creativity of residents, providing them with a
minimalistic design, but with tools to colonize
these spaces. Thinking of the giza-abere probak
(dragging games) or the harri zulaketa (hole
drilling) but also of the expressivity of youth
cultures, we see ways in which the locals can
appropriate a number of spaces, using cubes,
blocks, other modular elements, skating rinks
or street art. We aim that a link will be forged
between residents and place, inviting them
to appropriate these spaces and thus create a
place of meaning, inviting them to stay in and
just cycle out for fun.

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12. 22

13. 24
Regeneration of Soveja Tourist
Resort Soveja (RO)
December 2010 - February 2011
National Competition - Team project

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16. 30
Creative Centre for Students
‘Factory of Ideas’
February 2010
National Competition
Individual project

17. 32
Urban Regeneration City Center
Brasov
Brasov (RO)
December 2009 - February 2010
Individual project

18. 34

19. 36

20. 38

21. 40
Floodplain redevelopment Room
for the Danube river
Danube River (RO)
March 2011
Team Project - Assignment

22. 42

23. Photography & Drowing
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Study of light, shadows, composition.
2004-2011
Individual Project

24. Thank you for
your interest!
A l e x a n d r u M a t e i
Urban (re)thinker +31 630845308
https://nl.linkedin.com/in/mateialexandru10
C o n t a c t s :
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