The Depot is a city scale project in central Bucharest, which will transform disused railway lands and old warehouses into a new neighborhood of homes, shopping, offices, a music venue, hotels, healthcare and education.

The Bucharest Depot was once used to dismantle and repair steam locomotives. Although the site’s purpose has now been lost to the electrification of the railways, a collection of large and beautiful warehouses remain; their height and scale a breathtaking reminder of their industrial past.

Rather than demolish the existing buildings, our client sought to retain and celebrate the site history much like Argent’s Kings Cross development in central London.  An unusual approach in Bucharest, we have worked closely with our visionary client and local architect to keep and extend the best of the existing buildings, while adding new buildings around the perimeter to create a new quarter in the city centre.

A series of buildings invites you to enter the site via a new public space adjacent to the local metro station. Flanked by two new office buildings which mark the ends of the site, the largest warehouse offers a retail experience that brings together international brands, local makers and iconic Romanian produce. On the far side of the warehouse, a series of open spaces and gardens form the setting for a new school, health centre, hotels and residential buildings. Traffic is pushed towards a new perimeter road and frees up all the public spaces for pedestrian access, cyclists and last mile electric transit. The future of Bucharest is yet to be written, but it is projects like this that will ensure it will create its own unique take on 21st Century urbanism, viewed through a creatively critical lens.