Timișoara is renowned for being a green, living city where nature holds an essential role in the lives of its citizens. The city’s natural landscapes serve as the backdrop for community life, offering both beauty and functionality. Building on this harmony with nature, the Future DiverCities pavilion in GreenFeel is a unique intervention designed to create a physical, yet impermanent space—a timeless environment nestled in a natural setting that balances wildness with structure. This space acts as a platform for learning, collaboration, and the protection of what nature can offer us.
Preserving Impermanence Through Resilient Strategies
At the core of the Future DiverCities project is the challenge of impermanence. The concept aims to preserve the temporary status of the space through agile, reversible structures that allow communities to adapt and grow within a dynamic framework. Inspired by nature, the strategies involve temporary building, rebuilding, and creating adaptable spaces that support community development in flexible and resilient ways. Together with Florence and Athens, Timișoara explores deeply the theme of Impermanence through the PLAI portfolios of social impact and cultural engineering where regeneration and urban innovation are main focuses.
The Pavilion at GreenFeel: A Harmonious Intersection of Nature and Community
An integral feature of GreenFeel is it’s the Future DiverCities pavilion, which serves as a symbolic meeting point between the community and the surrounding natural environment. The pavilion is not just a physical structure; it represents the harmonious coexistence between local biodiversity and human activity, with each enhancing the other. Constructed by the PLAI team from wood and interwoven brick flooring, the pavilion defines a space that is both contained and open, forming the backdrop for a central clearing—an inner courtyard of light.
Slightly off-center within its circular perimeter, the green space encapsulated by the pavilion celebrates every version of nature in each of its moments, offering a continuous interplay of light, shadow, and growth. This carefully designed space enhances the experience of nature, inviting the community to engage with it in new, meaningful ways. The pavilion stands as a symbol of GreenFeel’s ethos: a space where nature and community meet, learn from each other, and thrive together.
Why GreenFeel?
The challenge of mapping underutilized green spaces in Timișoara was taken up by PLAI, a cultural organization committed to fostering community engagement. Over the span of a year, PLAI explored both publicly and privately owned areas, identifying those with communal attributes that could serve as the foundation for new community initiatives. One of the standout examples is GreenFeel—a privately owned land with a rich history of urban gardening and permaculture. This heritage has been nurtured and safeguarded by its current owners, Valentin and Cristina Potra-Mureșan.
Under their stewardship, GreenFeel has evolved into a collaborative space that embodies the principles of “commoning”—a model where resources are shared for the benefit of all. In the spirit of the European-funded Future DiverCities project, GreenFeel provides an inspiring environment where PLAI‘s project principles come to life. The initiative encourages exploration, experimentation, and community-building through its innovative pilot program, which aims to attract both existing and new communities to engage with the space.
The Vision of GreenFeel
GreenFeel is a private property, a green oasis that combines the principles of sustainability, community engagement, and education. It is a place where diverse communities—spanning multiple generations—can form new connections, fostering creativity and learning. The space offers gardening spaces, outdoor meeting areas, and hosts a variety of workshops and activities focused on gardening, natural material construction, ecology, and civil society development.
The common aim – GreenFeel: An Impermanent Community Space
The common intention of this collective endeavor started by GreenFeel and amplified by Future DiverCities is to prototype a living, breathing experiment in impermanence and community. By blending natural beauty, sustainability, and community-driven activities, it offers a model for how cities like Timișoara can create temporary, yet impactful, spaces that respond to the evolving needs of their citizens. As it continues to grow, GreenFeel promises to inspire new ways of thinking about urban spaces and the role they play in bringing people together and with PLAI we are happy to be able to contribute and support this in the context of the Future DiverCities project.
