The Potential for Traditional Romanian Typologies to Inform a New Architecture for Iasi Part 2 Project 2020 Roxana Florina Cislariu University of Nottingham | UK The thesis starts from the idea that rural traditional architecture might have shaped ideas around socialist-modernist housing design in communist Romania (1948- 1989), as discourses from that time seem to suggest. However, the study revealed that apparent similarities between the two typologies were only forced by the political elites to justify the drastic changes in society and the architecture whose rigor and scale was meant to depict them.For this reason, the urban and suburban areas of Romanian cities did not experience an organic evolution and the socialist realist projects (be they residential or not) caused an indisputable disruption that still persists today. How could continuity be restored? Could traditional architecture have the potential to inform a new architecture that will re-establish cultural continuity in Romanian cities today?The project attempts to test this by bringing back into focus ideas manifested in Romanian vernacular architecture and reinterpreting them in a way that will match contemporary standards for living. At the same time, the project pays a subtle tribute to the work of many other international architects who looked at local vernacular architecture as a source of inspiration. Roxana Florina Cislariu Tutor(s)