Adopt a House by OPUS - Atelier de Arhitectură is a community-driven preservation and heritage adaptive reuse program completed in 2019 in Roșia Montană, Romania. Spurred by the threat of open-cast mining at the Roman historic site, the crowdsourced project restored a network of endangered historic buildings and religious structures using volunteer labor and a design-and-build summer school model.
The project advances social-ecological transformation through a low-cost, decentralized conservation strategy that counteracts industrial landscape destruction. Operating entirely on crowdfunding, volunteering, and grant competitions without local authority backing, the interventions exclusively use local materials and traditional, low-carbon building crafts. By pairing architecture students with local craftsmen to repair vulnerable structures, the program circumvents raw-material supply chains, establishes an easily replicable model for low-maintenance rural preservation, and fosters circular economic resilience within the community.
Rosia Montana
Romania
Rural ruin
Housing
2013