Brezoi is a small town in the Romanian Loviste region, shaped by two very different systems for mananging the surrounding hills: first, the traditional system of ‘Obstes’, with village commoners who have rights to the land and a strong history of self-subsistence farming and secondly, the now moribund but once large-scale communist timber factory, with its adjacent housing blocks and urban infrastructure.

FCDL is a community organisation to preserve and reactivate local traditions and the current project is the reconstruction of ‘Odai’, small-scale mountain farms, built on common land and used to complement the food production of village families. The new Odaia is using traditional building methods but will be adapted for contemporary social and economic circumstances. It will be used by groups rather than a family and will support activities to find new economic linksbetween the mountains and the villages.

Myvillages has been involved in conceptualizing the new Odaia, and is now working on objects and a short film to communicate the project.